The Kaza of Tercan/Mamahatun
Lying astride the southern Erzerum-Erzincan road, the 41 Armenian villages of the kaza of Tercan/Mamahatun had a total Armenian population of 11,690 on the eve of the war. The deportations began in these villages on 30 and 31 May. They were directed by the parliamentary deputy from Kemah, Halet Bey, the son of the former vali of Erzerum, Sağar Zâde, who had organized squadrons of çetes made up of Muslims from the Kemah and Erzincan areas as soon as the general mobilization was decreed.
These bands, under the command of the chief of the Balaban tribe, Gülo Ağa, were placed under the joint supervision of the mutesarif of Erzincan, Memduh Bey, and the kaymakam of Tercan, Aslan Hafız. According to survivors’ reports, the men were massacred either where they were found or some 15 miles to the south in Goter/Gotır Köprü, where the squadron commanded by Gülo Ağa was waiting for them. Here they were stripped of their belongings, their throats were cut, and they were thrown into the Euphrates. Survivors from the villages of Pulk (pop. 778), Pakarij (pop. 1,060), Sargha/Sarikaya (pop. 695), and Piriz (pop. 855) later affirmed that some of those who survived these massacres were driven as far as Erzincan and then on to the Kemah pass, where they were killed.
The Kaza of Kıği/Kghi
In the 50 Armenian villages of the kaza of Kıği, with a total Armenian population of 19,859, the mobilization and requisitions took place under conditions of relative calm, thanks especially to the goodwill of the kaymakam. In May, however, he was replaced by the commander of a squadron of çetes of the Special Organization, Laze Midhat Mehmed Bey, who created a deportation committee. The committee was made up of Çinazzâde Mustafa, the president of the local Ittihad club; Mehmedzâde Hilmi, a native of Kars; Husni İsmail Çavuszâde Şakir, an assistant of the kaymakam’s; Haci Ahmedzâde Müdad, the mufti; and Davudzâde Hafız.
The leaders of the squadrons of çetes involved in the massacre of the deportees from Kıği were Zeynelzâde Hasan; Erzrumli Ömer; Şeyhzâde Necibet and his sons Hafız, Tevfik, Rıza, Beyti, and Mahmud; Dede and Ali Hamdi Abidoğlu, from Osnag; İsmail Hüseyin; Ahmedoğlu Mehmed, from Hoghas; Osman Bey, the müdir (administrator) of the nahie of Çılheder; Fazıl Bey, from Oror; Cemal Bey, from Tarman; Karaman Effendi; and Ulaşzâde Mustafa and İzzet Ağa, from Karmrug. Ziya Beg, a native of Başköy, and Adıl Güzelzâde Şerif, who participated in the massacre of the deportees from Erzerum, were also involved here.
On 8 June 1915, the new kaymakam, Laze Midhat Mehmed Bey, announced the order to deport Armenians from the war zone to Harput to the primate, Kegham Tivekelian, and the other 25 notables whom he had convoked. The Armenians’ safety, he said, would be assured. The muezzin helped spread the order, adding that the Armenian population was to be deported three days later.
An order was also issued to stock food supplies in the church. In the same period, Kıği, the administrative seat of the kaza, was required to billet a battalion from Dyarbekir at Armenian expense. Tension had been running high in the villages of the kaza for a few days before the deportation order was made public: the authorities had sent çetes there to collect the inhabitants’ arms, threatening to have the men shot if they did not surrender their weapons.
The Armenians, however, turned in only their hunting rifles, hiding their other weapons in the fields. The young people who were left in the village made plans to defend themselves, but the prelate of Kıği requested that they do nothing of the sort. The kaymakam sent a lawyer by the name of Toros Sadghigian to the area to investigate the situation, but Sadghigian was murdered near the village of Sergevil by Zeynelzâde Hasan.
According to Vahan Postoyan, a native of the village of Khups, Hıde Ibiz, a Kurdish chieftain from Dersim, attacked Akrag (pop. 350) with his followers on 3 June 1915, plundering the village and killing several men. On 5 June, similar atrocities were committed – again on the pretext of a search for arms – in the mixed villages of Hubeg (pop. 200), Kariköy/ Khasgerd (pop. 122) and Kholkhol/Kulkum (pop. 53). Sergevil (pop. 658) and its medieval monastery, Surp Prgich, were attacked on 6 June; three-quarters of the village’s inhabitants were slain.
