Armenian Claims and Historical Facts

ARMENIAN CLAIMS

AND

HISTORICAL FACTS

Center for Strategic Research - 1998ANKARA

c o N T E N T s

TEN QUESTIONS, TEN ANSWERS 5

QUESTIO 1: WAS EASTERN ANATOLIA THE ORIGINAL HOMELAND OF THEARMENIANS? 7

QUESTIO 2: DID THE TURKS TAKE THE LANDS OF THE ARMENIA SBY FORCE? 9

QUESTION 3: HAVE THE TURKS ALWAYS ATTACKED AND MISRULEDARMENIANS THROUGHOUT HISTORY? 12

QUESTION 4: DID THE TURKS REALLY TRY TO MASSACRETHE ARMENIANS STARTING IN THE 1890's? 17

QUESTION 5: WHAT IS MEANT BY THE TERM "GENOCIDE" ? 27

QUESTIO 6: DID THE TURKS UNDERTAKE A PLANNED AND SYSTEMATICMASSACRE OF THE ARME IANS IN 19J5 ? 28

QUESTIO 7: DID TALAT PASHA SE D SECRET TELEGRAMS ORDERINGMASSACRES? 33

QUESTION 8: DID 1,5MILLION ARMENIANS DIE DURING WORLD WAR I? 39

QUESTION 9: IS THE SEVRES AGREEMENT STILL IN FORCE? 41

QUESTION 10: ARE THE ARMENIANS OF TURKEY BEING OPPRESSED TODAY? 44

THE ORL Y TRIAL 45

TESTIMONY OF PROFESSOR MUMTAZ SOYSAL, ANKARA UNIVERSITY 47

QUESTIO SAD ANSWERS 52

DECLARATION MADE BY AMERICAN ACADEMICIANS 61

ATTENTIO MEMBERS OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESE TATIVES 63

SIGNATORIES TO THE STATEME TO H.J. RES. 192 ADDRESSED TOTHE MEMBERS OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESE TATIVES 64

BIBLIOGRAPHY : 69

TEN QUESTIONS

TEN ANSWERS

QUESTION I: WAS EASTERN ANATOLIA THE ORIGINAL HOMELANDOF THE ARMENIANS?

Even Armenian historians disagree on this question. Let us examine some of theircontradictory theories while looking into Anatolian history.

1. The Biblical Noah Theory. According to this idea, the Armenians descended fromHayk, great-great grandson of the Biblical patriarch Noah. Since Noah's Arc is supposed tohave come to rest on Mount Ararat, the advocates of this idea conclude that eastern Anatoliamust have been the original Armenian homeland, adding that Hayk lived some four hundredyears and expanded his dominion as far as Babylon. This claim is based entirely on fables, noton any scientific evidence, and is not worthy of further consideration. The historian AugusteCarriere summarily dismisses it stating that "it depends entirely on information provided bysome Armenian historians, most of which was made up."(1)

2. The Urartu Theory. Some Armenians claim that they were the people of Urartu,which existed in eastern Anatolia starting about 3000 RC. until it was defeated and destroyedby the Medes, with its territory being contested for some time by Lydia and the Medes until itfinally fell under the influence of the latter. This claim has no basis in fact. 0 form of the nameArmenian is found in any inscription in Anatolia dating from that period, nor was there anysimilarity at all between the Armenian language and that ofUrartu, the former being a memberof the Satem group of Indo European languages, while the latter was similar to the Ural-Altaiclanguages. Nor were there any similarities between their cultures. The most recentarchaeological finds in the area of Erzurum support these conclusions very clearly. There is,therefore, absolutely no evidence at all to support the claim that the people of Urartu wereArmenian.

3. The Thracian-Phrygian Theory. The theory most favored by Armenian historiansclaims that they descended from a Thracian-Phrygian group, that originated in the BalkanPeninsula and by the pressure ofIllyrians migrated to eastern Anatolia in the sixth century B.C.This theory is based on the fact that the name Armenian was mentioned for the first time in theBehistan inscription of the Mede (Persian) Emperor Darius from the year 521 B.C., "I defeatedthe Armenians. " If accepted, of course, this view effectively contradicts and disproves the Noahand Urartu theories.

