Before the last of those who survived the hunger and the pestilence of
that pilgrimage had reached Russian soil, it is probable that in all
Armenia there was not a man of their race left alive, nor a woman either
unless she had accepted Islamism and the life of the harem. A peaceful
and progressive nation had been wiped out with every accompaniment of
horror and cruelty and bestial lust, and in Armenia itself there would
never more be an Armenian question. Abdul Hamid had hinted at the
solution of it, and had made, as we have seen, experiments in that
direction; but it was reserved for Enver Pasha and Talaat Bey,
enlightened men of the Young Turk party, with the advantages of a
Prussian example, to complete the work. Already Enver had said that he
would never rest until the last Armenian in the Ottoman Empire had been
killed, and before the end of 1915, as far as Armenia itself went, he
was able to see a reasonable prospect of repose before him. But there
was much work still left to do in other provinces.

We have seen that for the extirpation of Armenians in Armenia proper,
the excuse put forward, if not by the Turks themselves, by their German
apologists, was the necessity of guarding against treachery in the
vicinity of the Turkish army, and against spying and collusion between
the Armenians behind the Russian lines and those behind Turkish lines.
The same pretext was put forward for the massacres and deportations from
Thrace, from Constantinople, and from the shores of the Sea of Marmora.
Here, if anywhere, there may be thought to be some justification for
measures which might have been undertaken for the sake of public safety.
At any rate, there were definite charges brought against Armenians in
these districts, and the Armenian boatmen of Silivri, for instance, were
imprisoned, but not, as far as I know, massacred, on the charge of
revictualling English submarines, which at that time, as the reader will