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Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics

Francisco J. Martínez-López
Juan Carlos Gázquez-Abad
Els Gijsbrecht Editors

Advances in
National Brand
and Private
Label Marketing
Third International Conference, 2016
Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11960
Francisco J. Martı́nez-López •
Juan Carlos Gázquez-Abad • Els Gijsbrecht
Editors

Advances in National Brand


and Private Label Marketing
Third International Conference, 2016
Editors
Francisco J. Martı́nez-López Juan Carlos Gázquez-Abad
Department of Business Administration Department of Economics and Business
University of Granada University of Almerı́a
Granada, Spain Almerı́a, Spain
Marketing Group
Open University of Catalonia
Barcelona, Spain

Els Gijsbrecht
Department of Marketing
Tilberg University
LE Tilburg, The Netherlands

ISSN 2198-7246 ISSN 2198-7254 (electronic)


Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics
ISBN 978-3-319-39945-4 ISBN 978-3-319-39946-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-39946-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016943034

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016


This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained
herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature


The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland
Preface

After a long period of recession, the economic climate has begun to show encour-
aging signs of recovery. As the economy begins to regain strength, both national
brands and the majority of retailers need to recover some of the ground lost during
the last four years, especially in those countries where individual consumption took
a downturn during the crisis. To ensure this recovery, it is essential that both
manufacturers and retailers know the behaviour of the ‘new’ consumer emerging
from the recession.
Marketers are facing a consumer with a different shopping behaviour, especially
in the context of the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry. This ‘new’
consumer visits the store more often but with a fewer number of items per basket. In
addition, today’s consumer is hypersensitive to price and actively looks for special
offers and discounts before entering the store, although more decisions seem to be
taken ‘on the shelf’. It is becoming increasingly difficult to predict how consumers
are going to react to manufacturers’ and retailers’ decisions. Whilst during times of
recession it generally has been easy to forecast how shoppers will respond to
marketing decisions, as most markets recover, behaviour is becoming more
unpredictable than ever.
Without a doubt, this new scenario offers new insights and opportunities for the
whole industry. Manufacturers are advised to plan jointly with their retail partners,
sharing information and working together, in an effort to convince them that
stocking national brands benefits the store in terms of volume and sales. Retailers
must focus on increasing their value, as the private label seems to be losing its
attractiveness in many countries. Retailers have to improve consumers’ shopping
experience, adopting a shopper-centric approach. This value has to be developed
both in the store and online. E-commerce is being relied upon to complement the
offline context, and its growth in FMCG is expected to be as strong as in other
industries like travel or technology.
Looking at the aspects underlying this new marketing context offers exciting
opportunities for researchers. It is with this goal in mind that this Third International
Conference on Research on National Brand & Private Label Marketing (NB&PL

v
vi Preface

2016) has been launched and organized. Following the success of the two previous
editions, this third edition aims once again to be a unique international forum to
present and discuss original, rigorous and significant contributions, especially in
regard to national brand and private label issues.
Each paper submitted to NB&PL 2016 has gone through a stringent peer review
process by members of the Programme Committee, comprising 44 internationally
renowned researchers from 14 countries.
A total of 19 papers have been accepted, addressing diverse areas of application
such as value co-creation, assortment decisions, private label proneness, sales
promotions, tourist services, the online channel, anthropomorphism, retail brand
extension and price differentials, among others. A wide variety of theoretical and
methodological approaches have been used in these areas.
We believe that this third edition has upheld the goals of the two previous
editions: to promote, stimulate and publish high-quality contributions on national
brands and private labels that could help retailers and manufacturers deal with a
diverse range of issues. We hope this conference is one of many, as we aim for it to
become an international benchmark for advancing this promising research field.
Finally, we wish to acknowledge the support of the sponsors: the Universitat
Oberta de Catalunya, Information Resources Inc. (IRI), AECOC and ESADE
Business School. We would also like to thank all the contributing authors, the
members of the Programme Committee and the rest of the Organizing Committee
for their highly valuable work in ensuring the success of this third edition of
NB&PL. Thanks for your generous contribution; NB&PL 2016 would not have
been possible without you.

Granada, Spain Francisco J. Martı́nez-López


Almerı́a, Spain Juan Carlos Gázquez-Abad
Tilburg, Netherlands Els Gijsbrechts
Contents

Part I Consumer Behaviour I


Determinants of Consumer Evaluations for Private Label Brands . . . . . 3
Paul C.S. Wu
The Impact of Private Labels on Different Stages of Store Loyalty:
An Empirical Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Rita Coelho do Vale and Pedro Verga Matos
An Application of Consumer-Based Brand Performance
Model to Global Brands and Private Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Sebastian Molinillo, Yuksel Ekinci, and Arnold Japutra
Psychographic Traits Influencing Private Label Proneness
in the Product’s Life Cycle Growth Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Hanna Gendel-Guterman and Shlomo Lampert
Anthropomorphism and the Effect of Product Face Ratios
on Consumer Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Ahreum Maeng and Pankaj Aggarwal

Part II Branding I
Retail Brand Extension: The Moderating Role of Product Knowledge . . . . 53
Elisa Martinelli, Francesca De Canio, and Gianluca Marchi
Is Being Private Better or Worse Online? Private Labels Performance
in Online Grocery Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Magda Nenycz-Thiel, Jenni Romaniuk, and John Dawes
The Influence of Store Brands Equity on Value Cocreation Within
the Retail Environment: The Moderating Effect of the Propensity
to Buy Store Brands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Natalia Rubio, Nieves Villase~nor, and Maria Jesús Yag€ue

vii
viii Contents

Part III Strategic Decisions and Theoretical Research


To Retain or to Recover National Brand Consumers? Effects
of Price, Promotion and Product Innovation Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Carmen Abril and Joaquin Sanchez
Explaining National Brands and Private Labels Price Differentials:
A Theoretical Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Pedro Verga Matos and Rita Coelho do Vale
The Potential of Co-branding as a Branding Strategy
for Premium Private Labels: A Theoretical Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Olivier Reimann and Udo Wagner

Part IV Consumer Behaviour II


Do Feature and Discount Promotions for National Brands
Primarily Drive (National) Brand Choice, Store Choice,
or Both? An Exploratory Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Jonne Guyt and Els Gijsbrechts
Understanding PL Purchase Intention in the Context of ‘PL-Only’
Assortments: An Experimental Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
José Luis Ruiz-Real, Juan Carlos Gázquez-Abad, Irene Esteban-Millat,
and Francisco J. Martı́nez-López
Do Quality Systems Really Refer to Quality? Consumer Research
on Consumer Reputation and Knowledge of Food Quality Systems
in Hungary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Katalin Székelyhidi
Contrasting Thai and Chinese Shopper Behavior and Satisfaction
with PL Brands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Randall Shannon
Do Store Flyers Work? Implications for NBs and PLs
from a Subgroup Analysis with Experimental Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Marco Ieva, Ida D’Attoma, Cristina Ziliani,
and Juan Carlos Gázquez-Abad

Part V Branding II
Store Brands in Tourist Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Enrique Bigné, Eva-Marı́a Caplliure, and Marı́a-José Miquel
Global Private Label Convergence: Fact or Fiction? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Katrijn Gielens, Marnik G. Dekimpe, Anirban Mukherjee, and Kapil Tuli
Cross-Cultural Validation of Smart Shopping Process and Its
Influence on Brand Attitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Mónica Gómez-Suárez, Myriam Qui~nones, and Marı́a Jesús Yag€ue
Organization

Conference Chairs

Francisco J. Martı́nez-López—University of Granada/Open University of Catalonia


(Spain/Spain)
Juan Carlos Gázquez-Abad—University of Almerı́a (Spain)
Els Gijsbrechts—Tilburg University (Netherlands)

Programme Committee

Nawel Amrouche, Long Island University (USA)


Chris Baumann, Macquarie University (Australia)
José J. Beristain, University of the Basque Country (Spain)
Enrique Bigné, University of Valencia (Spain)
James Brown, West Virginia University (USA)
Cristina Calvo-Porral, University of La Coru~na (Spain)
Ioannis E. Chaniotakis, University of the Aegean (Greece)
Liwen (Brandon) Chen, City University of Hong Kong (China)
Alexander Chernev, Northwestern University (USA)
Chan Choi, Rutgers Business School (USA)
Gérard Cliquet, Université de Rennes 1 (France)
Giuseppe Colangelo, Catholic University of Milan (Italy)
Ronald W. Cotterill, University of Connecticut (USA)
Barbara Deleersnyder, Tilburg University (The Netherlands)
John Dawes, University of South Australia (Australia)
Charles Gengler, City University of New York (USA)
J. Tomas Gomez-Arias, Saint Mary’s College of California (USA)
Oscar González-Benito, University of Salamanca (Spain)
Csilla Horváth, Radboud University (The Netherlands)
Eugene Jones, The Ohio State University (USA)
Robert Paul Jones, The University of Texas at Tyler (USA)

ix
x Organization

Lien Lamey, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium)