4. The Southern Caucasus Theory. This idea claims that the Armenians are relatedracially and culturally to the peoples of the Southern Caucasus and that, therefore, they

(1) CARRIERE, Auguste, Moise de Khoren et la Genealogie Patriarcale, Paris, 1896

WAS EASTERN ANATOLIA 7THE ORIGINAL HOMELAND OF THE ARMENIANS? ------------------

originated there. It is, however, supported only by the fact that Darius defeated the Armeniansin the Caucasus. The Armenians are in no way related to any of the Caucasian races.

5. The Turanian Theory. Some Armenians have adduced similarities of certain elementsof the Armenian language and culture with those of some Turkish and Azeri tribes of theCaucasus to document a relationship, but this remains to be proved.

Whichever, if any, of these theories is correct, it is very certain that the Armenians didnot originate in Anatolia, nor did they live there for three to four thousand years, as claimed.They have put forward these ideas merely to support their claims that the Turks drove them outof a homeland in which they have lived for thousands of years, but they can not stand up to thefacts.

8 ARMENIAN CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS

QUESTION 2: DID THE TURKS TAKE THE LANDS OF THE ARMENIANSBY FORCE?

The territory in which the Armenians lived together for a time never was ruled by themas an independent, sovereign state. This territory was ruled by others from the earliest timesfrom which there is evidence that Armenians lived there. From 521 to 344 B.C. it was aprovince of Persia. From 334 to 215 B.C. it was part of the Macedonian Empire. From 215 to190 B.C. it was controlled by the Selephkites. From 190 until 220 A.D. it frequently changed, ands between the Roman Empire and the Parthians. From 220 until the start of the fifthentury it was a Sassanian province, and from then until the seventh century it belonged to

B zantium. From the seventh to the tenth centuries it was controlled by the Arabs. It returnedagain to Byzantine rule in the tenth century and, finally, it came under the domination of the

ks starting in the eleventh century.

The Armenians living in this territory who remained under the rule of these variousempires, could not continuously maintain any sort of independent or unified Armenian state.At the most, a few Armenian noble families dominated certain districts as feudal vassals of theneighboring imperial suzerains, serving as buffers between the powerful empires thatsurrounded them. Most of these Armenian "principalities" were, thus, simply set up by localArmenian nobles within their own feudal dominions, or by the neighboring empires, who inthis way secured their military services against their enemies. The best example of this was theBaghratid family, long brought forward by Armenian nationalist historians as an example oftheir historic independent existence, which was in fact put in charge of its territory by the ArabCaliphs. Some of the "Armenian" families which assumed the title of principality at this timewere, moreover, really Persian rather than Armenian in origin. That they did not constitute anysort of independent nation is shown in the statement of the Armenian historian Kevork Aslan:

"The Armenians lived as local notables. They had no feeling of national unity. Therewere no political bonds or ties among them. Their only attachments were to theneighboring notables. Thus whatever national feelings they had were local. "(2)

These Armenian principalities existedfor centuries under the control of various greatempires and states, often changing sides to secure maximum advantage, and thus eaming forArmenians often caustic and critical remarks from contemporary historians, as for example theRoman historian Tacitus, who in his Annalium liber wrote:

"The Armenians change their position relating to Rome and the Persian Empire,sometimes supporting one and sometimes the other", concluding that they are "a strangepeople."

(2) ASLAN, Kevork, L'Armenie et Ies Armeniens, Istanbul, 1914.

DID THE TURKS TAKETHE LANDS OF THE ARMENIA:-JS BY FORCE?

9

It was as a result of these conditions, and then, the Armenians' lack of unity andstrength, their very failure to create a real state, their weakness in relation to their neighbors,the fact that the territory in which they lived was the scene of constant conflict among theirmore powerful suzerains from all sides, that they often were deported, or moved voluntarily,from the lands where they first lived when they appeared in history. Thus when they fled fromthe Persians they settled in the area of Kayseri, in Central Anatolia. They were deported by theSassanians into central Iran, by the Arabs into Syria and the Arabian Peninsula, by theByzantines into Central Anatolia and to Istanbul, Thrace, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Rumania,Hungary, Transylvania and the Crimea. During the Crusades, they went to Cyprus, Crete andItaly. In flight from the Mongols they settled in Kazan and Astrakhan in Central Asia, and,finally, they were subsequently deported by the Russians from the Crimea and the Caucasusinto the interior of Russia. As a result of these centuries-long deportations and migrations, then,the Armenians were widely scattered from Sicily to India and from the Crimea to Arabia, thusforming what they call "the Armenian diaspora" centuries before they were deported by theOttomans in 1915.

