Arnold Joseph Toynbee 
Armenian Atrocities 
The Murder of a Nation

’One of the most thrilling and most eloquent appeals that has ever been written.’ -T. P. O’Connor.

’Authoritative account of the massacres in Armenia, and of the relation of German officials thereto.’ -Hart, America at War

’Concise but conclusive presentation of evidence for general reader.’ – Collected Materials for the Study of the War, 1918

’The details were sickening and almost unprintable.’ – The Canadian Annual Review, 1916

In 1914 Turkey a Holy War had been proclaimed and the Sultan’s Petwa called 300, 000, 000 Moslems to arms.

According to Arnold Toynbee in his 1915 book ’Armenian Atrocities, ’ it was during this time an effort at the murder of a nation was made. Toynbee provides evidence of an apparently methodical and organized massacre of a people, carried out with frightful cruelty and callous barbarism at the hands of Turkish authorities.

In Armenia 500, 000 villagers were driven from their homes, wounded, outraged, tortured, sold into slavery; 500, 000 others were killed with every species of suffering and torture. According to Toynbee, ’Orders came from Constantinople that all the Armenian Christians were to be killed. Many of the Moslems tried to save their Christian neighbours and offered them shelter in their houses, but the Turkish authorities were implacable. Obeying the orders which they had received, they hunted out and drove a great crowd of Christians down the streets, past the fortress toward the edge of the sea. There they were all put on board sailing boats, carried out some distance on the Black Sea, thrown overboard and drowned.’

In introducing his book, Toynbee writes: ’As I have said, the procedure was exceedingly systematic. The whole Armenian population of each town or village was cleared out, by a house-to house search. Every inmate was driven into the street. Some of the men were thrown into prison, where they were put to death, sometimes with torture; the rest of the men, with the women and children, were marched out of the town.’

Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889 -1975) was a British historian, philosopher of history, research professor of international history at the London School of Economics and the University of London and author of numerous books. Toynbee in the 1918-1950 period was a leading specialist on international affairs.