[2][3] In Sasun Armenians were organized by Hunchak activists, such as Mihran Damadian, Hampartsoum Boyadjian (Medzn Mourad) and Hrayr Dzhoghk.

In his unpublished memoir, the missionary Royal M. Cole, who was based in Bitlis, recounted how Tahsin Paşa used a general atmosphere of suspicion to exaggerate the situation in the mountains and secure an imperial order for the destruction that occurred in late summer of 1894.

Cole suggested that if Tahsin and the Ottoman State had bothered to investigate, they might have found only a small number of well-armed Armenians desperate to organize self-defense bands among the mountaineers.

[5] Foreign news agents protested vehemently against the events at Sasun; British prime minister William Ewart Gladstone called Hamid "the Great Criminal" or "the Red Sultan".

The rest of the Great Powers also protested and demanded the execution of Ottoman Sultan Hamid's promised reforms.