Mercedes Martos-Partal, University of Salamanca (Spain)
Sebastián Molinillo Jiménez, University of Malaga (Spain)
Dirk Morschett, University of Fribourg (Switzerland)
Martin Natter, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
Magdalena Nenycz-Thiel, University of South Australia (Australia)
Nicoletta Occhiocupo, Oxford Brookes University (UK)
Michael Pepe, Siena College (USA)
William P. Putsis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA)
Natalia Rubio-Benito, Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain)
Hanna Schramm-Klein, University of Siegen (Germany)
Fiona Scott Morton, Yale University (USA)
Raj Sethuraman, Southern Methodist University (USA)
Randall Shannon, Mahidol University (Thailand)
Ian Clark Sinapuelas, San Francisco State University (USA)
Jay I. Sinha, Temple University (USA)
Yaron Timmor, Arison School of Business (Israel)
Rodolfo Vázquez-Casielles, University of Oviedo (Spain)
Gianfranco Walsh, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena (Germany)
Marı́a Jesús Yag€ue Guillén, Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain)
Jie Zhang, University of Maryland (USA)
Cristina Ziliani, University of Parma (Italy)
Pilar Zorrilla, University of the Basque Country (Spain)

Programme Organizing Committee

Irene Esteban-Millat, Open University of Catalonia (Spain)


Marı́a Pujol, Open University of Catalonia (Spain)
Andrés Cúneo, ESADE (Spain)
Part I
Consumer Behaviour I
Determinants of Consumer Evaluations
for Private Label Brands

Paul C.S. Wu

Abstract This research aims to investigate the integrating effects of product


characteristics, consumer characteristics, and store characteristics on consumer
evaluations of private label brands (PLB). The results show that category risk and
its antecedents negatively affect purchase intention of PLB. Quality variance and
manufacturing difficulty affect perceived quality of PLB. Extrinsic cue reliance
negatively affect purchase intention of PLB. Category risk attenuates the positive
effect of price consciousness on purchase intention of PLB.

Keywords Private label brands (PLB) • Category risk • Extrinsic cue reliance •
Price consciousness • Service quality • Store types

1 Introduction

Private label brands (PLB) have come to represent better selection, value and
savings for many consumers, and have become increasingly essential in the mar-
ketplace. Previous studies have individually investigated the effects of category
risk, product attributes, product knowledge, price consciousness, and store image
on consumer evaluations of PLB (Collins-Dodd and Lindley 2003; Garretson
et al. 2002), however, emphasize specific factors only. This study aims to
integratingly examine how the characteristics of products, consumers, and stores
affect consumer evaluations of PLB.

P.C.S. Wu (*)
Aletheia University, New Taipei City, Taiwan
e-mail: au4104@au.edu.tw; au4104@mail.au.edu.tw

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 3


F.J. Martı́nez-López et al. (eds.), Advances in National Brand and Private Label
Marketing, Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-39946-1_1
4 P.C.S. Wu

2 Theory and Hypotheses

2.1 Category Risk: A Product Characteristic

Category risk is the uncertainty and risk of making a wrong decision consumers
experience when purchasing products (Dowling and Staelin 1994). PLB marketing
generally employs a low-cost strategy by reducing advertising and marketing costs,
therefore the brand equity of PLB is often lower than that of national brands.
Consumers thus take a higher risk when purchasing PLB (Sethuraman and Gielens
2014). Wu et al. (2011) finds that category risk has a negative effect on consumer
intention to purchase PLB. Consumers take various risks when purchasing and
consuming goods (Dowling and Staelin 1994). These risks can be attributed to the
characteristics embedded in a product category. The level of manufacturing diffi-
culty of and the degree of quality variance among different brands for a product
category can cause consumers functional and physiological risks, and affect their
perceived quality of PLB (Glynn and Chen 2009). The longer the interpurchase
time of a product, the higher the possibility of making a wrong purchase decision
(Aqueveque 2006). It indicates higher time risk, and hence, lower perceived
quality. Hedonicity refers to the symbolic or hedonic level of the product benefits
(Batra and Ahtola 1990). Consumers take a higher social risk and perceive a lower
quality in purchasing higher hedonicity level PLB because these products may be
inconsistent with a consumer’s social status or values. Relative price refers to the
price level, compared to income/wealth level or the price of other categories, of a
PLB category. The higher the relative price of a PLB category, the higher the
financial risk and the lower the quality consumers perceive (DelVecchio 2001). The
following hypotheses synthesize these arguments.
H1 Category risk negatively affects consumers’ purchase intention of PLB.
H2 Antecedents of category risk, including (a) manufacturing difficulty,
(b) quality variance, (c) interpurchase time, (d) hedonicity, and (e) relative price
level, all positively affect category risk.
H3 Antecedents of category risk, including (a) manufacturing difficulty,
(b) quality variance, (c) interpurchase time, (d) hedonicity, and (e) relative price
level, all negatively affect the perceived quality of PLB.

2.2 Consumer Characteristics

2.2.1 Price Consciousness

Price consciousness refers that consumers tend not to buy a product with a distin-
guished characteristic, if the price for the distinguished characteristic is too high
(Sinha and Batra 1999). A national brand label is a type of distinguished
Determinants of Consumer Evaluations for Private Label Brands 5

characteristic. Previous study has demonstrated that consumers with higher levels
of price consciousness are more likely to purchase PLB (Wu et al. 2011). Further-
more, Lichtenstein et al. (1988) suggest that when category risk is higher, the
positive relationship between consumer price consciousness and the intention to
purchase PLB decreases because consumers hope to avoid the risk of making a
wrong purchase decision. Therefore,
H4 Consumer price consciousness positively affects purchase intention of PLB.
H5 Category risk attenuates the positive effect of price consciousness on purchase
intention of PLB.

2.2.2 Extrinsic Cue Reliance (ECR)

This study defines ECR as the extent to which consumers rely on extrinsic cues to
make purchase decisions. Consumers with higher ECR tend to purchase national
brand more frequently (Richardson et al. 1996), as PLB often have a lower price,
lower brand equity, and less attractive packaging. This study proposes three ante-
cedents of ECR. Price-quality association and brand-quality association are
defined as the correlation between the price/brand awareness and perceived quality
of a product (Lichtenstein et al. 1993), and inclination toward brand symbolism is
defined as the extent to which consumers consider purchasing a brand-name
product as expressing a belief or value (DelVecchio 2001). Garretson
et al. (2002) find that price-quality associations negativeiy affect consumer evalu-
ations of PLB. DelVecchio (2001) proposes that if consumers do not show a
stronger belief that the products produced by well-known brands are of better
quality, their intentions to purchase PLB would increase. As national brands
generally develop more advertisements containing symbolic images (Nenycz-
Thiel and Romaniuk 2014), this study asserts that consumers show greater prefer-
ence for national brands if they have a higher inclination toward brand symbolism.
Furthermore, degrees of ECR for the same consumer may vary for different
categories. Sinha and Batra (1999) and DelVecchio (2001) discover that when
category risk is higher, the negative relationships between price-quality associa-
tion/inclination toward brand symbolism and consumer purchase intentions for
PLB become stronger, respectively. Therefore,
H6 Consumers’ extrinsic cue reliance (ECR) negatively affects purchase intention
of PLB.
H7 The antecedents of ECR, (a) price-quality association, (b) brand-quality asso-
ciation, and (c) inclination toward brand symbolism, positively affect ECR.
H8 The antecedents of ECR, (a) price-quality association, (b) brand-quality asso-
ciation, and (c) inclination toward brand symbolism, negatively affect purchase
intention of PLB.
6 P.C.S. Wu

H9 Category risk will reinforce the negative effect of ECR on purchase intention
of PLB.

2.3 Store Characteristics

2.3.1 Service Quality

Service quality is the degree of perfection consumers perceive when they experi-
ence service (Rust and Oliver 1994) and is positively related to consumers’ retail
patronage intentions (Lee and Yang 2013), which should also increase their inten-
tion to purchase PLB. Therefore,
H10 Service quality in retail stores positively affects purchase intention of PLB.

2.3.2 Store Types

Consumers perceive different images for different stores due to practitioners’


varying marketing strategies (d’Astous and Saint-Louis 2005). Consequently, the
store type can be a moderator in consumers’ purchasing behavior. Retail businesses
selling PLB in Taiwan mainly include hypermarkets, supermarkets, and conve-
nience stores. When consumers demonstrate higher levels of price consciousness,
they may find their habit of comparing prices reinforced in hypermarkets or
supermarkets, but not in convenience stores. This phenomenon occurs because
hypermarkets and supermarkets emphasize price, but convenience stores emphasize
convenience. Furthermore, promotions for national brand products offered in
hypermarkets or supermarkets reduce the association between the low price and
low quality of PLB. Hence,
H11 The positive effect of price consciousness on purchase intention of PLB
becomes stronger in hypermarkets and supermarkets than in convenience stores.
H12 The negative effect of price-quality associations on purchase intention of
PLB becomes weaker in hypermarkets and supermarkets than in convenience
stores.
Last, consumers’ perceived quality of PLB is an important factor in predicting
their purchase intention (Vo and Nguyen 2015). Hence,
H13 Consumers’ perceived quality of PLB positively affects their intention to
purchase PLB.
Figure 1 displays the structural model for the direct effects of the hypotheses.
Determinants of Consumer Evaluations for Private Label Brands 7

Manufacturing
difficulty H2a Category risk

H2b

Quality
variance
H3a

H2c H3b

H3c Perceived
Interpurchase quality
time

H3e
H2e

Relative
H3d
price
H1

H13

H2d

Hedonicity

Extrinsic cue
reliance
H6
H7a

H8a
Price-quality
association
Purchase
H7b H8b intention

H8c
Brand-quality
association H7c
H4
H10

Price
consciousness

inclination toward
brand symbolism

Service quality

Fig. 1 Linear structural model


8 P.C.S. Wu

3 Methods

This study adapts scales of previous studies1 to measure all the variables based on a
five-point Likert scale anchored by “1 ¼ strongly disagree” and “5 ¼ strongly
agree” except interpurchase time and relative price which are measured based on
depth interviews with three marketing practitioners. The study conducts field
surveys to choose nine product categories. Questionnaires are designed to investi-
gate one product category in one type of stores, resulting in nine versions of
surveys. Table 1 shows the product-store combination. Forty-five copies of each
version are distributed to consumers at the entrances of each randomly selected
store. The specific stores surveyed are the largest three chain stores of each type in
Taiwan. The totally 377 effective samples (hypermarkets 128, supermarkets
121, convenience stores 128) are selected using a systematic design and are skewed
toward young women (female: 59.4 %; age below 30: 68.5 %).

