of Kerem in Lebanon, to which he gave the rule of St. Antonius. In 1740 his adherents made him patriarch of Sis, and in 1742 he received the pallium from Pope Benedict XIV. He was, however, unable to maintain his position in Cilicia against the persecutions of the Gregorians, and the old (orthodox) Catholikos transferred his residence to Lebanon, where he died in 1749. At that time many Catholic Armenians emigrated to Livorno and established themselves with their church under the protection of the grand duke of Tuscany, "the heir and descendant of the Rhupenids and of the Lusignans of Cyprus." From 1740 to 1866 eight patriarchs held the titular throne of Sis in the capital of Bezumar in Lebanon. Their influence extended to Cilicia and Syria.

On the other hand, the Armenian Uniates of Constantinople and Asia Minor were under the authority of an apostolic delegate from Rome in the capital; as regards their temporal relations they were subordinate to the orthodox patriarch of Constantinople. An impossible situation was thus created, which ended in 1828 in a violent persecution of the Catholic Armenians in Constantinople. At the beginning of January, 1828, some Uniate sarafs, or bankers, were banished from Stamboul; some time later, in the midst of an unusually hard winter, a Hattisherif was suddenly published, according to which every member of this communion, including people belonging to Angora and the neighbouring villages, were obliged to return to their own homes within twelve days. About twelve thousand souls, including forty-two clergy, were expelled from Constantinople; some four hundred children are said to have succumbed to hunger and cold on the road of Angora. Many became converts to Mohammedanism to escape the cruelty of these regulations. Pertev Effendi, a fiery Turk, had been won over to the patriarch by bribery, and had succeeded in gaining the consent of the Sultan Mahmud II by a report which accused the hated rivals of the orthodox sarafs of high treason and of alliance with a "foreign sovereign," the Pope. The Monophysite patriarch then attempted to turn the necessities of his compatriots to the advantage of his own sect, but his attempts at proselytising were forbidden by the war and police minister Khosrev Pasha, who explained to him that if the Porte had been interested in the conversion of the Catholics he would have desired them to embrace Islam, and not to turn from a bad religion to a worse one. It was not until after the Russo-Turkish war, and then only by French intervention, that the "dissidents" secured their independence as a Millet (nation) in 1831, notwithstanding the Russian opposition, and obtained a Mohammedan as their vekil (representative; p. 183, above). In 1830 they even obtained a patriarch in the person of Bishop Agopos Chukurian, with rights over the Melchites and Chaldeans, the united Greeks, Syrians, and the Nestorians of Mesopotamia. The ecclesiastical power obtained a primate dependent upon the Pope, while the patriarch, with the temporal power, remained a subject of the Sultan.

A hybrid arrangement of this nature was bound to lead to complications; the more so as the Catholic Armenian Church was increasing in strength by numerous conversions in Urfa, Birejik, Marash, and Malatia. In 1867 Pius IX, at the wish of the Catholic Armenians, transferred the seat of the primate from Libanon to Constantinople by the bull "Reversurus." A synod of the Uniate clergy then declined to recognise the patriarch of the Pope, Hassun, because he had hitherto limited the freedom of the union, and in 1870, on the occasion of the Vatican council, they broke away from Rome entirely. The consequences were quarrels

Turkey in Europe] and Armenia

and outrages in Constantinople, in which the Turkish soldiery took part. Upon this side were the most distinguished intellects of the Antonians and most of the Mechitarists of Venice. It was not until 1888 that a reconciliation was brought about, after Kupelian, their patriarch, had made submission to the Pope in 1879. Leo XIII solemnly agreed to their demands, especially to the maintenance of the Armenian language and liturgy. According to the lists of the Propaganda, the total number of the Armenian Uniates amounts to 103,000 souls, an estimate which does not however include those to be found in Hungary, Russia, and Persia.