On 7 June, Herdig/Herdif (pop. 700) met the same fate. However, when the bands of çetes attacked the village of Khups/Çanakci (pop. 1,216) at six o’clock on 7 June 1915, they were met with gunfire from the peasants, organized into six self-defense groups led by Suren Postoyan, Srabion Postoyan, Mesrob Matosian, Hovhannes Khoteian, Manug Elesigian, Baghdasar Der Garabedian, Yerazayig Kholkholtsi, and Zakar Postoyan. After two days of uninterrupted fi ghting, which cost 40 Kurdish çetes and one Armenian (Giragos Baghdigian) their lives, the villagers decided to break through the enemy lines. They succeeded, but were all killed somewhat further off in a mill, in which they fought to the last bullet.
In the first days of June 1915, arrests took place in the other villages of the kaza. Among those arrested in Dzirmak were Melkon Aloyan, Garabed Tchavushian, Hovhannes Kalayjian, and Krikor Maghoyian and, in Tarman, Sarkis Endroyian, Sarkis Sarkisian, Arsen Varzhabedian, Mampre Bardizbanian, and others. These men were transferred to the town of Kıği in chains and killed with axes. Finally, the irregulars proceeded to encircle the town and the remaining villages in the kaza. According to Vahan Postoyan, the initial operations conducted in the villages of the district of Kıği by the çetes of the Special Organization resulted in the deaths of 1,500 people.
On 10 June 1915, the authorities arrested the heads of the town’s affluent households. They were put in the first caravan of 1,200 people that, accompanied by Bishop Tivekelian, set out from Kıği toward the southwest on 11 June. On 13 May, this group arrived near Tepe, in Deli Mizi, on the road to Palu. The bishop and a number of notables, including Smpat Musheghian, Antranig Yesayan, Aghaser, the director of the town’s Armenian schools, Hovhannes Boghosian, Hovagim and Hagop Hovhannisian, Diran, Armen Srabian, Stepan Kurkjian, Vahram Kotan, Yesayi Yesayian, Vahan and Sarkis Dumanian, Avedis and Kegham Kachperuni, Harutiun Oynoyian, Kevork Tcheogurian, and Senekerim Kharpertsi were separated from the rest of the convoy, ostensibly in order to meet with the president of the deportation committee, the kaymakam of Kıği, who had just arrived in the area.
Hagop Hovhannissian was the first to be tortured and then shot in the head by İsmail Çavuszâde Şakir, who subjected the other prisoners to similar treatment, including the primate and young men from the villages of Tchan/Çanet and Chanakji/Çanakci. The deportees in the first convoy were, of course, unaware of the notables’ fate. They continued on their way the next day.
As they approached Palu Bridge, the men were separated from the caravan, led to the banks of the Euphrates and massacred, after which the caravan was plundered. All the subsequent caravans also passed through this area, where more than half of the deportees from Kıği were killed in the next few days. According to an eyewitness account by Mrs. Aghaser, many women drowned themselves by jumping into the river from Palu Bridge in order to avoid “being dishonored”; thus, of the 1,200 people who set out in the fi rst caravan, there remained only 200 to 250.
These survivors sought in vain to remain in Palu; they were sent on to Harput, where they arrived, naked and starving, after 25 days on the road. Although all the other surviving deportees were sent on in the direction of Dyarbekir and Aleppo, Mrs. Aghaser succeeded in staying behind in Harput along with four other women, after finding employment as a supervisor in the Turkish orphanage of Harput, which the Ittihad had founded in order to “educate” Armenian children in the spirit of Turkism.
The 700 orphans living in the orphanage were left in the care of Armenian women. It was not long, however, before the kaymakam came to the conclusion that they “were raising up enemies” and ordered the institution closed. According to Mrs. Aghaser, he had the children sent on to Malatia, where they were thrown into the Euphrates. The second convoy from Kıği, which set out on 11 May, comprised 2,000 villagers, 700 of them men. The deportees came from 12 different localities in the western part of the district. On 15 June, they arrived in a place called Dabalu in the vicinity of Palu, escorted by Mehmedzâde Hilmi, an eminent member of the deportation committee of Kıği. This group was harassed and plundered even more ferociously than the preceding caravan had been; the deportees, nearly naked, were in a wretched state. In the vicinity of Dabalu, near Palu Bridge, the squadrons of çetes liquidated the men, then allowed the local population to close in on the camp.
