With Tyler, one could draw the conclusion that: "every historian who takes a look at the reports of the consuls, and the testimonies of the religious missionaries or the travellers who were in these areas during this period of time, can in all of these find so much evidence of the lack of worthiness and competence within the ruling administration and the existence of chaos, disorder and recurring murder and plundering, that one loses the will to live." 134
This situation, between 1878 and 1894, resulted in the emigration of tens of thousands of Armenians, who left their homes and emigrated to Transcaucasia or the USA. 135
The majority of the Armenian nation, firmly attached to its fatherland, stayed behind. The Armenians knew that this emigration was precisely what the Ottoman rule was hoping for and that they must stay firm and preserve their homes and lands in order to thwart the government plans. 136
Through this suffering and all the harassment forced "the Armenians to endure a slow and painful development, which was more like the death struggle of a sick man than the growth of a nation". 137
The situation in which the Armenians found themselves in their own country caused a deep dissatisfaction, especially compared to the Christian countries in the Balkans which after their liberation from the oppression of the Ottoman Turks rapidly developed and improved. This disquiet resulted in the emergence of Armenian parties and associations, with the goal of improving the living conditions for Western Armenians and defending the Armenian nation. As Salisbury remarks: "the Armenians, tired of waiting for these promises to be fulfilled, began to organize themselves." 138
With time, these movements came to attract a large number of supporters. The horrible massacres from 1894 to 1896 in particular brought the Armenian intellectuals and the people together.
The development of the Armenian national spirit in Western Armenia was encapsulated in the following official announcement, dated October 2, 1890, in which the British consul in Erzurum, Clifford Lloyd, reported: "I believe that there is no thought of revolution among any of the Armenian society classes in these provinces, apart from the fact that an armed revolution is completely impossible. But here, every action of dissatisfaction or any expression of discontent is regarded as revolt by the Ottoman local rule and they pursue the policy which I mentioned in my previous report, a policy which deprives the Armenians of their freedom and protection, and there are no explanations for this conduct. This policy strengthens the existing discontent and creates hostility between Muslims and Christians which can only be rectified with other methods. None of the crimes or the infringements which have been committed during the last years against the Christians in the province of Erzurum have been punished." 140
The following year, on June 12, 1891, the other consul of Great Britain, Hampson, wrote the following from Erzurum: "I believe that if one wishes to defend the Armenians against the assaults of the Kurds and give them rights in the local administration in their own areas where they constitute a majority and treat them in the same way as their non-Christian neighbours are treated, they will be a very satisfied nation and very productive subjects to the sultan." 142
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