sh Government about the massacres.

There is, then, no doubt that the German Government, when it officially
denied the massacres, was perfectly cognisant of them. It was also
perfectly capable of stopping them, for they were not local violences,
but wholesale murders organised at Constantinople. In support of this
view I find an independent witness stating that 'there is no Turk of
standing who will not readily declare that it would have been perfectly
possible for Germany to have vetoed the massacres had she chosen.'
Germany had indeed already given assurances that such massacres should
not occur. She had assured the Armenian Katholikos at Adana that so long
as Germany has any influence in Turkey he need not fear a repetition of
the horrors that had taken place under Abdul Hamid. Had she, then, no
influence in Constantinople, or how was it that she had obtained
complete control over all Turkish branches of government? The same
assurance was given by the German Ambassador in April 1915, to the
Armenian Patriarch and the President of the Armenian National Council.

So, in support of the Pan-Turkish ideal, and in the name of the Turkish
Allah, the God of Love, Germany stood by and let the infamous tale of
lust and rapine and murder be told to its end. The Turks had planned to
exterminate the whole Armenian race except some half-million, who would
be deported penniless to work on agricultural developments under German
rule, but this quality of Turkish mercy was too strained for Major
Pohl, who proclaimed that it was a mistake to spare so many. But he was
a soldier, and did not duly weigh the claims of agriculture.

The choice was open to Germany; Germany chose, and let the Armenian
massacres go on. But she was in a difficulty. What if the Turkish
Government retorted (perhaps it did so retort), 'You are not consistent.
Why do you mind about the slaughter of a few Armenians? What about
Belgium and your atrocities there?'

And all the ingenuity of the Wilhelmstrasse would not be able to find an
answer to that.

I do not say that Germany wanted the massacres, for she did not. She
wanted more agricultural labour, and I think that, if only for that
reason, she deprecated them. But she allowed them to go on when it was
in her power to stop them, and all the perfumes of Arabia will not wash
clean her hand from that stinking horror.

Here, then, are some of the problems which those who, at the end of the
war, will have to dea