File No. 367.116/498
A copy of the report presented to the Embassy by Doctor White, president
of Anatolia College at Marsivan, is also herewith enclosed, as well as a
report from Doctor Clark of Sivas, and a letter
dated May 17 from the Reverend Henry K. Wingate of
the American mission at Salas.3
These enclosures are submitted to the Department to supplement my various
telegraphic reports in this connection. The Department’s instruction No.
2628 of May 27 has been received and will be communicated to the Sublime
Porte.
[Enclosure 2]
The American Chargé (Philip) to the Turkish
Minister of Foreign Affairs (Halil)
Constantinople,
May 29, 1916
.
Your Excellency: Referring to the several
conversations I had with your excellency as well as to my memorandum
of the 17th instant concerning the temporary use of American
hospitals and schools for the treatment of sick and wounded Ottoman
soldiers, I have the honor to inform your excellency that the
American missionaries at Merzifoun [Marsivan] whose property was
taken over by the authorities at that place arrived at
Constantinople on the 24th instant.
From a written statement submitted by those American citizens to the
Embassy of the United States it would appear that on Wednesday, the
10th of May 1916, the Sub-Governor of Merzifoun [Marsivan], the
commandant of the gendarmes, the major and
the chief of police, called on Doctor White, the president of the
American College at that place. The Sub-Governor stated that he had
called to requisition all the American buildings whether used for
hospital, school, or residential purposes, and to send the Americans
to Constantinople; this under order of the general commanding the
Third Army and of the Governor General of Sivas and owing to
strained relations between Germany and the United States. These
officials had brought with them full 20 armed gendarmes, and before seeing Doctor White, had posted them
at all the gates of the mission premises, at several points outside,
and had established patrols in different parts of the premises, with
such strict orders that when one of the American missionaries wished
to cross from the college to the hospital to call the American
physician, he was prevented by a gendarme
with a threat of using weapons. Before the missionaries could come
together to consider the situation, the Sub-Governor had sealed
their safe and was proceeding to seize the college buildings.
The armed guards prevented any property whatever being taken from the
premises, searching those who left the American enclosure. These
citizens requested an opportunity to communicate with this Embassy,
but the said official rejected this natural and legitimate request,
falsely stating that the American Embassy was closed, that relations
were strained to-day, would be broken off to-morrow and the next day
there would be war. He admitted that these statements which he had
seen fit to make were not based on any official information, but he
said that Merzifoun [Marsivan] was now considered to be within the
war zone: the American missionaries would therefore be sent for the
night to a hotel and dismissed from the region. The American
hospital, where over 500 Turkish soldiers have been treated gratis
under the auspices of the American Red Cross was, with all its
furniture, instruments, drugs, and supplies at once occupied and put
in charge of two military physicians. The college students were told
by the above-mentioned officials that they would soon be sent to
their homes except five Russians and three Hellenic subjects who
would remain there for the present. Permission was later given to
these American citizens to remain in their own houses temporarily
while the properties of the institutions were listed and
arrangements made for their departure. Telegrams and letters which
these missionaries sent to their Embassy and to their representative
[Page 840] at Constantinople
never reached their destination, nor were telegrams from this
Embassy delivered to them. The said Sub-Governor had assumed the
authority and the responsibility of treating the citizens of a
friendly power as if they were prisoners of war or like ordinary
criminals. On the following day early in the morning the gendarmerie commandant sent the missionaries
word to be ready to leave in half an hour. He also ordered the
students to be ready to go in two hours. On that same day, however,
the major told the Americans that so far as he knew the orders came
through the military channel only, and concerned the hospital and
dispensary only, these to be occupied with courtesy and only as a
measure of military necessity.
On the following day the said commandant of gendarmes stated that relations between Germany and
America were understood to have improved; still all foreigners were
to be sent out of the war zone. All Americans were required to leave
and to abandon their pupils and the orphans in their care, though I
desire to call the attention of your excellency to the fact that a
Swiss lady connected with the American mission was accorded
permission to remain should she wish. This lady elected to leave
with the Americans, though not subjected to the same treatment.
