Transcaucasias and Ararat

PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION

The journey described in this volume was undertaken at an interesting moment, on the eve of the war which, in 1877, broke out between Russia and Turkey ; and the book was published while that war was still going on, before it was known what terms Russia would exact from her vanquished enemy, or whether England might not interpose in behalf of the Turks. Since 1877 great changes have passed on the politics of Western Asia. Russia has altered her policy towards her Armenian and Georgian subjects. The Turkish Government has altered its policy towards its Christian, and especially it’s Armenian, subjects. The relations of Russia and Turkey have become very different from what they were before the war. My readers must therefore remember that what they find in the text of the book is written from the point of view of 1877, and describes the relations of races and states as they stood in that year. I have, however, in this edition adverted, in a series of footnotes enclosed in square brackets, to all the considerable changes, so far as they are known to me, which the last eighteen years have brought in their train, so as to prevent misconception as to the facts of today.

It is my good fortune to have two friends who know Transcaucasia well as it is at this moment, and the information supplied by them has been very helpful.

Those parts of the book which treat of the physical phenomena of the countries traversed need no similar modifications to make them applicable now; while those which treat of ethnography and economic resources need comparatively few. I have, however, while revising the book throughout, added new footnotes mentioning the chief recent developments of industry and commerce, and the opening of additional railways.

One topic has required to be dealt with quite anew, and in some detail. In 1877 Europe had not yet awakened to know that there was an Armenian Question; and that question did not receive recognition as a matter of international concern until 1878, when it was dealt with in the Treaty of Berlin. Since then it has yearly grown in gravity, till the massacres of 1895 and 1896 have made it the most urgent and terrible difficulty that has appeared in the East for centuries. To understand its true character it is necessary to know something of the history of Turkey during the years that have passed since 1878; and so far as I know, no history of these years exists. I have, therefore, while leaving untouched the chapter which, in the three earlier editions of this book, dealt with this subject, composed a new supplementary chapter, which contains a sketch of the history of the Armenians in their relations to the Turks, and of the Sultan in his relations to Great Britain and to Russia during those eighteen years. Such a historical sketch can, of course, be only provisional, for many facts have not yet become known, even to those who have done their best to inquire into them, and some of the causes of the facts that are known remain obscure. Nor am I myself able at this moment either to make public all that I happen to know, or to adduce the evidence for some of the facts which, having satisfied myself that they are true, I have set forth. To name some of my informants might expose them to danger. Nevertheless I venture to believe that even an incomplete account, proceeding from one who has watched the progress of events closely during the whole period described, and has taken a part in them, may be of some service not only to the future historian, but also to those who now look with anxious and compassionate eyes for a solution of this melancholy problem.

October 19th, 1896.