The Armenians broke away from the Byzantine church in 451,150 years after theyaccepted Christianity, leading to long centuries of Armenian-Byzantine clashes which went onuntil the Turks settled in Anatolia starting in the late 11th century, with the Byzantines workingto wipe out the Armenians and eliminate the Armenian principalities in order to maintain GreekOrthodoxy throughout their dominions. Contemporary Armenian historians report in greatdetail how the Byzantines deported Armenians as well as using them against enemy forces inthe vanguard of the Byzantine armies. As a result of this, when the Seljuk Turks startedflooding into Anatolia starting in the late 11th century, they did not encounter any Armenianprincipalities; the only force remaining to resist them was that of Byzantium. The Seljuk rulerAlparslan captured the lands of the Armenian Principality of Ani in 1064, but it had previouslybeen brought to an end by the Byzantine in 1045, nineteen years earlier, with Greeks beingbrought in to replace the Armenians who had been deported. It is therefore false to claim thatthe Seljuk Turks destroyed any Armenian principality, let alone a state. This already had beendone by the Byzantines, and it was in fact the social and economic ferment that resulted whichgreatly facilitated the subsequent Turkish settlement. Contemporary Armenian historiansinterpret this Turkish conquest of Anatolia to have constituted their liberation from the longcenturies of Byzantine misrule and oppression. The Armenian historian Asoghik thus reportsthat "Because of the Armenians' enmity toward Byzantium, they welcomed the Turkish entryinto Anatolia and even helped them." The Armenian historian Mathias of Edessa likewiserelates that the Armenians rejoiced and celebrated publicly when the Turks conquered his city,Edessa (today's Urfa).

An Armenian principality did arise in Cilicia starting in 1080 but it was the result, notof the Turkish settlement in Anatolia, as has been claimed, but, rather, of the Byzantinedestruction of the last Armenian principalities in eastern Anatolia, which caused a flood of

--------------- __ 10 ARMENIAN CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS

Armenians fleeing into Cilicia. This principality maintained good relations with the Turks evenas it provided assistance to the Crusaders who passed through its territory on their way to theHoly Land, while accepting the suzerainty, first of Byzantium, and then after it declined, of theCrusader Kingdoms, the Mongols, and, finally, the Catholic Lusignan family which gainedcontrol of Cyprus. This sort of relationship with "unbelievers", however, displeased theGregorian Armenian church, with the resulting intemal divisions playing a significant role inthe Principality's conquest by the Mamluks of Syria and Egypt in 1375. In the end, the mostsignificant consequence of this last Armenian principality was the establishment of a separateArmenian church from the one centered at Echmiadzin, which added to the intemal divisionswithin Armenian Orthodoxy which remain important to the present day.

Thus when eastem Anatolia was conquered by Fatih Mehmet II and Yavuz Sultan SelimI, it was taken from the White Sheep Turkomans and from the Safavids of Iran, who hadoccupied it after the Byzantines had retired; while Yavuz Selim took Cilicia from the Mamluks.In no case, therefore, did the Ottoman Turks conquer or occupy an existing Armenian state orprincipality. In every case, these Armenians had previously been conquered by peoples otherthan the Turks. .

DlD THE TURKS TAKETHE LA"IDS OF THE ARMENIANS BY FORCE?

11 _

Armenian propagandists have claimed that the Turks mistreated non-Muslims, and inparticular Armenians, throughout history in order to provide support for their claims of"genocide" against the Ottoman Empire, since it would otherwise be difficult for them toexplain how the Turks, who had lived side by side with the Armenians in peace for some 600years, suddenly rose up to massacre them all. The Armenians moreover, have tried to interpretTurkish rule in terms of a constant struggle between Christianity and Islam, thus to assurebelief in whatever they say about the Turks on the part of the modem Christian world.

QUESTION 3: HAVE THE TURKS ALWAYS ATTACKED AND MISRULEDARMENIANS THROUGHOUT HISTORY?

