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A diary kept through the siege of Ourfa. Acorne, 17 Jul 1920.
Location
Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey
Year
1920
Item Detail
Charles F. Weeden Jr. kept a diary through the fifty-nine-day siege of Urfa, and the issue prints it from 6 February to 7 April. He records condensed-milk boxes stacked as a barricade and later replaced with sandbags of cellar dirt, lamps burning motor oil, horse meat every day, and a French airplane on the twentieth day as the first sign that anyone outside remembered them. The last entry notes water getting very scarce. An editorial sequel reports that the French left on 11 April and that Miss Holmes, Mr. Weaver and Mr. Zimmermann now care for nearly a thousand orphans.
Context
The Acorne was the weekly bulletin of the American Committee for Relief in the Near East, produced in Constantinople for private circulation among the Committee's own staff. By January 1920, it printed a thousand copies a week for station directors in the field and for supporters in America.
Issues ran to four pages of short field dispatches and unit reports: orphan care, medical work, refugee feeding, education and workshop programs, with operational notes on supplies, rations, transport and exchange. Personnel notices recorded arrivals, transfers and departures. The bulletin took the title Near East Relief with Vol. II, No. 42 on 23 October 1920.
No complete run is known to survive. NERHS holds seventeen issues of Volume II, drawn from the Harry Pratt Judson records at the University of Chicago, the Martin Weaver Documents at the Mennonite Historical Library, and the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary.
These two issues carry William S. Dodd's April report on the Cilician villages and Charles F. Weeden Jr.'s diary of the siege of Ourfa. Martin L. Weaver was a Mennonite relief worker who reached Constantinople in March 1920.
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Holding Institution
Mennonite Church Archive
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Attribution
Mennonite Historical Library, Goshen College. Martin Weaver Documents.
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Rights
No known copyright restrictions. Based on available information, NERHS is not aware of copyright restrictions on this material. Items are presented for non-commercial research and educational use. Users are responsible for determining rights status and compliance with applicable law. If you believe you hold rights in this material or have information about rights holders not currently reflected, please contact [email protected].
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Notes
Masthead: 'The Acorne. Vol. II–N° 28. Edited by the Near East Relief (formerly American Committe for Relief in the Near East). 13, rue des Petits-Champs, Constantinople. Constantinople, July 17, 1920.' Only pages 1 and 2 of 4 survive.
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Document Contents
Extracts from the diary of Charles F. Weeden Jr., written during the siege of Urfa and running from 6 February to 7 April 1920. The orphans are moved to the old Orphanage with Miss Holmes and Miss Law; Red Cross flags and an American flag go up over the house; a hundred boxes of condensed milk are stacked as a barricade and later replaced with sandbags of cellar dirt; Miss Waller is struck by a spent bullet; a French airplane appears on 28 February, the first sign that the people outside are remembering them, on the twentieth day of the siege. Later entries record no fuel for the lamps and funny little lights made with motor oil, fresh horse meat every day, letters smuggled from Miss Holmes through the Armenian quarter, and going up on the roof until a bullet comes close enough to feel its breeze. The final entry, headed 'April 7th - 59th day of the Siege', records water getting very scarce and no fat for cooking. An editorial sequel notes that after the French evacuated the city on 11 April conditions became fairly peaceful, that personnel whose contracts had expired left for America during April and May, and that Miss Holmes, Mr. Weaver and Mr. Zimmermann now conduct the relief work in Urfa, caring for nearly a thousand orphans. Mr. Woodward, just returned from Beirut, corrects the Acorne of 15 May: the French left Urfa on 11 April and not the 9th, the battle between the French and the Turks lasted two hours and a half, and the two Armenian employees were with the rearguard two miles behind the main body, of which all but three men were killed. Woodward had the fighting stopped briefly until another Kurdish troop approached, sent carriages for the wounded, and saved his interpreter and an Assyrian boy, Yacob by name, now employed at the N.E.R. orphanage in Urfa. 'Adana' reports Miss Henry and Miss Nevin reaching the city on 18 June with no train since in either direction, machine-gun and cannon fire as nightly music, orphans transferred to Cyprus by the Lord Mayor's Fund, a wheat shortage met with beans, and goods for Adana held at Mersine, with a list of relief supplies distributed during May including 2,842 undergarments, 511 coats, 500 shoes and 4,695 cans of milk.