But the cup of Turkish iniquity was filling. The pitiless slaughter of Bulgarians and Armenians alike was more than even the European Powers could stand. With varied motives, Russia sent her armies to fight their way to the walls of Constantinople, and Khrimian found himself summoned to plead his people’s cause before the Congress of Berlin. Though he speaks no language but Armenian and Turkish, he visited all the great courts of Europe beforehand, urging them to create an autonomous neutral state for Armenia, as they had done with success for the Lebanon. In London he became acquainted with Gladstone; but Gladstone was then only the blazing firebrand which had kindled the heart of England, and, in the Congress itself Khrimian could gain nothing for his people beyond the promises of Article 61, pledging the Powers, and especially England, to hold the Kurds in check and enforce Turkey’s definite reforms. It is needless to say that none of these promises and pledges were observed. Beaconsfield returned to London amid shouts of “Peace with Honor,” and Armenia was left to stew.
So it went on. Detained in Constantinople as prisoner, banished to Jerusalem for rebellion, and finally chosen Katholikos, or head of his Church and race, by his own people, he maintained the hopeless contest. Year by year the woe increased, till by the last incalculable crime (1894-1896), the Armenians were slaughtered like sheep from the Bosporus to Lake Van, and the lowest estimate counted the murdered dead at 100,000. Gladstone made the last great speech of his heroic life. England attempted some kind of protest. But rather than join the Liberal demand for action, Lord Rosebery left his party for private leisure, and Russia, France, and Germany combined to secure immunity for the “great assassin.” It was the lowest point of Europe’s shame.
Blow followed blow. Hardly had the remnant of the Armenian people escaped from massacre when their Church fell under the brutal domination of Russia. Plehve ordained its destruction, and Golitzin was sent to Tiflis as governor-general to carry it out. Church property to the value of £6,000,000 was seized by violence, the Katholikos resolutely refusing to give up the keys of the safe where the title deeds were kept (June, 1903). For two years the Russian officials played with the revenues, retaining eighty per cent. for their own advantage. But in the mean time assassination had rid the earth of Plehve, and the overwhelming defeats of Russia in Manchuria were attributed to the Armenian curse. Grudgingly the Church property was restored, in utter chaos, and for the moment it is Russia’s policy to favor the Armenians as a balance against the Georgians, whom the St. Petersburg government is now determined to destroy.