(b) Protestantism in Armenia. The history of Armenian Protestantism is a history of suffering. As early as 1760 the priest Debashi in Constantinople had unsparingly inveighed against the priests and bishops of his nation, had exposed the contradictions between their doctrine and their life, and reproached them with their senseless superstition and the formalism of their public worship. The formation of evangelical communities was a comparatively recent event, originating directly (1813) from the distribution of the old Armenian translation of the Bible by the Russian (1815) and the English (1817) Bible societies. A strong impression was thereby made upon the clergy, and in 1832 the English Bible society attempted to make Holy Scripture accessible to the laity by means of translations into modern Armenian and Turkish, but met with the strongest opposition from the Gregorian Church. In the same year in which the American Congregationalist Society of Foreign Missions first sent out their missionary Porson to Jerusalem, the first German missionaries were sent from Basle to Armenia. They laid special emphasis upon two principles, which have guided the policy of their beneficial energy to the present day; the first object was not actual missionary work or "conversion," but the revival of the extinct early Christian church by means of the Word of God, and this without the object of ultimate communion with any one of the existing Western churches. This object was to be attained by means of translation, exposition, and introduction to the understanding of the Bible by word of mouth and by writing in the school and in the pulpit. The Basle mission worked in Shulsha from 1822 to 1835 under its pioneers Dittrich, Zaremba, Hohenacker, Wöhr, Pfander, Haas, Judt, Sprömberg, Hörnle, Schneider, and Kreis, until the Russian government and the Catholikos prohibited their work. With equally beneficial results the Americans and Swedes worked in Shamaki, Karakala, Tiflis, Baku, Lenkoran, until recent times. There, upon occasion, they suffered considerably from the difficulties thrown in their way by the intolerance both of the Russian government and the Armenian clergy. From 1831 the missioners of the American board continued their work at first in the capital, where the Armenians themselves had founded a school of theology; their energies were then transferred to the theological seminary founded by the Americans in Bebek between 1840 and 1862, which in 1862 was transferred to Mersivan, and splendidly provided by the American Robert. Under Eli Smith, Dwight, and Goodell its beneficial influence soon extended over the three kingdoms in numerous schools and hospitals. Much of the efficacy of their work among this people was due to the fact that they taught in the Armenian language. In cases of illness, want, or famine their help was given regardless of race or creed. Thousands of Armenians, Greeks, Syrians,

Jacobites, and other Christians received their education in Protestant schools, without thereby breaking their connection with the Church; but the Mohammedans were restrained by the authorities from attending.

The great influence exercised both directly and indirectly by the Protestants was very plainly seen in the help they were able to give when the persecution broke out among the Armenians after the Berlin Congress. In 1883 the journey of inspection undertaken by the American board throughout the stations of its missions made it clear that in reality the bulk of the Armenians would profess only the faith which Gregory the Enlightener had preached. Among the Armenians, religion and nationality are indissolubly connected. It was for this reason that the Americans came into collision as early as 1839 with the higher clergy, and in 1844, at the request of the patriarch of Etshmiadsin, the Russian government, and the Sultan, the patriarch Mattheos of Constantinople pronounced a terrible curse against the new sect, which seemed equally dangerous to all three parties. The results were persecution, imprisonment, confinement in asylums, banishment, and outrage from the mob. Martyrs of the gospel suffered hatred and contempt and the closing of their schools at the hands. of their own compatriots, until the English ambassador Stratford Canning warmly espoused the cause of the oppressed, gained toleration for them in 1846, and complete independence in November, 1850, as a religious community (= Millet) under a vekil (pp. 183, 210), and complete equality with the other Millets in 1853. The Porte had long hesitated to grant such a recognition, chiefly for fear of endangering the authority over the rayahs which Mohammed II had granted to the priests in 1453; this was valuable for securing the slavish and unquestioning obedience of the rayahs.

(E) THE ARMENIAN QUESTION

Now, however, the last fearful convulsion shook the Turkish Empire. In 1876 Russia stood triumphant in Erzeroum and before the walls of Stamboul. In the sixteenth article of the peace of Santo Stefano (1878) the following portentous phrase was to be read: "As the evacuation of the district which the Russian troops had occupied in Armenia, and which is now to be restored to Turkey, may bring about disputes and complications which might be dangerous to the maintenance of good relations between the two countries, the Sublime Porte undertakes, without further delay, to introduce into practice the improvements and reforms necessitated by local circumstances in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians, and to secure the safety of these provinces against the Turks and Cherkesses."

The English government (Lord Beaconsfield) entered protests against this compact, as it made Turkey dependent upon Russia's good will, and conflicted with earlier agreements whereby Turkey was placed under the influence of the great powers. On the motion of the English government the Berlin Congress, at which all the great powers were represented, met in the summer of 1888. On the 13th of July of that year was signed the Treaty of Berlin between Russia, England, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and Turkey, which superseded the peace of Santo Stefano. The Treaty of Berlin recognised the cessions of territory demanded in Asia, with the exception of the Valley of Alashgerd and the

district of Bajasid, and introduced in favour of the Armenians the following resolution into the sixty-first article instead of that above quoted: "The Sublime Porte undertakes to carry out without further delay the improvements and reforms demanded by local necessities in the Armenian provinces of Erzeroum, Van, Bitlis, Diarbekir, Mamuret el-Asis, and Sivas (see map facing page 203), and to guarantee the security of these provinces against the Cherkesses and Kurds. The Sublime Porte shall from time to time inform the six signatory powers who will supervise the execution of these reforms of such steps as have been taken in this direction.” This sixty-first article was proposed by Lord Salisbury, then secretary of state for foreign affairs (Vol. VIII); its effect was to remove the obligation of Turkey to Russia with reference to the protection of the Armenians, and to make her responsible in this matter to the six powers. The Armenians, who had been encouraged to regard Russia as their friend after Santo Stefano, were now induced to turn their gaze upon those powers. The Armenian patriarch Nerses, whose representation had brought about the introduction of the sixteenth article into the peace of Santo Stefano, had explained the bitter lot of his people to the Berlin Congress; one of his deputies was the archbishop Khrimian, Catholikos of Etshmiadsin. Although the Armenians as subjects of the Sultan had no locus standi before the congress, yet the sixty-first article was practically an answer to their request.