4 Results

This study uses structural equation modeling to analyze the data and adopts the
two-stage analysis (Anderson and Gerbing 1988). For the measurement model, we
use LISREL to perform CFA for the 46 items of 14 latent variables and that returns
the following good fit results: χ2 ¼ 1179.72 (df ¼ 848, p ¼ .00), C2 ¼ 1.39,
GFI ¼ 0.91, AGFI ¼ 0.90, NFI ¼ 0.90, CFI ¼ 0.96, RMSEA ¼ 0.03 and
RMR ¼ 0.04. Moreover, reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity
of the scales are all demonstrated with relevant standards. For the structural model,
LISREL analysis suggests a good model fit: C2 ¼ 1.42, GFI ¼ 0.92, AGFI ¼ 0.91
and RMSEA ¼ 0.03 (Table 2).
Regarding the antecedents of category risk, manufacturing difficulty (H2a),
quality variance (H2b), hedonicity (H2d), and relative price level (H2e) all posi-
tively affect category risk, supporting relevant hypotheses. For the antecedents of
ECR, price-quality association and brand-quality association positively affect ECR,
supporting H7a and H7b. Regarding the effects of the antecedents of category risk
on perceived quality of PLB, quality variance has a negative effect, supporting H3b.
Manufacturing difficulty (H3a) positively affects the perceived quality of PLB,
which contradicts the proposed hypothesis. This unexpected finding may have
occurred because the difficulty for manufacturing the surveyed products is not
high (mean ¼ 2.8). Therefore, consumers may believe that retail stores are more
capable if they can provide PLB that are more difficult to manufacture. This finding
is similar to empirical results of Aaker and Keller (1990). Because the findings of
this study and Aaker and Keller opposite to those discovered by DelVecchio (2001),
the relationship between manufacturing difficulty and perceived quality of PLB

1
Remark: Academic references and survey items are available upon request.
Table 1 Research design of product-store combination
No. Product Store type No. Product Store type No. Product Store type
1 Mineral water Hypermarket 4 Raincoat Hypermarket 7 Extension wire Hypermarket
2 Orange juice Supermarket 5 Toilet paper Supermarket 8 Pen Supermarket
3 Preserved milk Convenience store 6 Underwear Convenience store 9 Eraser Convenience store
Determinants of Consumer Evaluations for Private Label Brands
9
10 P.C.S. Wu

Table 2 Structural model and hypotheses tests


Extrinsic
cue
Variables Category risk reliance Perceived quality Purchase intention
Manufacturing 0.27a(0.07)b 0.15(0.07)
difficulty 3.90***c 2.13*
Quality variance 0.42(0.08) 0.67(0.09)
5.05*** 7.94***
Interpurchase 0.042(0.07) 0.051(0.08)
time 0.64 0.61
Relative price 0.37(0.09) 0.058(0.08)
4.33*** 0.73
Hedonicity 0.11(0.06) 0.089(0.07)
1.95* 1.28
Price-quality 0.27(0.07) 0.14(0.08)
association 4.04*** 1.84*
Brand-quality 0.17(0.08) 0.22(0.09)
association 2.32** 2.57**
Inclination toward 0.079 0.23(0.07)
brand symbolism (0.06)
1.30 3.42***
Price 0.11(0.06)
consciousness 1.72*
Service quality 0.049(0.06)
0.86
Category risk 0.11(0.06)
2.06*
Extrinsic cue 0.092(0.06)
reliance 1.67*
Perceived quality 0.33(0.08)
4.42***
R2 0.37 0.14 0.59 0.25
Hypotheses tests Supported: H2a, Supported: Supported: H3b; Supported: H1, H4,
H2b, H2d, H2e; H7a, H7b; H6, H8a, H8b, H13;
Not supported: Not Not supported: Not supported: H8c,
H2c supported: H3a, H3c, H3d, H10
H7c H3e
χ 2 ¼ 1237.16(df ¼ 872, p ¼ 0.00), C2 ¼ 1.42, GFI ¼ 0.92, AGFI ¼ 0.91, CFI ¼ 0.95,
RMSEA ¼ 0.03, RMR ¼ 0.06
a
All coefficients are standardized; bStandard errors; ct values
*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001

may be quadratic. A following regression analysis demonstrate this, as its result


indicates that the relationship is not linear but quadratic and of a reverse U-shape.
Regarding factors influencing intention to purchase PLB, category risk (H1),
price consciousness (H4), perceived quality (H13), ECR (H6) and its antecedents,
Determinants of Consumer Evaluations for Private Label Brands 11

price-quality association (H8a) and brand-quality association (H8b), have hypoth-


esized effects, supporting the relevant hypotheses. Inclination toward brand sym-
bolism (H8c) has a positive effect, which contradicts the proposed hypothesis but is
similar to the findings of DelVecchio (2001). This result may emerge because the
retail stores under investigation in this study are all chain stores for which brand
equity is well established and functions as an umbrella brand and facilitates
consumer intention to purchase PLB.
To test the moderating effects of category risk (H5/H9), two sub-samples are
obtained on mean-split of high and low category risk consumers. The multi-group
analysis fits well. Equality constraint analyses show that only the “price conscious-
ness—purchase intention” relationship is attenuated by category risk, thus
supporting H5, but not H9. To test the moderating effects of store types
(H11/H12), the sample is divided into two groups. The first group includes hyper-
market and supermarket consumers, and the second group includes convenience
store consumers. Although the multi-group analysis fits well, the invariance tests
result in insignificant increases in χ 2 for both price consciousness and price-quality
association, thus not supporting H11 and H12.

5 Conclusion and Discussions

5.1 Discussions and Implications

This study examines the integrating effects of the characteristics of products,


consumers, and stores on purchase intention of PLB. The results show that, for
product characteristics, antecedents of category risk affect consumer intention to
purchase PLB in two ways. One is manifested through category risk; the other
through perceived quality. For consumer characteristics, ECR and its antecedents
negatively affect purchase intention of PLB and being robust against category risk.
Price consciousness positively affects purchase intention of PLB, but this effect is
attenuated by category risk. As for store characteristics, service quality does not
affect consumer intention to purchase PLB. The relationships between price
consciousness/price-quality association and purchase intention of PLB are robust
against store types. These phenomena suggest that, compared to store characteris-
tics, product and consumer characteristics more fully explain consumer intention to
purchase PLB. Practitioners of PLB should choose categories that possess a
low-level of manufacturing difficulty, low quality variance among the category,
low hedonicity, or low relative price level and target consumers with high price
consciousness, low-level price-quality association, low-level brand-quality associ-
ation, or little extrinsic cue reliance to facilitate consumers’ purchase intention
of PLB.
12 P.C.S. Wu

5.2 Limitations and Future Research

The present study offers following directions for future research. First, this study
demonstrates similar result of DelVecchio (2001) that inclination toward brand
symbolism has a positive effect on purchase intention of PLB. This finding may
have resulted from the moderating effect exercised by the brand equity of retail
stores. Furthermore, this study finds that service quality does not affect purchase
intention of PLB. However, previous study has shown that service quality in stores
increases store equity (Hartman and Spiro 2005), thereby increasing consumer
intention to purchase at the store (Aaker 1996), which may increase intention to
purchase PLB. Store equity, of chain versus non-chain or high- versus low-equity,
should be included in future studies to investigate its influences on attitude toward
PLB. Second, store types do not moderate the relationships between price
consciousness/price-quality association and purchase intention of PLB. However,
these findings may be averaged across product categories and stores. Future studies
should control for store types or product categories to purify these relationships.

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The Impact of Private Labels on Different
Stages of Store Loyalty: An Empirical Study

Rita Coelho do Vale and Pedro Verga Matos

Abstract Despite the accelerating growth of private labels, little previous research
offered an integrated approach of its role as a driver of store loyalty. In this research
we offer an integrative model that includes both consumers’ loyalty towards the
private labels, as also other identified store loyalty driven-factors (both in-store and
economic factors), in order to assess its relative importance on building store
loyalty. Importantly, our framework builds on the four-stage loyalty model (Oliver,
J Market, 63: 33–44, 1999) making a distinction between different phases: cogni-
tive, affective, conative, and action.
We run multilevel regression models on a survey data collected online to
identify the critical loyalty factors that influence each loyalty stage and the specific
contribution of private labels to each loyalty stage. Findings show that there is: (1) a
positive contribution of private labels on consumers’ loyalty, across all different
loyalty stages, both attitudinal as behavioral, and (2) no homogeneity in terms of
driving factors across different loyalty stages, highlighting the importance of our
integrative perspective.

