Miss Thora Wedel-Jarlsberg (Norwegian) and Miss Eva Elvers who, until recently, were employed as nurses in Turkish hospitals in Erzurum and then in Erzindjan (most recently in the Red Cross Hospital in Erzindjan run by Dr. Colley), visited me today. Both of them know the country and its inhabitants in Turkish-Armenia and particularly Kurdistan from their own experience through many years of work with the missions of the Charity-Organisation, etc.
Their opinion of the Armenian matters was that the Armenians themselves were to blame for the misfortune which had befallen them; the two associations, Dashnaktsutiun and Hintschak, which had systematically worked on and terrorised the Armenian population for years, were mainly to blame. The Turkish government was completely right to take action against these dangerous elements.
But the two ladies also openly expressed their repulsion and indignation over the massacre of the defenceless and innocent population, in particular women and children in the area surrounding Erzurum and in the Vilayet of Sivas.
This account of the details concurs fully with that which Major Dr. Pietschmann told us, who made the journey from Erzurum to here at almost the same time as the ladies. If, under the impression made upon them by the atrocities which they saw with their own eyes, they voiced their feelings openly and attempted to save individual children who were doomed to die, then at least from a humane point of view this is understandable and excusable.
As already known, this careless behaviour led to the Mutessarrif of Erzindjan ordering them to leave Erzindjan, at first for Sivas.
As far as Dr. Colley is concerned, he took the strictly correct point of view of non-intervention; if the picture presented by the above mentioned ladies is correct, then he has gone too far in this direction, inasmuch as in the end he did not prevent their having to undertake the journey at the Mutessarrif’s order without sufficient protection; they were not even permitted to wait for Dr. Pietschmann, who arrived in Erzindjan on the following day, in order to travel with him.
It had been both ladies’ intention to travel from Erzindjan to Harput (Mezré), where they had left all of their belongings.
They met Count von Schulenburg in Caesarea.