First Person

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Henry Morgenthau, U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, appealed in vain for U.S. intervention in the Armenian Massacres. He wired the following message from Constantinople to his superiors in Washington on July 10, 1915.

Persecution of Armenians assuming unprecedented proportions. Reports from widely scattered districts indicate systematic attempt to uproot peaceful Armenian populations and through arbitrary arrests, terrible tortures, whole-sale expulsions and deportations from one end of the Empire to the other accompanied by frequent instances of rape, pillage, and murder, turning into massacre, to bring destruction and destitution on them.

These measures are not in response to popular or fanatical demand but are purely arbitrary and directed from Constantinople in the name of military necessity, often in districts where no military operations are likely to take place.