Keywords Private labels • Store loyalty • Four-stage loyalty model • Multilevel


regression

1 Introduction

The fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) retail industry has suffered significant
changes in the last decades (Ailawadi and Keller 2004). From the evolution of
traditional direct trade to self-service trade, to a significant raise in the competition

R.C. do Vale (*)


UCP—Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics, Universidade Católica Portuguesa,
Lisboa, Portugal
e-mail: ritavale@ucp.pt
P.V. Matos
ISEG—Lisbon School of Economics & Management, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa,
Portugal
e-mail: pvmatos@iseg.ulisboa.pt

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 15


F.J. Martı́nez-López et al. (eds.), Advances in National Brand and Private Label
Marketing, Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-39946-1_2
16 R.C. do Vale and P.V. Matos

between players, retailers have been forced to adopt new strategies to differentiate
themselves (Kim et al. 2014). One strategy retailers often use to enhance customers’
preferences towards their stores is the introduction of store brands (Kumar and
Steenkamp 2007). Over the past years, the private labels phenomenon and its
proliferation has extended to all over the world (Ailawadi et al. 2008), becoming
a threat to manufacturing brands (Corstjens and Lal 2000). Compared to national
brands, private labels can play a critical and distinctive role among different
retailers since they are exclusive and cannot be purchased elsewhere (Collins and
Burt 2003) with each retailer having exclusive rights on the products that are sold
under its store brand (Ailawadi et al. 2008). One of the reasons often elicited by past
research to justify the massive introduction of PLs across retailers has been the
increase in store loyalty, supposedly helping to distinguish the chains from other
chains (Ailawadi et al. 2008; Steenkamp and DeKimpe 1997). However, despite
previous work that tried to assess relationship between PLs adoption rate and
consumers’ loyalty towards the stores, it is yet inconclusive what is the relationship
between private labels’ loyalty and store loyalty.
Because private labels are retailer specific, they affect competition between
retailers and offer an additional way of differentiation (Hoch and Banerji 1993).
It seems then reasonable to assume that loyalty towards the PLs of a specific retailer
may affect loyalty towards the retailing chain itself (Martos-Partal and González-
Benito 2009). In fact, aligned with the recent PLs growth explosion registered in
most product-categories, retail chains have improved the quality of its store brand
products, supposedly to encourage consumers-loyalty (Kumar and Steenkamp
2007; Geyskens et al. 2010).
Importantly, not only has loyalty to private labels been suggested to play a role
in store loyalty, as also past research in retailing has outlined that specific store’s
characteristics, most notably product assortment, location, service quality and store
atmosphere, can also affect consumers’ store evaluations and store choices (Yoo
et al. 1998). In addition, besides the in-store characteristics, there are also economic
drivers that can influence consumers’ store choice (e.g. switching costs; Bell
et al. 1998).Therefore, in order to analyze the impact of private labels on con-
sumers’ store loyalty, it is important to develop an integrated framework of analysis
that encompasses most factors that may influence consumers’ shopping experience
and store loyalty (Kim et al. 2014). Moreover, previous research has highlighted the
limitations inherent to analyze loyalty as one-single dimension construct
(Evanschitzky and Wunderlich 2006; Oliver 1999), stressing the importance of
making a distinction between attitudinal and behavioral dimensions when assessing
loyalty.
We build on this and analyze the impact of private labels offer on consumer
loyalty towards the store, taking into consideration not just the multiple loyalty
factors identified by previous studies, as also taking into consideration the multi-
dimensional characteristics of loyalty.
The Impact of Private Labels on Different Stages of Store Loyalty: An. . . 17

2 Background

One of the first issues raised in previous studies is that there is no universal
agreement on the consumer loyalty concept (Blut et al. 2007; Evanschitzky and
Wunderlich 2006; Kumar and Shah 2004). While initial research on consumer
loyalty assessed it as a simple repurchase behavior or share of total purchases, it
quickly became obvious that consumer loyalty is a complex issue that deserves
special attention (Day 1976). According to Dick and Basu (1994), loyalty should be
analyzed as a combination of individuals’ relative attitude together with their
repeated patronage (towards a brand, service, or store), being important to distin-
guish and analyze the different possible antecedents of attitude since they can
contribute differently to loyalty (cognitive, affective, and conative antecedents).
Oliver (1999) proposed a four-stage loyalty model that since then has been widely
used in the literature when studying loyalty related issues (Evanschitzky and
Wunderlich 2006, Harris and Goode 2004). In the present research we build on
this four-stage loyalty model (Oliver 1999) making a distinction between the four
proposed loyalty stages: cognitive, affective, conative, and action.
According to the model proposed by Oliver (1999), loyalty is considered to be a
deeply held commitment to re-buy a preferred product or service, proposing that
different aspects of loyalty emerge consecutively over time. In the first stage-
cognitive loyalty, loyalty is driven by the information available related to advan-
tages and disadvantages of a brand, service, or store. It can be based on previous or
second hand knowledge, or recent experiences. It is the weakest type of loyalty
since customers are loyal to brand performance rather than to the brand itself, which
increases the likelihood of switching, once they perceive other offers with better
attributes. Once this first stage is fulfilled, it follows the affective loyalty stage
which is characterized by favorable attitudes towards a brand and where loyalty
develops based on various brand satisfying usage experiences. It reflects the
positive feelings experienced by consumers about a specific brand or service
provider. The third stage—conative loyalty—is influenced by repeated episodes
of positive affect towards a brand and implies customers’ commitment to re-buy it,
reflecting consumers’ purchase intentions and being akin to motivation. Finally,
after evolving through all these stages, consumers reach the action loyalty stage,
where their intentions are converted into actions and willingness to buy the favorite
offer, abandoning any other alternatives. This last stage completes the loyalty
attitude-based model, reflecting consumer commitment to the action of re-buying.
In order to explain what drives consumers loyalty towards a specific store or
retailer, some authors point out as differentiating factors the store service quality
(Bloemer et al. 1999), some stress the fixed and variable total costs of shopping
(Bell et al. 1998), while others found that many different variables, such as parking
facilities or store opening-closing times, can play an important role (Sawmong and
Omar 2004). Therefore, because today’s marketplaces offer consumers a lot of
shopping options, both in terms of number and type of stores available as in terms of
products offered, we propose it is important to adopt an integrated approach where
18 R.C. do Vale and P.V. Matos

all the factors that may affect consumers’ intentions to repurchase at a certain store
are considered, including consumers’ loyalty towards the private labels. Moreover,
since at each loyalty stage different loyalty factors can be detected (Evanschitzky
and Wunderlich 2006), we argue that is also important to make a distinction
between these to assess the specific contribution of each factor. As highlighted by
Evanschitzky and Wunderlich (2006), relatively little research has focused on
testing the total four-stage model, especially in a retail setting. Also Han and
colleagues (2008) stressed that models that try to explain loyalty behavior in
services rarely go beyond the traditional quality-value-satisfaction models, being
important a more challenging and integrative perspective to identify loyalty deter-
minant factors. That is the aim of the present research.

3 Method

3.1 Data and Sample

Data was collected through an online survey in Portugal, where the retailing market
is moderately concentrated and where PLs market share represent about 32 %.
A total of 1403 participants opened and viewed the link, but only 824 started the
survey. 264 participants dropped out after starting, leaving a total sample of
560 completed surveys (response rate of 67.96 %). Out of these, only 469 reported
to be the household member who had primary responsibility for grocery shopping.
The final sample reported an average age of 42 years old, with 69.9 % of the
respondents being female. In terms of household structure, the majority of them
have at least three elements (56.3 %), with an average of 1.76 children. 59.9 % of
the respondents reported to shop primarily on the two retailing chains with highest
market share (which together represent about 50 % of the market), indicating that
our sample was representative of the grocery purchase patterns of the market under
analysis.

3.2 Survey Design

The survey was divided in three main sections: screening and supermarket charac-
terization, main constructs measurement, and socio-demographic assessment.
Regarding the screening and supermarket characterization section, participants
were asked to indicate if they were the primary household groceries shopper as also
to indicate in which supermarket they spent the highest amount on monthly grocery
purchases. Participants were then informed that they should answer all questions
bearing this supermarket in mind. This procedure assured that all the data collected
was related to a specific retailing chain.
The Impact of Private Labels on Different Stages of Store Loyalty: An. . . 19

3.3 Measurement of Main Constructs

Regarding private label loyalty construct, we created four items to assess the level
of loyalty expressed by consumers towards the store branded products (e.g., “I like
to purchase the private label of this store” and “There are some categories in which I
just consume the private label of this store”; α ¼ .87).
To assess the different stages of loyalty we adapted four items developed by Blut
and colleagues (2007), each one measuring each type of loyalty. In line with the
four-stage loyalty model proposed in the literature (Evanschitzky and Wunderlich
2006; Harris and Goode 2004; Oliver 1999), we collected data on: (1) cognitive
loyalty—measured by “from the group of stores I know, this store is the one with
better quality/price ratio”; (2) affective loyalty—assessed by “based on all my
experience with this store, I am very satisfied”; (3) conative loyalty—measured
by “Given your experience with this store, please indicate the probability to
recommend it to someone else”; and (4) action loyalty—which was assessed by
asking participants to indicate “Out of each 10 times you choose a store to shop,
please indicate how many times on average you choose this store” (adjusted later on
to a 7-points scale).
In order to assess each of the main constructs identified in the literature as
possible store loyalty driving factors, we adapted items from previous studies. All
items were measured using 7-point scales (1 ¼ totally disagree; 7 ¼ totally agree)
and reported adequate reliability indicators.