On June 4, 1878, another document was secretly signed by the English government in Turkey, which was published shortly afterwards before the conclusion of the Berlin Congress. The "Treaty of Cyprus" assured Turkey of an alliance with England in the event of Russia retaining some of the Armenian territory, promised reforms to the Armenians, and secured England in her occupation of the island of Cyprus (p. 196). English politicians, like all acquainted with the East, were well aware that it might be impossible for Turkey to carry out the desired reforms in the face of opposition from her own Mohammedan subjects, especially the Kurds and Cherkesses, who were almost independent, if she were not supported by compulsion, that is to say, by the Russian troops still on foot in Turkish Armenia. However, the British minister for foreign affairs insisted upon the withdrawal of these troops previous to the introduction of reform, and thereby surrendered the Armenians once again to their executioners, the Kurds and Cherkesses. The short-sightedness which characterised the idea of making Cyprus a base for the protection of the Asiatic frontier of Turkey was now surpassed by the simplicity displayed in demanding voluntary reforms from the Sultan, which would have created a second Bulgaria and East Roumelia in the east of the empire. An admirable judgment upon this policy was passed (twenty years before the outbreak of the Boer war) by the Duke of Argyll: "In no quarter of the globe has our national policy been dictated by such immoral and senseless principles." However, the English government calmly pursued their policy. In 1879 they erected military consulates in eight important centres of Turkey, and forced the Porte to introduce the desired reforms into the administration without delay. The result was nil. The military consulates inspired the Armenian population with the erroneous idea that the time of independent government was close at hand for them, and their petitions and complaints were now no longer directed to the Turkish officials, but were sent immediately to the consuls.

The Gladstone ministry secured an identical note from the powers on June 11, 1880, demanding a "complete and immediate" execution of the sixty-first article of the Treaty of Berlin on the part of the Porte, and a collective note on September 7, 1880, recounting the reforms individually and characterising them as pressing. One sentence in the note may be regarded as prophetic; it was to the effect that the degree of lawlessness prevailing in the Armenian provinces would most probably result in the destruction of the Christian population in this district. However, when England occupied Egypt in 1882, she lost her claims to confidence on the part of the Porte. A wholly different attitude with regard to the Armenian question was now adopted by the powers. Germany publicly retired, England maintained her military consulates only in Van, Diarbekir, and Erzeroum; Russia's attitude also changed, a fact connected with the change of policy immediately following the death of Alexander II. Now began a period of attempts to spread Russian influence and a growing want of confidence in all movements towards national freedom. Since 1884 it was well understood in Constantinople that Russia was occupied with extensive plans in Central and Eastern Asia, and that it was improbable that she would intervene in the Armenian question.

F. THE REVOLTS AND THEIR SUPPRESSION

HOWEVER, in Armenia events moved rapidly; the sultry stillness that forbodes the tempest had been produced by the disregard of law and justice, by the oppression of the tax gatherers, and the robbery of the Kurds and Cherkesses, both among the enlightened population of the towns and among the patient peasant folk, thanks to the presence of the English military consuls and of foreign Armenian agents. The Cherkesses had migrated into Turkey at the period when Russia conquered the Caucasus, and regarded the right of robbery in Upper Armenia and in the Taurus as their legal privilege. The Kurds, who extended from their chief centre Bitlis on Lake Van to the Euphrates and the Halys, had never been entirely subjugated by the Porte, and levied tribute (khafir) from the Armenian villages. Like the wild animals of the mountain range, these nomads continually changed their scene of operations from one to the other side of the inaccessible passes of Kurdistan and Persia, spreading terror now into one valley and now into another by robbery, murder, and outrage. Unfortunately in 1891 the Sultan conceived the idea of organising these lawless tribes into a cavalry regiment (hamidied), and armed them with modern weapons in the hope of guiding their warlike instincts into some more profitable channel. In the Russian war they had been conspicuous for their want of discipline and tactical training; in peace they became the curse of the country, hateful alike to the Turks and Christians. It is true that the unsettled state of those districts and the consequent uncertainty of justice brought forth among the Armenians themselves bold palikars and klephts, like the Greek heroes of the liberation; these, favoured by the timid country population and by the designedly inefficient guard that was kept upon the Russian and Persian frontiers, plundered and murdered in the service of avenging justice with grievous results to the country and sore suffering to just and unjust, as the innocent had to suffer with the guilty. A case in point was the robber chieftain Serop, who harassed for years the Vilayet of Bitlis with