st impossible for Americans in the twentieth century to
believe that such a story can be true. They can easily believe it of a
thousand years ago, but not of twenty-five years ago. Yet it is beyond
doubt. Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador to Turkey during the
first two years of the World War, has written the story of the attempts
by the Turkish government to massacre the Armenian Christians in 1895
and in 1915.

He writes: "Abdul Hamid apparently thought there was only one way of
ridding Turkey of the Armenian problem--and that was to rid her of the
Armenians. The physical destruction of two million men, women, and
children by massacres, organized and directed by the state, seemed to
be the one sure way of forestalling the further disruption of the
Turkish Empire. . . . Yet Abdul Hamid was not able to accomplish his
full purpose. Had he had his will, he would have massacred the whole
nation in one hideous orgy."

In 1895-96 nearly two hundred thousand Armenians were put to death on
one pretext or another, usually in the most horrible ways, and in many
cases after the most terrible torture. The entire race would have been
exterminated if Christian Europe and America had not risen in protest.
But no word of protest came from Abdul Hamid's good friend, William II.
Instead, the Kaiser visited, within two years after these terrible
massacres, the monarch who was now called throughout Europe, "Abdul the
Damned," and kissing him on both cheeks, called him brother!

Why did the Kaiser love the Sultan and Kalif so greatly? Perhaps
because they were kindred spirits. It certainly could not be because
of Abdul Hamid's knowledge and intellectual power, for he was very
ignorant, and not at all the type of mind that would impress a German.
He was very superstitious and suspicious, always fearing attempts upon
his life. A lot of books on chemistry, imported by an American
missionary, were seized by the Turkish customs officers because they
claimed they were intended to injure the Sultan. When the missionary
asked for an explanation, the officer opened one of the books and
pointed to the expression H[subscript 2]O, which occurred very
frequently in it. Now H[subscript 2]O is the chemical symbol for water
and means that two atoms of hydrogen unite with one atom of oxygen to
form one molecule of water. However, Abdul Hamid, or his officers,
believed that H stood for Hamid, 2 for II, and O for nothing, and that
H[subscr