4 Statistical Analysis and Results

In a first stage, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to test how well
the observed variables represented the underlying latent constructs. The factor
loadings estimates were computed by the maximum likelihood method, identifying
which standardized loading estimates were 0.5 or higher, indicating convergent
validity (Hair et al. 2006). We then computed the fraction of variance explained by
each observed indicator (coefficient of determination). Results from this analysis
indicate an overall good validity of the items used to assess each construct. Using
the threshold of 0.5 to identify significant loadings, we can see that all but five
items (conv1, conv2, conv3, conv8 and conv10) in the CFA have significant
loadings. Since the deletion of these items would only marginally contribute to an
improvement of the reliability of the scale (from α ¼ .732 to α ¼ .735), we decided
to keep the original 10 items of the scale.
In a second stage, we run multilevel regression models to estimate each loyalty
model. Multilevel regression analysis takes into account the hierarchical structure
of the data, when data are nested in multiple groups (in our case nested in
10 retailers). Four separate multilevel regression analyses were performed (using
the “mixed” command in STATA 13.0) with respectively each loyalty level of
20 R.C. do Vale and P.V. Matos

individual i on retailer j as the dependent variables (SLcogij, SLaffij, SLconij,


SLactij). As explanatory variables we included all the assessed loyalty factors:
(1) store appearance and environment (Appij), (2) convenience (Convij), (3) store
employees (Emplij), (4) mercandising (Mercij), (5) store service (Servij), (6) social
groups (Sogrij), (7) switching costs (SwCoij), (8) promotions (Promij), (9) store
loyalty programs (SLprij), (10) price policies (Prpoij), (11) private label loyalty
(PLloij).
Additionally, we also included all the variables assessed at individual level to
control for participant characteristics (gender, age, education, family members,
level of spending on supermarket purchases), all the variables assessed at retailer
level to control for its characteristics (number of outlets, turnover per store), and
finally an error term for each participant’s deviation from the overall average (ui)
and an error term for each participant’s deviation from their own mean group level
of loyalty (eij). The following four models were estimated (the four dependent
variables separated by a comma):

SLcogij , SLaff ij, SLconij, SLactij ¼ β0 þ β1 Appij


þ β2 Convij þ β3 Emplij þ β4 Mercij þ β5 Servij
þ β6 Sogrij þ β7 SwCoij þ β8 Promij þ β9 SLprij
þ β10 Prpoij þ β11 PLloij þ β12 Gendi þ β13 Agei
þ β14 Educi þ β15 Fami þ β16 Spendi þ β17 Outj
þ β18 Turnj þ ui þ eij :

Model 1—Cognitive Stage Results from the application of the full model to the
cognitive loyalty fully support the underlying reasoning for the existence of this
loyalty stage. The multilevel regression findings indicate that at this stage, besides
the positive explanatory power of private label loyalty (β ¼ .113, p < .01), the
factors that seem to play a more significant role when estimating cognitive loyalty
are store price positioning (β ¼ .572, p < .001), followed by store service (β ¼ .188,
p < .05), and promotions policy (β ¼ .124, p < .01). This reveals the high impor-
tance of economic factors (price and promotional positioning) on consumers
cognitive loyalty, supporting the idea that in this loyalty stage consumers are
more likely to adopt a costs and benefits approach (Oliver 1999), instead of a
brand affective relation approach.
Model 2—Affective Stage This loyalty stage is typically related with the experi-
ence of emotions towards the brand or service supplier. Results from the multivar-
iate regression run for this model identify several new distinctive factors (compared
with model 1), in line with the theoretical positioning of this stage. This time,
results indicate store appearance to be the most important factor (β ¼ .212,
p < .001), followed by price positioning (β ¼ .196, p < .001), store service
(β ¼ .183, p < .001), merchandising (β ¼ .161, p < .01), social groups (β ¼ .082,
p < .05), and finally, private labels loyalty (β ¼ .055, p < .05), which reveals to
have a modest contribution in this loyalty stage. Compared with model 1, it is
obvious a stronger predominance of in-store loyalty factors (appearance,
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Turk and Armenian are in the wrong, and that, as very often
happens, it is the innocent who have suffered for the
wrong-doings of the guilty. When it is asserted on behalf of
the Turks that they are engaged in suppressing a revolutionary
movement in Armenia, the statement is fully justified by the
facts of the case. There does exist in Armenia an extremely
vigorous revolutionary movement, and it is equally beyond
question that the methods of some of the leaders of this
movement are no less shocking than the barbarity of the Turk
in suppressing it. At every step," he added, "I became more
and more convinced that the inhuman ferocity displayed in this
terrible struggle for the mastery has not been in the least
exaggerated in the reports of the massacres already published
in England. At Bitlis I heard the story of a Turkish soldier
who boasted, as one who had achieved a glorious feat, that he
had taken part in the disembowelling of thirty pregnant
women. 'Two lives in one,' was the rallying cry of the armed
men who perpetrated this butchery. Another soldier, who had
taken part in a massacre in a church, described, gloating upon
every ghastly detail, how he had slipped and slid along the
blood-washed floor while the inhuman work proceeded.
Unfortunately, something very like a counterpart of these
atrocities is presented by the methods of some of the leaders
of the Armenian revolutionary movement. I believe there is no
doubt of the fact that certain of these Armenian conspirators
arranged to murder the Reverend Dr. Edward Riggs and two other
American missionaries at Marsovan, and fasten the blame upon
the Turks, in order that, as they imagined, the United States
might inflict summary punishment upon the Turkish Government,
thereby rendering Armenian independence possible. The
missionaries only escaped through a timely warning which they
received from an Armenian friend. Dr. Riggs has devoted his
life to the education of the Armenian youth in the missionary
schools, but the conspirators, in their blind fanaticism, gave
this fact little heed."

There could be no denial however, that the treatment of


Armenia and the Armenians by their Turkish political masters
was horribly bad. In May, the governments of Great Britain,
France and Russia united in proposing certain reforms for
Armenia, over which there were evasive and dilatory
negotiations carried on by the Porte for several months.
Meantime, the Armenians became more aggressive and
threatening, and a secret society called the "Hintchak," which
had been in existence among them since 1887, assumed great
activity. Connected with the Hintchak there was said to be an
organization of spies and "executioners," the latter of whom
carried out decrees of assassination, arson, and
bomb-explosion which the society had pronounced. Finally, on
the 17th of October, an imperial irade (edict, or decree) was
issued, approving and adopting the project of reform which the
British, French and Russian ambassadors had submitted to the
Porte.
{538}
But the appearance of the sultan's ineffectual irade was
speedily followed by fresh reports of frightful massacres of
Armenians, at Trebizond, Erzeroum, Bitlis, Zeitoun, and
elsewhere, with outraging of women and destruction of
property, which increased rather than diminished as time went
on. There was no sign that anything had been done towards
carrying out the promised reforms; though the sultan wrote
personally to Lord Salisbury to remonstrate against an
expression of skepticism concerning them, which the latter had
let fall in a speech, and to say to the British Premier: "I will
execute the reforms. … This is my earnest determination, as to
which I give my word of honour." But nothing came of it all,
and the Powers which had received the Sultan's promises could
agree on no steps further, except to demand and obtain
permission to bring, each, an additional gunboat into the
Bosphorus.

Annual Register, 1895,


pages 284-294 and 190-193.
In response to a resolution of the Senate of the United States
asking for information relative to the treatment of the
Armenian subjects of the Turkish government, the Secretary of
State, Mr. Olney, on the 19th of December, 1895, communicated
the following, among other statements of fact: Of the
massacres at Sassoun, which occurred in August, 1894, "the
Department of State has little trustworthy information. …
Since that time appalling outbreaks against the Armenians have
occurred in many other parts of Asia Minor, where these
unfortunate people form but a small minority of the
population. At first they were scarcely more than local riots,
as at Tokat, in the vilayet of Sivas, in March last, where one
Armenian was killed outright and more than 30 wounded by the
Turkish soldiery. In June last an attempted rising of
Armenians in the province of Aleppo in the mountains of
Kozar-Dagh and Zeitoun was thwarted without bloodshed by the
arrest of the alleged conspirators. … In July a band of armed
Armenians crossing into the vilayet of Erzerum from Russia was
dispersed, several being killed or captured. By August the
Moslem feeling against Armenians had become so far aroused
that rumors of intended massacres came from several
independent quarters, Harpoot, Marsovan, and Bitlis among
them, which led to urgent demands by the United States
minister for adequate measures looking to the due protection
of American citizens in those places.

