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In his memoirs, Asquith mentions a conversation which he had one day with Gladstone. This great British politician, who constantly showed his interest and liking towards the Armenians, defended the rights of the oppressed people and their wishes for an independent life: "When religious leaders or priests mention the words of St Paul saying that one should obey world leaders, they forget that the apostle referred to individuals and not to societies. For myself, I am convinced that there is nothing more discouraging and demoralizing for a people than being subjected to a foreign rule and enduring the pains and sufferings which it results in." 147

The assaults and violence against the Armenians multiplied. In 1888, one of the Kurdish clan leaders, Musahag, infamous for his plundering and murdering, was arrested following pressure from the European powers, and was sentenced in an Ottoman court.

On February 2, 1890, the Armenian patriarch in Constantinople handed over a letter to the Sublime Port in which he complained about the indifference and the silence of the Ottoman military towards the attacks and the assaults which took place in the Armenian provinces.

In June 1890 there was a bloodbath in Erzurum. On the basis of a groundless report, the Ottoman military had intruded the Armenian church in Erzurum to search for hidden weapons. The Armenians, infuriated by this desecration, under the leadership of one of their most famous figures, Harutyun Pasdermadjian, tried to defend the church, but the Turkish military executed them on the spot. 148 The first Turkish bullet was fired on Harutyun Pasdermadjian, but he was shielded by a group of young Armenians and was able to flee the scene. 149 Victor Berard writes: "The search and the interrogation in the church were conducted with the usual violence and the ignorance which characterized the Turkish officials. The Armenian church which the Armenians defended was emptied with violence and desecration by the Turkish soldiers. The search and interrogation proved that there were neither weapons nor any gun powder, but 20 Armenians were killed and more than 300 wounded." 150

During the following years the regime of horror, which had been forced upon the Armenians, was intensified and the torture multiplied. 151 Thousands of Armenians were sent to prison or exiled, or ended up in the gallows.

In this unbearable situation, the Armenian associations tried to gather the Armenian people togethre and begin their first counter-measures.

The Turks answered these measures with new mass arrests and mass executions. Victor Berard writes: "When a leaflet was published or someone was subject to an assassination attempt, the entire population of a village or a city quarter was arrested. It seemed that, in order to destroy the resistance of the leaders, they wanted to annihilate an entire nation." 152

In year 1893, the Turkish attempts to crush and annihilate the activities of the Armenian Hntchak party, ended with the events in Mersivan, where they burned down the Armenian collage and arrested and sentenced several Armenians to death, which aroused the wrath and the hatred of the Anglo-Saxon world and lead to the direct intervention of the officials of Great Britain. 155