Euerer Exzellenz überreiche ich anbei gehorsamst in Abschrift ein Schreiben des Staatssekretärs Lansing nebst Anlage, über angebliche Greueltaten in Armenien.
Ich habe Herrn Lansing - wie in dem abschriftlich beigefügten Brief ersichtlich - geantwortet und den türkischen Geschäftsträger benachrichtigt.
Department of State
I have just received from Mr. Bryan the enclosed letter dated July 8th, from an Armenian whom he met in San Francisco in charge of the Turkish Exhibit at the Exposition. This gentleman is anxious that this matter be brought to your attention in the hope that you may find it possible to lay the matter before your Government, with a view to persuading it to use its good offices with the Turkish Government for the purpose of restraining the purported persecution of the Armenians in Turkey.
I am, my dear Mr. Ambassador, Very sincerely yours,
His Excellency Count J. H. von Bernstorff, Imperial German Ambassador, Cedahurst N.Y.
Anlage 2
Privat
To be transmitted to Washington through the courtesy of Mr. Bryan.
Dear Mr. Bryan:
In accordance with the suggestion you made at our meeting of yesterday afternoon, I am presenting hereinbelow a brief statement of facts relating to the most deplorable condition in which the Armenian now finds himself in Turkey.
Now that the restraining influence of European civilization has been removed from the councils of Constantinople, the Young Turkey Party has vigorously and systematically undertaken a campaign to bring to a conclusion the nefarious work of massacre and destruction that the Old Turk had inaugurated.
As you know, the battles between Russia and Turkey are being fought within the boundaries of Armenia. Here the two millions of Armenians are being made prey to the rapacity, lust and cruelty of the Kurdish bands and Turkish populace and authorities. Tens of thousands of innocent people have been massacred in wholesale; hundreds of villages and towns have been converted into ashes; women in thousands have been violated; men in large numbers have been collected on the pretense of enlistment only to be ordered shot and hanged; and about half a million helpless and panic-stricken men, women and children have found refuge, in a condition indescribably wretched, within the borders of Russian Armenia.
The plague of infernal passion that is ravaging the illfated Armenia is brewing with equal rage and severity also in Central Asia Minor and at Constantinople. To my personal knowledge, six former members of the Cabinet and Deputies, five editors of note, half a dozen or more prominent ecclesiastics, not to speak of fifteen hundred or more prominent men, have been imprisoned or exiled into the interior on clumsy and indefensible pretexts. That the lives of many of these men have already been taken is the general belief among those of us who are familiar with the Turkish tactics and Psychology. I know it to be the fixed policy of the Turk to dispose of the Armenian question by the extermination of the Armenian. Will Civilization tolerate the perpetration of crime so ghastly and so sweeping as the obliteration of a whole race? Here a historic and a worthy people are being nibbled into shreds in the melee of a catastrophe in the creation of which they have no part. ...
Respectfully,
Anlage 3
German Embassy
J.No. A 4506
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 14th instant, the enclosure of which I shall forward to the Imperial Government.
I am, my dear Mr. Secretary, very sincerely yours