"On the 30th of September grave disturbances began at


Constantinople itself. Several hundred Armenians, who had
gathered for the purpose of going in a body to the Sultan's
palace and demanding redress for the grievances of their
countrymen, were dispersed by the police after a severe
conflict in which a number of Turks and Armenians were killed
and wounded. Mob violence followed, the Armenians resident in
various quarters of the capital being assailed by an excited
Turkish rabble, and over 50 were slain. The rioting continued
the next day, October 1, in Constantinople and its suburbs.
Some 800 or 1,000 Armenians were captured or arrested, many of
them being armed with new revolvers of a uniform pattern. By
the third day order was restored, and the Armenians who had
sought refuge in their churches returned to their homes. The
effect of this outbreak at the national capital was most
disastrous in the provinces. The danger of a general massacre
of Christians in the vilayets of Adana and Aleppo seemed so
imminent, that renewed orders for the effective protection of
American citizens in those quarters were demanded and
obtained. Fears for their safety at Hadjin, Mersine, and
Marash were especially felt, and the cruiser Marblehead was
promptly ordered to Iskanderoun (Alexandretta), the nearest
seaport.

"On October 8 a Turkish uprising occurred at Trebizond, due,


it is reported, to an attempt to assassinate the late Vali of
Van as he was about to leave for Constantinople, the Turks
claiming that the act was done by an Armenian and that they
were in danger of a general Armenian attack. On the 9th the
disturbance was renewed, many Armenians being killed and their
homes and shops looted by the mob. The authorities attempted
to quell the riot, but having only some 400 soldiers and
policemen at command, were powerless, and murder and pillage
ran their course as long as an Armenian was in sight. The
official Turkish reports give the number of Armenians slain as
182, of Turks 11, but the general estimate places the total
number at some 500. Reinforcements of troops soon arrived, and
quiet was restored. No injury to American citizens or property
occurred.

"From this time the reports of conflicts between Turks and


Armenians, with great loss of life, become frequent and
confused. At Akhissar, some 60 miles from Smyrna, 50 Armenians
were killed October 9. Koordish raids terrorized many parts of
the Armenian provinces. At Bitlis over 500 were reported
killed, the Turkish accounts alleging that the Armenians
attacked the Moslem mosques during the hour of prayer. At
Diarbekir 5,000 are said to have lost their lives, of which
2,300 were Mussulmans—but the Turkish authorities pronounce
this estimate exaggerated. From Malatia comes the report of a
'great massacre' early in November, when every adult male
Christian is said to have perished. Another sanguinary
outbreak, with great slaughter, is reported from Sivas on
November 12; some 800 Armenians and 10 Koords are said to have
been killed. At Hadjin and Ourfa loss of life is reported, the
American missionaries at those places being protected by
Turkish guards under orders from the Porte.

"The Kaimakam of Hadjin is credibly said to have announced


that he would destroy the town and sow barley on its site.
There being an American school at that place, directed by
American teachers, the United States minister thereupon
notified the Porte that if one of those American ladies
received injury from the riotous conduct of the populace, he
would demand, in the name of the United States, 'the head of
that Kaimakam.' That officer has since been removed. Later
reports allege massacres at Marsovan and Amasia. The consular
agent at Aleppo telegraphs that a severe conflict had occurred
at Aintab, and that great fear prevailed at Aleppo. The
burning of the American buildings at Harpoot took place during
a bloody riot, and many persons are said to have perished in
the province of that name. At Kurun 400 deaths are reported.
Particulars of the recent outbreak at Marash, on November 19,
in which American missionary property was destroyed, have not
yet been received.

{539}

"These scattered notices, for the most part received by


telegraph, are given, not as official averment of the facts
stated, but as showing the alarming degree to which racial
prejudices and fanatical passions have been roused throughout
Asia Minor. As above said, the Department of State has and can
have official knowledge regarding but few of these reported
massacres, and though up to the early part of December the
United States minister estimated the number of the killed as
exceeding 30,000, it is more than likely that the figures are
greatly exaggerated. At latest advices mob violence and
slaughter appear to have been checked, or at least to have
partially subsided. The Turkish Government has been emphatic
in assurances of its purpose and ability to restore order in
the affected localities; new governors have been appointed in
many of the provinces, troops have been sent to the scene of
recent or apprehended disorders, and forces have been massed
to subdue the Armenians who had gained the ascendant in
Zeitoun."

Of the American missionary establishments in Turkey, and of


the extent to which they suffered harm during the outbreaks,
the same report gave the following account:

"The number of citizens of the United States resident in the


Turkish Empire is not accurately known. According to latest
advices there are 172 American missionaries, dependents of
various mission boards in the United States, scattered over
Asia Minor. There are also numbers of our citizens engaged in
business or practicing professions in different parts of the
Empire. Besides these, more or less persons, originally
subjects of Turkey and since naturalized in the United States,
have returned to the country of their birth and are
temporarily residing there. The whole number of persons
comprising these several classes can not be accurately
estimated, but, the families of such citizens being
considered, can hardly be less than five or six hundred, and
may possibly exceed that total.

"Outside of the capital and a few commercial seaport towns,


the bulk of this large American element is found in the
interior of Asia Minor and Syria, remote from the few consular
establishments maintained by this Government in that quarter,
inaccessible except by difficult journeys, and isolated from
each other by the broken character of the mountain country and
the absence of roads. Under these circumstances and in the
midst of the alarming agitation which for more than a year
past has existed in Asia Minor, it has been no slight task for
the representative of the United States to follow the
interests of those whose defense necessarily falls to his
care, to demand and obtain the measures indispensable to their
safety, and to act instantly upon every appeal for help in
view of real or apprehended peril. It is, however, gratifying
to bear testimony to the energy and promptness of the minister
in dealing with every grievance brought to his notice, and his
foresight in anticipating complaints and securing timely
protection in advance of actual need. The efforts of the
minister have had the moral support of the presence of naval
vessels of the United States on the Syrian and Adanan coasts
from time to time as occasion required. …

"While the physical safety of all citizens of the United


States appears up to the present date to have been secured,
their property has, on at least two recent occasions, been
destroyed in the course of local outbursts at Harpoot and
Marash. The details of the Harpoot destruction have so far
been only meagerly reported, although it took place about the
middle of November. It is stated that the buildings at that
place were set on fire separately by Kurds and citizens, in
the presence of the Turkish soldiery, during an Armenian riot.
Besides the chapel, girls' theological school and seminary
building, the ladies' house, boarding house, and residences of
three American missionaries were burned, the aggregate loss on
the buildings, personal property, stock, fixtures, and
apparatus being estimated in the neighborhood of $100,000. The
United States minister has notified the Porte that the Turkish
Government will be held responsible for the immediate and full
satisfaction of all injuries on that score. The American
Missionary School of Science at Marash was burned during a
sanguinary outbreak on November 19. The value of the property
destroyed has not been ascertained, but after prompt
investigation the minister will make like demand for adequate
indemnity."

United States, 54th Congress, 1st Session,


Senate Document, Number 33.

"On November 9 one of tho Foreign Consuls arrived at


Constantinople from Erzeroum on leave, and he reported the
scene on his journey as heartrending. 'The whole country
between Trebizond and Erzeroum was devastated. He counted 100
dead bodies lying by the road near one town. Nearly all the
villages were burnt, and in many cases the male population
entirely wiped out.' At last, on December 13, 1895, Lord
Salisbury received the following telegraphic despatch from Sir
Philip Currie: 'It may be roughly stated that the recent
disturbances have devastated, as far as the Armenians are
concerned, the whole of the provinces to which the scheme of
reforms was intended to apply; that over an extent of
territory considerably larger than Great Britain all the large
towns, with the exception of Van, Sassun, and Moush, have been
the scene of massacres of the Armenian population, while the
Armenian villages have been almost entirely destroyed. A
modest estimate puts the loss of life at 30,000. The survivors
are in a state of absolute destitution, and in many places
they are being forced to turn Mussulmans. The charge against
the Armenians of having been the first to offer provocation
cannot be sustained. Non-Armenian Christians were spared, and
the comparatively few Turks who fell were killed in
self-defence. The participation of the soldiers in the
massacres is in many places established beyond doubt.'

"Of the appalling horror of this account I wish it were


needless to speak. … [It] would be none the less horrible if
the whole of the people massacred and outraged, ruined, and
starved, and driven to the snowy mountains in the middle of
winter, had been all the rudest villagers of the most rustic
village communities. But when we know that many thousands of
the victims have been people educated at Christian schools and
colleges, and who had acquired there, in addition to the
ineradicable virtues of their native and ancient faith, much
also of the refinements and activities of civilised life, we
may reach some true conception of the agonies which have been
inflicted on such a people in the face of Europe and of the
world by the cruelty and brutality of the Turks.
{540}
It is, indeed, right that our first indignation should be
directed against the infamous Government of Turkey. … Let us
remember that this is not a Government with which we have had
nothing to do, or for which we have had no responsibility, but
a Government which the European Powers, and we especially,
have been protecting and nursing for half a century. … Then we
may indeed begin to think, with remorse and shame, of our
handiwork, and of its results. In this particular case,
indeed, the immediate blame lies almost alone with Russia. By
a complete departure from all her previous great traditions
she deliberately refused to join the other Powers of Europe
for the purpose of compelling the Sultan to act with decent
humanity to those of whom she had been the declared defender.
She had the physical power and the geographical opportunity
which others had not; and there can be no doubt whatever that
a joint occupation of the waters of Constantinople by the
fleets of the European Powers would have secured the very
moderate demands that Europe made upon the Porte."

