(ARMENIANS TARGET MISSIONARIES) Tall Armenian Tale: The Other Side of the Falsified Genocide

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"I have good reason to know that these wretches (the Armenian revolutionists) actually schemed to murder American missionaries, hoping America would declare war on the supposition that the Turks were the criminals."

Sir Mark Sykes, Dar-ul-Islam, 1904.

(While the intended victim was not a missionary, but a Western consul, click here for another example of this kind of underhanded scheme, appearing on this page. ADDENDUM, 9-07: And here is an example of Dashnak terrorists threatening foreign embassies.)

"In an Asian city, during the 1896 massacres, the French Consul, who had sheltered as many Armenians as possible at the Consulate under the French standard, came up to his terrace to see what was going on in the neighborhood, when two bullets, came from behind him, whistling in his ears; turning, he realized in a flash, an Armenian who had been aiming at him from a window of a neighboring house. Apprehended and questioned, the sly aggressor answered: "I did that so that the Turks would be accused, and with the hope that after the murder of the Consul, the French would rise against them."

Pierre Loti, Les Massacres d'Arménie (The Massacres of Armenia)
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Remarkable that Armenians would even consider targeting their greatest friends, the missionaries, but "gratitude" is not at the top of some Armenians' lists. One notorious example was when Vahan Cardashian, poster boy Armenian propagandist, went after the Reverend James Barton's hide.

But treachery takes another dimension when Armenian militants planned the murder of their great American friends.

The following is from The New York Times, August 16, 1895; some of the details below have been referred to in another Times article.

ARMENIANS AGAINST CHRISTIANS

Revolutionists Threatened Americans Long Before Sassoun Massacre.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 — The State Department has received a report from minister Terrell at Constantinople, dated July 25, relating to the Armenian revolutionists at Marsovan, which is of great interest in connection with the press telegram published yesterday about a riot at that place, in which some American missionaries are said to have been injured.

It appears from Minister Terrell's statement that on July 1, an Armenian named Garabed was assassinated at Marsovan, close to the church door, as he was going to attend early service. He was the chief man of the Protestant community and Chairman of the Council of Thirty, who are responsible for the peace of the city. It was alleged that he had given the Government information in regard to the revolutionists.

Consul Jewett, in reporting this case July 13, to Consul General Short, at Constantinople, said that numerous Armenians were arrested, because there was little doubt that Karabed was murdered by them. Among those arrested was a naturalized American citizen, who had been a student at the American College at Marsovan, but who, as Mr. Jewett was informed, had been dropped from the rolls some months before.

Minister Terrell was promptly informed concerning the assassination and the imprisonments which followed it, and took immediate steps to insure fair treatment of the naturalized citizen, and called upon Mr. Jewett for any trustworthy information he might have regarding the danger to the missionary teachers at Marsovan from Armenian revolutionists by reason of threats to assassinate them, and also the precautionary measures for their protection afforded or tendered by the local Turkish authorities.

He informed Mr. Jewett that though Turkey had a right to expel undesirable classes of people from her territory, she had no right to treat the acquired American citizenship of any of them as an offense, and to imprison them for that cause, nor to imprison them on mere suspicion. He instructed them in such cases promptly to demand their release, and that, if any of them were arrested, while engaged in armed resistance to the Government, to demand a fair trial.

Mr. Tyrrell’s [sic] report on the troubles at Marsovan was based upon a verbal statement of Mr. Dwight, a leading American missionary at Constantinople, and is as follows:

"More than a year ago sixteen persons at Marsovan received written notice that they would be killed unless they would co-operate with the Armenian revolutionists. President Tracey and Prof. Riggs, of Marsovan College were two of these. They had incurred the ill will of the revolutionists by refusing to receive in the college the sons of certain men suspected of being revolutionists.

"Garabed, who was assassinated, was another of the sixteen who received notice, and Mr. Dwight has been informed that still another had been assassinated. A Turkish guard was furnished at the request of Mr. Terrell, to protect the American families from the assassins. Mr. Dwight considers this guard sufficient to protect the missionaries at the college, and Mr. Terrell has not applied for an additional force.

"The local Governor informed the Armenians, after the killing, that he intended to arrest all suspected persons and imprison the[m] until they revealed the names of the gui[t]y one; that their object was to provoke Turkish vengeance in order to secure the sympathy and intervention of Christian Europe, but that they would not succeed, as he had caused to be preached in the mosques for months that such was their object and that any Turk who killed a Christian would be the worst enemy of Islam."

Mr. Terrell added that the revolutionists at Marsovan had organized and marked the American professors long before the Sassoun atrocities.

(Thanks to Pinar)

Sometimes the Missionaries cooperated with the killings

The missionary Dr. Nichols, in charge of the Near East Relief work for the territory embraced within Syria and Cilicia after the end of World War I, was one such deluded individual. J. H. S. Dessez, the American Commanding Officer of the U. S. S. Smith Thompson, reported to Admiral Mark Bristol on May 3, 1920 that American missionaries were playing an important role in the slaughter perpetuated by Armenians; missionaries stirred up the local Christians against their Muslim neighbors through the spreading of anti-Muslim hatred and by providing hiding places for the arms and ammunition which was being used against the settled Turkish population:

"Dr. Nichols I consider a very dangerous man who can do a great deal of harm if given a free hand. He is a religious fanatic apparently, and anxious to have something sensational take place between Turks and Americans, in order to influence public opinion in the United States. He impressed me as rather glorying in the fight between the Armenians and Turks at Aintab....[I]t developed that the first shots fired at the American Orphanage were by armed Armenians from the orphanage with the full knowledge and encouragement of some Americans.... Turkish police and army searches found anti-Muslim propaganda along with arms and ammunition hidden in American missionary centers in various parts of Anatolia."

Stanford Shaw, "The Armenians in the Late Ottoman Period"