The evidence of history overwhelmingly denies these claims. We already have seen thatthe contemporary Armenian historians themselves related how the Armenians of Byzantiumwelcomed the Seljuk conquest with celebrations and thanksgivings to God for having rescuedthem from Byzantine oppression. The Seljuks gave protection to an Armenian church whichthe Byzantines had been trying to destroy. They abolished the oppressive taxes which theByzantines had imposed on the Armenian churches, monasteries and priests, and in factexempted such religious institutions from all taxes. The Armenian community was left free toconduct its internal affairs in its own way, including religious activities and deducation, andthere never was any time at which Armenians or other non-Muslims were compelled to convertto Islam. The Armenian spiritual leaders in fact went to Seljuk Sultan Melikshah to thank himfor this protection. The Armenian historian Mathias of Edessa relates that,

"Melikshah's heart is full of affection and goodwill for Christians; he has treated thesons of Jesus Christ very well, and he has given the Armenian people ajjluence, peace,and happiness. "(3)

After the death of the Seljuk Sultan Kilich Arslan, the same historian wrote,

"Kilich Arslan's death has driven Christians into mourning since he was a charitableperson of high character. "

How well the Seljuk Turks treated the Armenians is shown by the fact that someArmenian noble families like the Tashirk family accepted Islam of their own free will andjoined the Turks in fighting Byzantium.

Turkish tradition and Muslim law dictated that non-Muslims should be well treated inTurkish and Muslim empires. The conquering Turks therefore made agreements with their non-

(3) MATHIAS ofEDESSA, Chronicles, Nr.129.

--------------- __ 12 ARMENIAN CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS

Muslim subjects by which the latter accepted the status of zhimmi, agreeing to keep order andpay taxes in return for protection of their rights and traditions. People from different religionswere treated with an unprecedented tolerance which was reflected into the philosophies basedon goodwill and human values cherished by great philosophers in this era such as Yunus Emreand Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi who are well-known in the Islamic world with their benevolentmottoes such as "having the same view for all 72 different nations" and "you will be welcomewhoever you are, and whatever you believe in". This was in stark contrast to the terribletreatment which Christian rulers and conquerors often have meted out to Christians of othersects, let alone non-Christians such as Muslims and Jews, as for example the Byzantinepersecution of the Armenian Gregorians, Venetian persecution of the Greek Orthodoxinhabitants of the Morea and the Aegean islands, and Hungarian persecution of the Bogomils.

The establishment and expansion of the Ottoman Empire, and in particular thedestruction of Byzantium following Fatih Mehmed's conquest of Istanbul in 1453 opened anew era of religious, political, social, economic and cultural prosperity for the Armenians aswell as the other non-Muslim and Muslim peoples of the new state. The very first Ottomanruler, Osman Bey (1300-1326), permitted the Armenians to establish their first religious centerin western Anatolia, at Kutahya, to protect them from Byzantine oppression. This centersubsequently was moved, along with the Ottoman capital, first to Bursa in 1326 and then toIstanbul in 1461, with Fatih Mehmet issuing a ferman definitively establishing the ArmenianPatriarchate there under Patriarch Hovakim and his successors(4). As a result, thousands ofArmenians emigrated to Istanbul from Iran, the Caucasus, eastern and central Anatolia, theBalkans and the Crimea, not because of force or persecution, but because the great Ottomanconqueror had made his empire into a true center of Armenian life. The Armenian communityand church thus expanded and prospered as parts of the expansion and prosperity of theOttoman Empire.

The Gregorian Armenians of the Ottoman Empire, like the other major religious groups,were organized into millet communities under their own religious leaders. Thus the fermanissued by Fatih Mehmet establishing the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul specified that thePatriarch was not only the religious leader of the Armenians, but also their secular leader. TheArmenians had the same rights as Muslims, but they also had certain special privileges, mostimportant among which was exemption from military service. Armenians and other non-Muslims generally paid the same taxes as Muslims, with the exception of the Poll Tax (Harachor Jizye), which was imposed on them in place of the state taxes based particularly on Muslimreligious law, the Alms Tax (Zakat) and the Tithe (Osur), from which non-Muslims wereexempted. The Armenian millet religious leaders themselves assessed and collected the PollTaxes from their followers and turned the collections over to the Treasury officials of the state.

(4) URAS, Esat, Tarihte Enneniler ve Ermeni Meselesi, 2nd Edition, Istanbul, 1976, p.149.