The third convoy, which left on 12 June, comprised inhabitants of other villages and the town itself. Three hours from Palu, in Lıhan, the çetes escorting the deportees extorted 3,000 to 4,000 Turkish pounds from them. The next morning, the convoy came under heavy gunfi re and the çetes then attacked it with knives and abducted young women. For the first time in this region, those escorting a convoy cut open women’s bellies, for they had discovered that some women swallowed their gold coins during body searches.
On 16 June, the deportees who survived the carnage (approximately one-quarter of the total) were brought together in Palu with the vestiges of the first two caravans.
On 18 June, all of them then set out on the road leading south. On 13 June, a fourth convoy (the last to leave Kıği), made up of civil servants and merchants, was put on the road under the command of the çete leader Karaman Ulaşzâde Mustafa, a native of Karmrug. This caravan, however, was sent straight to Harput. By the evening of 13 June, then, there were no more than ten craftsmen and other indispensable individuals left in town, such as the municipal physician, Dr. Melikian, and an official in the municipal health department, Barkev Nenejian.
The last convoy, comprising villagers from 35 localities, including Temran, Oror, and Arek, was put on the road on 16 June 1915. It was attacked and plundered for the first time in a place called Sarpiçay, in the kaza of Akpunar; responsible for the attack was the müdir of the nahie of Çılheder, Osman Bey, who ordered his Kurdish çetes to massacre the deportees.
During the shooting that followed, H. Sarkisian lost his father and uncle. He later evoked the indescribable panic that came over the deportees, who fled in all directions. That night, the çetes searched the corpses and finished off the wounded.
Those in charge of the convoy recovered the women and children who had been given refuge in a nearby Kurdish village by threatening their rescuers and set them marching back down the road to Palu. Like previous caravans, this one was brought to a halt on the outskirts of the town, near the village of Dabalu, which was strewn with corpses. The church had been burned down and the houses had been pillaged.
The deportees were slaughtered with axes on Palu Bridge and thrown into the Euphrates. Our witness, on his desperate flight toward Dersim, which seems to have been the only place where the fugitives could find a safe haven, saw workers busy destroying churches and cemeteries.
A Kurd who briefly accompanied him on his way told him, “It is the government which has given orders to demolish them, so that no trace indicating that this was once an Armenian village will remain.”
On 20 June 1915, the survivors from the last convoys, 2,500 people, including 350 men disguised as women, were sent south by way of the notorious Palu Bridge. After three days on the road, they arrived at a spot three miles from Arğana Maden, where, after a careful identity check, the last men were knifed to death, while young women were sold to the local populace.
The last deportees arrived in Dyarbekir after a 50-day trek. They were confined to a field outside the city walls, where they were visited by the vali, Dr. Mehmed Reşid, and local dignitaries, who picked out a few young women for themselves. When the survivors, who had been stripped of their clothing en route, reached Maden, they were clothed and fed by Syriac Christians and lodged in partially burned houses whose cellars were stacked high with charred corpses.
After another 20 days on the road, the caravan reached Ras ul-Ayn, where the last man in the group was murdered by Çerkez. Of all the deportees who had set out in the various convoys from Kıği, some 3,000 arrived in Ras ul-Ayn.
A month later, no more than 700 were left; famine and typhus had carried off the rest. Four hundred survivors were sent by rail to Hama and Homs and another 300 were sent to Der Zor.
There, in late 1916, some 15 to 20 were still alive.
According to Vahan Postoyan, 1,500 people were killed in the villages before the deportation began, while 461 women and children were recovered from the Muslim population after Russian forces arrived in the region. The deportees were slaughtered in Chan/Çan (3,000), Tepe (2,500), at Palu Bridge (10,000), and in Kasrmaden, near Harput (13,000).
To be continued
Note- this chapter is from Raymond Kévorkian’s book ARMENIAN GENOCIDE: A Complete History, pp. 304-307.
