Clarence Douglas Ussher (September 9, 1870 – September 20, 1955) was an American physician and missionary in the Van region during the Armenian genocide, where he reported that 55,000 Armenians had been killed. In 1917 Ussher published a memoir regarding his experience in Van, titled An American Physician in Turkey: A Narrative of Adventures in Peace and War. It is considered one of the most detailed eyewitness accounts of the events. Ussher openly blamed the Turkish government for the systematic massacres of Armenians. His accounts of the Armenian genocide were depicted in the 2002 film Ararat. He was the husband of Elizabeth Barrows Ussher, who was also a witness of the genocide.
Early life and work
Clarence Douglas Ussher was born on September 9, 1870, in Aurora, Illinois. His father became the Bishop of Canada and eventually moved with the family to Montreal. In Montreal, Ussher received his early education; he continued his studies at the Reformed Episcopal Seminary in West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After spending some time in Wyoming for missionary work, he moved to Kansas City, where he continued his studies at the University Medical College.
After graduation, Ussher remained in Kansas City until 1898, when he decided to join the global missionary movement. Setting his work aside in Kansas City, Ussher was sent by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) to Harput, Ottoman Empire, where he was also to pursue his career as a practicing physician. Turkish sensitivities to the Armenian Question became evident to Ussher at the Ottoman border, where his dictionary was confiscated because it contained the words "liberty" and "revolution"—forbidden in Turkey at this time to Armenian and Turk alike; the customs officers also demanded the removal of maps from Ussher's Bible because they contained the word "Armenia".
Ussher remained in Harput for a year, after which he was sent to Van because the village required a physician. When he arrived in Van, he noticed that the village was still heavily damaged from the Hamidian massacre and the population still traumatized. Ussher immediately began his work in orphanages where hundreds of Armenian orphans of the Hamidian massacres were being housed. Ussher distrusted the 1908 governor of Van, opining that he "used every means in his power to incite Armenians to revolt in order to have a pretext for massacring them".
Genocide witness
Background
In the First Balkan War of 1912–1913, the Ottoman Empire had lost its Balkan possessions to Christian uprisings, intensifying fears in the Turkish homeland that the Empire's increasingly restive Armenian Christian minority—with the assistance or encouragement of Western governments—might also attempt to establish an independent state, resulting in the breakup of Turkey itself. As a result of the wars, at least half a million Muslim Ottomans' from the former Balkan possessions of the Empire sought refuge in Turkey, sparking a desire for revenge among many Turks. Distrust and suspicion of Armenians reached a peak following the outbreak of World War I, when a successful advance of Russian troops across the Turkish border into the heavily Armenian-populated vilayet of Van in early 1915 was blamed on Armenian disloyalty, leading the Turkish government to adopt a set of extreme measures which would culminate in the Armenian genocide.
Van "reign of terror" As Ussher relates in his memoir An American Physician in Turkey: A Narrative of Adventures in Peace and War, he was stationed in the American hospital in Van when in February 1915, the "strong and liberal-minded" governor or vali of the province was replaced with Cevdet Bey, brother-in-law of the Turkish Commander-in-Chief, Enver Pasha. The new vali was unable to travel to Van until late March, when he arrived "accompanied by several thousand soldiers and Kurdish and Circassian irregulars".
At the time of Cevdet's arrival in the Van vilayet, volunteer Armenian units ahead of the advancing Russians were employing guerrilla tactics in the Turkish rear, while substantial numbers of Turkish deserters in the province had turned to brigandage, and Turkish commanders believed both groups were receiving support from Van's Armenian populace. Though Cevdet would swiftly resort to extreme measures to deal with this supposed rebellion, not all sources agree that he arrived in the province with a preconceived plan to commit genocide; what is widely agreed upon is that his methods left the Van Armenians little choice but to respond with armed resistance.