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It is formed originally of three main branches: the Diarbekr stream, or true Tigris, the Myafarekin River, and the Bitlis Chai, or Centrites of Xenophon, which carries a greater body than either of the other two. From its entry on the low country near Jezireh to the termination of its course at Kurnah, it is continually receiving from the left a series of most important additions.
The same day, May 8, 1916, yielded another success for the Russians in the southern sector, south of Mush. There, between that town and Bitlis, stretches one of the numerous mountain ranges, with which this region abounds. On it the Turks held naturally strong positions which had been still more strengthened by means of artificial defense works.
It adjoined Armenia, and is reasonably identified with the modern district of Kherzan, which lies between Lake Van and the Tigris, to the west of the Bitlis river. All the notices of Arzanene suit this locality; and the name "Kherzan" may be regarded as representing the ancient appellation. Zabdicene was a little south and a little east of this position.
The massacre of Armenians on an unprecedented scale was reported from Bitlis, Moosh, Diarbekir and Zeitun. In the first-named region 9,000 bodies, mostly women and children, were, it is alleged, cast into the river Tigris.
"Two feet and a great good will! You know me." The consul shook his head. "Who sold the horse to the German from Bitlis?" "Are you that man?" "Who clipped the wings of a kite, and sold it for ten pounds to a fool for an eagle from Ararat?" The consul laughed. "Are you the rascal who did that?"
One was directed in a southwestern direction from Mush, and the other in the same direction from Bitlis. Both had as their objective Diarbekr, an important trading center on the Tigris and a future station on the unfinished part of the Bagdad railroad. Here, too, Russian progress was fairly continuous but very slow.
Before the war the Armenians in the six Turkish vilayets Trebizond, Erzeroum, Van, Bitlis, Mamuret-el-Aziz and Diarbekir numbered perhaps 2,000,000, as compared with about 700,000 Turks.
With Erzerum as a center the Russian advance spread out rapidly in all directions toward the west in the general direction of Erzingan and Sivas; in the south toward Mush, Bitlis and the region around Lake Van, and in the north with the important Black Sea port of Trebizond as the objective.
In the south the left wing of the Russian army was equally successful. On March 1, 1916, it occupied Mamawk, less than ten miles north of Bitlis, a success foreshadowing the fall of that important Armenian city. And, indeed, on the next day, March 2, 1916, Bitlis was occupied by the Russians. This was indeed another severe blow to the Turkish armies.
Northward from Mush, and Bitlis lies the province of Erzerum, with the town of the same name, that contained in the autumn of 1914 some 20,000 Armenians. Here the first hint of coming trouble was the order that all Armenian soldiers serving in Turkish ranks should be disarmed.
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