The Duke of Argyle,


Our Responsibilities for Turkey,
pages 116-122.

TURKEY: A. D. 1896.
Conflict in Crete between Christians and Mussulmans,
and its preceding causes.

In 1868, the Cretans, for the second time, were thrust under
the Turkish yoke. "By way of solace the Powers exerted
themselves feebly in inducing the Porte to concede the
so-called 'Organic Statute'

See (in volume 3)


GREECE: A. D. 1862-1881.
Organic Regulation.

… As the Charter remained a dead letter, the Cretans seized


the next favourable opportunity to rise in 1877. Their case
was brought before the Congress of Berlin; but the only relief
the Powers could extend to them was a fresh promise on the
part of the Porte, recorded in the XXIII Article of the
Treaty, to observe scrupulously that Organic Statute, which
had been proved to be unworkable. Meanwhile, the Cretans had
remained under arms during the whole of 1878, the island being
again almost completely devastated by the half-naked and
famishing troops which had survived the Russo-Turkish War.
Ultimately, through the mediation of England, the Porte was
induced, in November of that year, to concede the Pact of
Halepa, so named after the village near Canea where it was
negotiated, and signed under the supervision of the British
Consul, Mr. T. B. Sandwith—this fact being expressly recorded
in the preamble of the document. The arrangement was accepted
by the Cretans as a compromise, in spite of its many and
manifest drawbacks. Nevertheless, it brought about, at the
outset, certain beneficial results. Political parties were
formed in which the Mohammedan Cretans blended, irrespective
of religious differences, with their Christian countrymen; and
the unprecedented phenomenon of a Christian Vali completing
his four years' tenure of governorship was witnessed in the
person of Photiades Pasha.

"But this tendency to conciliation of the conflicting elements


in the island was by no means to the liking of the Porte. The
presence of a Mussulman military governor was therefore
discovered to be necessary; and as his grade was usually
superior to that of the Vali, and the Mussulman sub-governor
was the official whose recommendations were of weight with the
Porte, nothing was easier than to create insuperable
difficulties for the Christian Vali. Thus successive Valis
were compelled—often by private wire from Constantinople—to
tender their resignation; while, at the same time, the Porte
took care not to fulfil the financial engagements prescribed
by the Pact. By these means an acute crisis was brought about
under the Governorship of Sartinski Pasha, a Pole, in 1889,
when a preconcerted plan of deception and treachery was
carried out by the Porte with consummate skill.

"The Cretans, as it is but natural, are guided in critical


contingencies by the advice they seek at Athens. The Porte
therefore promised to the Greek Government, as soon as things
began to assume a threatening aspect in Crete, to satisfy the
demands of the islanders, provided they were prevailed upon to
abstain from occupying certain important positions. In spite
of the transparent perfidy of the proposal, M. Tricoupis, the
then Greek Premier, fell into the snare. While the Cretans
were held back, troops were poured into the island, and the
strategical points having been seized, the Greek Government
and the Cretans were defied. An Imperial firman, issued in
November of that year, abrogated the Pact of Halepa and the
British Government, under whose auspices it was concluded, was
now powerless to exact respect for what was virtually an
international arrangement. There was no longer any question of
a Christian Vali with a fixed tenure of office, or of an
Assembly of Cretan representatives. Shakir Pasha, the
commander of the Turkish troops, was invested with absolute
civil and military authority; Mussulman Albanians occupied the
Christian villages as gendarmes, and Crete continued to submit
to this kind of martial law up to 1894. When, however, Mahmoud
Djelaleddin Pasha, the then Mussulman Vali, surpassed even his
predecessors in arbitrariness, and actually dictated to the
tribunals decisions in favour of Mohammedan litigants, the
Cretans began to lose patience and another outbreak appeared
imminent. It was only then that the Great Powers moved in the
matter and prevailed upon the Porte to revert partly to the
pre-existing order of things, by appointing Alexander
Karatheodory Pasha, a Christian and a Greek, as Governor.
Beyond this, however, the Pact of Halepa was not observed.
True to its traditional tactics, the Porte took with one hand
what it had given with the other. The Mussulman Deputy
Governor and the military commander frustrated every effort of
the Vali, the very funds necessary for the maintenance of the
gendarmerie being denied him. Karatheodory was consequently
forced to resign. Complete anarchy now reigned in the island."

Ypsiloritis,
The Situation in Crete
(Contemporary Review, September, 1896).

"Occasional skirmishes between the Christian inhabitants and


the soldiers kept the excitement simmering and ushered in the
sanguinary scenes that finally followed. Turkhan Pasha, taking
time by the forelock, armed the Cretan Moslems for the combat
with the approval of the commander of the troops, and the
city of Canea prepared for a blood bath. The Mohammedan Lent
(Ramazan) was drawing to a close, and the three days of
rejoicing which invariably follow (Bairam) were supposed to be
fixed for the attack on the Christians. These anticipations
were duly realised, and on the 24th May, 1896, at 1 o'clock P.
M., the Turks fired the first shots, blowing out the brains of
several Christians to make that Moslem holiday.
{541}
Forearmed, however, is forewarned, and the Christians defended
themselves to the best of their ability on that day and the
25th and 26th, during which every house in Canea was
barricaded, and neighbours living on opposite sides of the
absurdly narrow streets fired at each other from behind stone
heaps piled up in the windows of their bedrooms. The streets
were deserted, all traffic suspended, and it was not until the
27th that the thirty Christian corpses (including two women
and four children) and the twenty lifeless Turks were removed
for burial.
"These events provoked a new administrative change of scene:
Turkhan Pasha was recalled, and Abdullah Pasha, at the head of
four battalions from Salonica, came to take his place. These
troops laid waste the villages and fields of the provinces of
Apokorona, Cydonia, and Kissamo, burning houses, huts, and
churches on the way. The best soldiers in the world, however,
run terrible risks in the interior of Crete, and Abdullah was
repulsed with the loss of two hundred men at the town of
Vamos. The foreign consuls at Canea, having verified these
facts, strongly blamed his conduct in a joint verbal note, and
the Porte shortly afterwards recalled him, and appointed
Berovitch Pasha [Prince of Samos] in his place. This was the
beginning of the end. The Christians of the island meanwhile
met, and through their delegates formulated certain demands,
which the foreign consuls referred to their ambassadors at
Constantinople, and the famous 'Modifications of the
Convention of Halepa' were framed in consequence. The sultan,
too, yielding to tardy pressure, graciously conceded the
nomination of a Christian governor-general in the person of
Berovitch, the summoning of the National Assembly, and other
demands. … The questions of the tribunals and the gendarmerie
[for the enforcement of peace and order in the island] were to
be arranged by international commissions; but weeks and months
passed away before they were even appointed. … At last the
commissions arrived and began their work in December [1896]."

E. J. Dillon,
Crete and the Cretans
(Fortnightly Review, May, 1897).

TURKEY: A. D. 1896 (January-March


Turkish opposition to English and American measures
for relief to Armenian sufferers.
Work of Miss Clara Barton and the Red Cross Society.

For some time the distribution of supplies from England and


America to the sufferers in Armenia was forbidden by the
Turkish government, for reasons stated by the Turkish minister
at Washington as follows: "The collections are made on the
strength of speeches delivered in public meetings by
irreconcilable enemies of the Turkish race and religion, and
on the basis of false accusations that Turkey repudiates.
Besides, the Sublime Porte is mindful of the true interests of
its subjects, and, distinguishing between the real state of
things and the calumnies and wild exaggerations of interested
or fanatical parties, will under its own legitimate control
alleviate the wants of all Turkish subjects, irrespective of
creed or race." The Red Cross Society, of which the American
branch had prepared to send its President, Miss Clara Barton,
with a small corps of assistants, to the scene of the
suffering, was especially excluded, by the order of the Porte.
Miss Barton and her staff sailed, however, from New York, in
January, and Mr. Terrell, the American minister at
Constantinople, succeeded in obtaining permission for them to
do their humane work as private individuals, not in the name
of the obnoxious society, and without displaying its insignia:
The single-mindedness, the prudence, the patient energy with
which Miss Barton pursued the one object of giving relief to
the suffering, overcame all opposition and all obstructions,
so that, in April, she was able to report:

"The way is all made clear for sending supplies. The suitable
agents all along the route are now known, and have been
arranged with for service, so that heavy supplies can be sent
at any and all times as they are needed. I feel my breath come
lighter as I think of these poor scourged and fever-stricken
towns without even one doctor, when our sixteen strong,
skilled men, with twenty-five camels' burden of supplies,
shall carry some light of hope and help into their night of
hopeless woe. I am happy to be able to say for the comfort of
contributors, that I hold the written word of the Porte,
officially given through the minister of foreign affairs from
the grand vizier, that not the slightest interference with any
distribution within the province will be had. This official
document was addressed and delivered to Sir Philip Currie, the
British ambassador, and by him passed to me. The decision is
general and final, without question or reservation, and
settles all doubt."

In September Miss Barton returned home for rest, and to bear


her testimony to America of the immensity of the need still
existing in the Armenian provinces and calling for help. Her
departure from Constantinople was reported by the newspapers
to have been the occasion of a remarkable demonstration, by
cheers, flags and salutes, from ship and shore, of the
estimate put upon the work she had done.