Insufficient and incomplete efforts were made to inventory the
property of the American institutions, but the authorities did not
see fit to proceed with the registration of the personal property in
the houses of these American citizens. That property was never
registered at all, but the said Sub-Governor permitted the safe to
be reopened in his presence and the money belonging to the
missionaries to be removed, after which he resealed the safe, but
refused the request of the missionaries to put their own seals
conjointly with the Sub-Governor. None of the other contents of the
safe were allowed to be removed.
Although the hospital was immediately taken over by the military
medical authorities, the schools were not all taken for any hospital
or military use, the civil officials of Merzifoun [Marsivan]
assuming the conduct and management thereof, treating them as they
were institutions belonging to an enemy nation.
It thus appeared that the whole affair was managed in this
unwarranted manner, with unnecessary discourtesy and harshness by
the said Sub-Governor, with the commandant of the gendarmerie as his executive.
Thus the American citizens at Merzifoun [Marsivan], consisting of 14
persons, were discourteously expelled from the center of their
activities, leaving behind them their houses and their contents
almost exactly as they stood—houses unsealed, goods unregistered.
Their missionary and philanthropic plant, containing nearly 37 acres
of land, a fine hospital and dispensary with 3 buildings, 6 large
college and girls’ school buildings and the foundations of 2 more
well above the ground, a department for deaf and dumb children and
industrial department with wood-working, from working rooms and
flour mill, 13 residences and many smaller structures with
furniture, appliances and conveniences appertaining to such
institutions, a library of 10,000 volumes, a museum with 7,000
objects—the whole valued on the last mission inventory at 50,000
pounds, besides the personal property of 6 American families—all
this they were obliged hastily to abandon to the officials above
mentioned.
I feel sure that had these officials at Merzifoun [Marsivan] obeyed
the original instructions which their excellencies the Ministers of
War and of the Interior sent respectively to the military and civil
authorities, they would not have acted in this unfriendly,
discourteous, and unjustifiable manner towards inoffensive citizens
of a neutral and friendly power, citizens who in the most
disinterested manner had devoted their lives to the general good of
the population in the region where they have resided.
I trust that your excellency will appreciate the necessity of
immediate and stringent action in the matter of the behavior of the
Sub-Governor of Merzifoun [Marsivan] and other officials concerned,
and that you will kindly advise his excellency the Minister of the
Interior in this sense. I beg to enter a most formal and emphatic
protest against the action of these officials, and believe that such
a measure with respect to their behavior is now imperative in order
to demonstrate the desire of the Imperial Government to protect
American citizens in the interior from further indignities of this
character. I hope that the instructions already sent are of a nature
to prevent the repetition of similar action on the part of the
officials at other places.
I am as yet without complete detailed information regarding the
treatment accorded to the Americans at Sivas and at Talas, which
will be later communicated to your excellency. All of the Americans,
with the exception of two ladies, were expelled from the former
place on short notice and have arrived in [Page 841] Constantinople. The buildings at Talas were
surrounded by guards on May 7 without any previous warning, and the
hospital and the school buildings taken over at once. The Americans
have been permitted to remain in their private houses, but the
pupils, lady teachers, inmates of the institution, were taken away
to Caesarea where, I am reliably informed, the strongest pressure
has been brought to bear on the women and girls to become Moslem and
to accept Moslem husbands; and that a number of the older women who
refused have been sent away. Important telegrams and letters
addressed to this Embassy by the president of the Talas school,
concerning American business, have been intercepted and have not
reached me. This is also the case with telegrams and letters
addressed to the Embassy from the institutions at Sivas.
Pending the receipt of instructions from my Government in regard to
the above matters, I take this opportunity of making the necessary
reservations respecting the rights of the American citizens and
institutions concerned.
I avail myself [etc.]
