GERMAN DIRECTED THE TURKS AT VAN

Dr. Yarrow Says He Saw Him at Head of Troops Who Shelled the Armenians
RED CROSS NO PROTECTION
And American Flags on the Mission Buildings Were Used as Targets,
Returning
Missionary Says

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1915

Sixteen missionaries from Van, Turkish Armenia, arrived here yesterday

on the
Scandinavian-American liner Helling Olav. They are members of the
mission
established by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions, and
confirmed the reports that the Turks and Kurds are waging a "holy was"
against
the Armenians.

The missionaries include the Rev. Dr. Ernest Ussher, and Dr. George
Reynolds.
They went through the siege of Van from April 20 to May 17, in the
course of
which period thousands of Armenians perished by the sword, fire and
pestilence.

"For twenty-seven days," Dr. Yarrow said, "1,500 Turks and Kurds, and
for the
last three days were shelled with shrapnel from a howitzer brought up
by a
Turkish company headed by a German officer, I must saw him directing
the fire of
the gun.

"Two days before the Russians came to Van the Turks deliberately fired
at the
mission buildings. They stood out prominently and could not be
mistaken, and
also flew five American flags and one Red Cross flag as a protection.
The firing
was so an accurate that the shots cut the signal halyards and brought
the flags
to the ground. There were about 10,000 to 15,000 Armenians in and
around Van at
that time, and during the siege we not only had to flight the Turks and
Kurds,
but almost every known contagious disease as well.

When asked about the atrocities committed by the Turks Mr. Yarrow said
that
every conceivable form of torture had been inflicted on the Armenians
in and
around Van. The injuries inflicted upon women and children were
indescribable.
The Turks and Kurds have declared a holy was on the Armenians," he
continued,
"and have vowed to exterminate them."

Dr. Yarrow added that when the Russians retreated the missionaries
decided to
depart for Tiflis. They were attacked twice by Kurds on the way there.
An
elderly women in the party was wounded in the thigh by a bullet.

When they came away the conditions in Armenia were terrible, he went on
to say,
and many of the people were dying from typhus and other epidemic
diseases. Half
the missionaries had been stricken with typhus and six of them had
died.
The missionaries who accompanied Dr. Yarrow said that the reports
printed in New
York had not at all exaggerated the conditions in Armenia, and that
much more
remained to be told.

Dr. J. P. Xenides, professor of Greek at the American College at

Marsovan
Asiatic Turkey, who landed yesterday from the steamer Vasilefs
Constantinos, was
entertained at dinner last night at the Kismet Restaurant in West
Street by
members of the Armenian Colonial Association of New York.

"Before the trouble began in Marsovan, " Dr. Xenides said, " there were
12,000
or 13,000 Armenians in the city, and we had seventy-three teachers and
their
families in the college and sixty-three girl students. Before I left
the
Armenians had all been killed or driven away, including the teachers
and their
families and the sixty-three girls had been seized by the Turks and
taken into
their harems.

"The Turkish Foreign Minister had promised Ambassador Morgenthua that

the
American mission and the Armenians at Marsovan should not be injured in
any way,
but he gave exactly opposite orders to the Governor.

"On June 26 an order came that every Armenian was to leave the city and
go to
Mosul, on the Tigris, a twenty days journey by caravan. When the start
was made
the men were driven in one direction and the women and children in
another,
riding in ox carts. The men were never heard of again, and I was told
they had
all been killed."