TURKEY: A. D. 1896 (August).


Attack of Armenian revolutionists on the
Ottoman Bank at Constantinople.
Turkish massacre of Armenians in the city.

In the spring of 1896, the Armenian revolutionists, encouraged


by the outbreak in Crete, made fresh appeals for attention to
the sufferings of their country, with threats of some
desperate action if no heed was given. In August, the
desperate act was undertaken, at Constantinople, by 30 or 40
madly devoted men. This reckless little band of misguided
patriots made a sudden attack on the Ottoman Bank, a British
institution which controls finance in the Turkish empire,
gained possession of the building, made prisoners and hostages
of two of its directors and some 80 of its clerks, and were
fully prepared with dynamite to destroy everything within its
walls, including themselves, if certain reforms which they set
forth were not instantly decreed. Their theory was, that "the
Ambassadors would force the Sultan to grant the reasonable
reforms which they demanded for the Armenians, rather than
permit the destruction of the Bank and its staff. It was a
scheme borrowed from the theatre, absurd in itself, and made
ridiculous by the way in which they failed to carry it out.
They went in bravely, and nothing hindered their destroying
the Bank, but they allowed themselves to be talked out of it
by Mr. Maximoff, the Russian dragoman, and would have been the
laughing stock of the world if its attention had not been
absorbed by the massacre which followed.

{542}

"The real heroism of that day was displayed in another quarter


of the city, by another small party of Russian Armenians, men
and women, who took possession of two stone houses and fought
the Turkish troops to the death, the survivors killing
themselves when they could fight no longer. There was no
serious fighting anywhere else, although dynamite bombs were
thrown from the windows of houses and khans upon the troops in
a number of places, showing that some preparation had been
made for a more extended outbreak. There is nothing to be said
in justification of this attempt of the revolutionists. They had
provocation enough to justify anything in reason, but there
was nothing reasonable in this plan, nothing in it to attract
the sympathy of the Powers or to conciliate public opinion;
and if the statements are true which have been made by
Armenians as to certain unexecuted parts of the plan, it was
diabolical. This only can be said on behalf of these
revolutionary committees. They are the natural outcome of the
treatment of the Armenians by the Turkish Government during
the last twenty years. When oppression passes a certain limit
and men become desperate, such revolutionary organisation
always appears. They are the fruit and not the cause of the
existing state of things in Turkey, and if we can judge by the
experience of other countries, the worse things become here,
the more violent will be the action of these committees,
whether Europe enjoys it or not.

"Revolutionists are the same all the world over, but the
Turkish Government is unique, and it is not the attack on the
Bank which interests us but the action of the Government which
followed it. As we have said, the authorities had full
information of what was to be attempted and did nothing to
prevent it, but they made every preparation for carrying out
their own plan. Bands of ruffians were gathered in Stamboul,
Galata, and Pera, made up of Kurds, Lazes, and the lower class
of Turks, armed with clubs, knives or firearms; and care was
taken that no one should kill or plunder in the quarter to
which he belonged, lest he should be recognised and complaint
made afterwards by the Embassies, with a demand for
punishment. A large number of carts were in readiness to carry
off the dead. The troops and police were in great force to
prevent any resistance, and to assist the mob if necessary. It
was a beautiful day, the streets were crowded, and few had any
idea of what had happened at the Bank, when suddenly, without
any warning, the work of slaughter and plunder began,
everywhere at once. European ladies on the way to the
Bosphorus steamers suddenly found themselves surrounded by
assassins, and saw men beaten to death at their feet. Foreign
merchants saw their own employés cut to pieces at their doors.
The streets in some places literally ran with blood. Every man
who was recognised as an Armenian was killed without mercy. In
general, the soldiers took no part in the slaughter and
behaved well, and this somewhat reassured those in the streets
who were not Armenians; but in a few moments the shops were
closed and a wild panic spread through the city. The one idea
of everyone was to get home; and as the foreigners and better
classes live out of the city in summer they had to go to the
Galata bridge to take the steamers, which ran as usual all
through the three days of massacre. This took them through the
streets where the slaughter was going on, and consequently we
have the testimony of hundreds of eye-witnesses as to what
took place. The work of death and plunder continued unchecked
for two days. On Friday there were isolated outbreaks, and
occasional assassinations occurred up to Tuesday.

"The number killed will never be known. The Ambassadors put it


at 5,000 or 6,000; the official report to the palace at 8,750,
besides those thrown into the sea. Thousands of houses, shops
and offices were plundered, including a number belonging to
Greeks and foreigners. Everything was done in the most
systematic way, and there was not a moment of anarchy, not a
moment when the army and police had not perfect control of the
city during all these days. … The majority of those massacred
belonged to the working class—especially the hamals
(porters)—but a large number of gentlemen, merchants and other
wealthy men, were killed, together with about fifty women and
children. The savage brutality of the Moslem mob was something
beyond all imagination, and in many cases the police joined in
beating men to death and hacking others to death with knives,
in the very face of Europeans. … In may cases European
officials appealed to the officers in command of the troops,
who were looking on at the slaughter of helpless, unarmed men,
to interfere and put a stop to it. The reply was 'We have
orders.' It was an officer who killed the clerk of the British
Post-office on the steps. And some of the most cold-blooded
and horrible murders took place in front of the guard house,
at the Galata end of the bridge, in the presence of officers
of the Sultan's household of the highest rank. They also had
their orders.

"Happily for the honour of the Turkish people, there is


another side to the story. It was the Government and not the
people that conducted this massacre. And although the vile
instruments employed were told that they were acting in the
name of the Prophet, and freely used his name, and are
boasting to-day of what they did for Islam, the Sheik-ul-Islam
forbad the Softas taking any part in the slaughter, and many a
pious Turk did what he could to protect his neighbours. … It
is not the people, not even the mob, who are responsible for
this great crime. It was deliberately committed by the
Government. The Ambassadors of the six Powers have declared
this to be an unquestionable fact in the Joint Note addressed
to the Porte.
"Since the massacre this same Government has been carrying on
a warfare against the Armenians which is hardly less inhuman
than beating out their brains with clubs. There were from
150,000 to 200,000 Armenians in Constantinople. They were
merchants, shopkeepers, confidential clerks, employés in banks
and offices of every kind—the chief business men of the city.
They were the bakers of the city, they had charge of the khans
and bazaars and the wealth of the city; they were the porters,
house-servants, and navvies. … Now the Government has
undertaken to ruin this whole population. They are hunted
about the city and over the hills, like wild beasts. …
Thousands have been sent off at once to the Black Sea ports,
to find their way as best they can without money or food to
their desolated villages in the interior. … Thousands have
fled to foreign countries."

The Constantinople Massacre


(Contemporary Review, October, 1896).

{543}

TURKEY:A. D. 1897 (January-February).


Fresh conflicts in Crete.
Attitude of Christians and Mussulmans towards each other.
Reports of the British Consul-General and others.

Early in January, 1897, while proceedings for the organization


of the new gendarmerie were under way, and while the
discussion of candidates for the National Assembly, to be
elected in March, was rife, fresh hostilities between
Christians and Mussulmans broke out, and there seems to be
good evidence in the following report, by Sir Alfred Biliotti,
the British Consul-General at Canea, that responsibility for
the state of things in Crete should be charged upon one party
hardly more than upon the other. The despatch of the
Consul-General to Lord Salisbury, written January 9, 1897, is
partly as follows:
"In the afternoon of the 3rd instant a great panic occurred in
the town owing to a wounded Christian having been conveyed to
the hospital, where he died of his wounds in the night, and to
a rumour that two Mussulmans had been killed or wounded at the
same time on the road between Canea and Suda Bay. All the
shops were shut up as usual, but there was no general 'sauve
qui peut,' Christians especially having congregated in the
square near the hospital in the hope of finding out further
information. Happening to be in the town, I took a carriage
and drove towards Suda. When at about a mile distant from
Canea I came upon a number of Mussulmans, who told me that
four Christians going to Apokorona had, without any
provocation whatever, discharged their revolvers on three
Mussulmans, two of whom had been severely wounded. I saw one
of them in his cottage hard by the road with a bullet wound in
the abdomen; the other had been conveyed on horseback to the
village of Tsikalaria (southeast of Suda Bay), 2 miles from
where he had been wounded, of which he was a native. The four
Christians fled across the fields, leaving on the road a horse
and an overcoat, and took to the mountains.

"Between half and a quarter of an-hour after this incident


another Christian, a native, like the Turk, of Tsikalaria, was
passing on the road when he was fired upon by Mussulmans in
retaliation for the wounding of their two co-religionists. Not
having been hit, the Christian jumped from his mule and ran
for his life along the Suda road, being pursued by armed
Turks. He was overtaken by three of them about half-a-mile
farther down, and was shot at and mortally wounded at 20 paces
in front of Commander Shortland, of Her Majesty's ship 'Nile,'
who was coming on foot from Suda Bay to Canea. The wounded
Christian was taken charge of by the Albanian corporal
stationed in a Christian monastery close by, and was
subsequently put in a carriage by the Russian Consul, who was
returning from Suda Bay at that moment, and sent to the town
hospital, where he died. While I was making inquiries on the

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