this very explanation of their origin.

"Turkey's entry into the War," he writes, "was unwelcome to Turkish
society in Constantinople, whose sympathies were with France, as well as
to the mass of the people, but the Panislamic propaganda and the
military dictatorship were able to stifle all opposition. The
proclamation of the 'Holy War' produced a general agitation of the
Mohammedan against the Christian elements in the Empire, and the
Christian nationalities had soon good reason to fear that Turkish
chauvinism would make use of Mohammedan fanaticism to make the War
popular with the mass of the Mohammedan population."

The evidence presented in the British Blue Book on the _Treatment of
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire_[9] shows that this explanation is
correct. The Armenians were not massacred spontaneously by the local
Moslems; the initiative came entirely from the Central Government at
Constantinople, which planned the systematic extermination of the
Armenian race in the Ottoman Empire, worked out a uniform method of
procedure, despatched simultaneous orders to the provincial officials
and gendarmerie to carry it into effect, and cashiered the few who
declined to obey. The Armenians were rounded up and deported by regular
troops and gendarmes; they were massacred on the road by bands of
_chettis_, consisting chiefly of criminals released from prison by the
Government for this work; when the Armenians were gone the Turkish
populace was encouraged to plunder their goods and houses, and as the
convoys of exiles passed through the villages the best-looking women and
children were sold cheap or even given away for nothing to the Turkish
peasantry. Naturally the Turkish people accepted the good things the
Government offered them, and naturally this reconciled them momentarily
to the War.