HAVE THE TURKS ALWAYS ATTACKED 13AND MISRULED ARMENIANS THROUGHOUT HISTORY? ------------------

The Armenians were allowed to establish religious foundations (vakif) to providefinancial support for their religious, cultural, educational and charity activities, and whenneeded the Ottoman state treasury gave additional financial assistance to the Armenianinstitutions which carried out these activities as well as to the Armenian Patriarchate itself.These Armenian foundations remain in operation to the present day in the Turkish Republic,providing substantial fmancial support to the operations of the Armenian church.

By Ottoman law all Christian subjects who were not Greek Orthodox were included inthe Armenian Gregorian millet. Thus the Paulicians and Yakubites in Anatolia as well as theBogomils and Gypsies in the Balkans were counted as Armenians, leading to substantialdisputes in later times as to the total number of Armenians actually living in the Empire.

The Armenian community expanded and prospered as a result of the freedom grantedby the sultans. At the same time Armenians shared, and contributed to, the Turkish-Ottomanculture and ways of life and government to such an extent that they earned the particular trustand confidence of the sultans over the centuries, gaining the attribute "the loyal millet".Ottoman Armenians became extremely wealthy bankers, merchants, and industrialists, whilemany at the same time rose to high positions in governmental service. In the 19th century, forexample, twenty-nine Armenians achieved the highest governmental rank of Pasha. There weretwenty-two Armenian ministers, including the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Finance, Trade andPost, with other Armenians making major contributions to the departments concerned withagriculture, economic development, and the census. There also were thirty-three Armenianrepresentatives appointed and elected to the Parliaments formed after 1826, sevenambassadors, eleven consul-generals and consuls, eleven university professors, and forty-oneother officials of high rank.(S)

Over the centuries Armenians also made major contributions to Ottoman Turkish art,culture and music, producing many artists of first rank who are objects of praise and sourcesof pride for. Turks as well as Armenians in Turkey. The first Armenian printing press wasestablished in the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century.

Thus the Armenians and Turks, and all the various races of the Empire lived in peaceand mutual trust over the centuries, with no serious complaints being made against the Ottomansystem or administration which made such a situation possible. It is true that, from time to time,internal difficulties did arise within some of the individual millets. Within the Armenian milletdisputes arose over the election of the patriarch between the "native" Armenians, who hadcome to Istanbul from Anatolia and the Crimea, and those called "eastern" or "foreign"Armenians, who came from Iran and the Caucasus. These groups often complained against

(5) Facts from the Turkish Armeniens, Jamanak, Istanbul, 1980, p. 4 et KOC;:AS, Sadi; Tarih Boyunca Ermeniler ve Turk-Ermeni ili~kileri, Ankara, 1967, pp. 92 -115.

-----------------14 ARMENIAN CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS

each other to the Ottomans, trying to gain governmental support for their own candidates andinterests, and at the same time complaining about the Ottomans whenever the decisions wentagainst them, despite the long-standing Ottoman insistence on maintaining strict neutralitybetween the groups. The gradual triumph of the "easterners" led to the appointment of non-religious individuals as Patriarchs, to corruption and misrule within the Armenian millet, andto bloody clashes among conflicting political groups, against which the Ottomans were forcedto intervene to prevent the Armenians from annihilating each other.

These internal disputes, as well as the general decline of religious standards within theGregorian millet led many Armenians to accept the teachings of foreign Catholic andProtestant missionaries sent into the Empire during the 19th century, causing the creation ofseparate millets for them later in the century. The Armenian Gregorian leaders asked theOttoman government to intervene and prevent such conversions, but the Ottomans refrainedfrom doing so on the grounds that it was an internal problem which had to be dealt with by themillet and not the state. Bloody clashes followed, with the Gregorian patriarchs Chuhajian andTahtajian going so far to excommunicate and banish all Armenian protestants(6). Later on,serious clashes also emerged among the Armenian Catholics as to the nature of theirrelationship with the Pope, with the latter excommunicating all those who did not accept hissupremacy, forcing the Ottomans finally to intervene and reconcile the two Catholic groups in1888.

The freedom granted and the great tolerance shown by the Ottomans to non-Muslimswas so well known throughout Europe that the empire of the sultans became a major place ofrefuge for those fleeing from religious and political persecution. Starting with the thousands ofJews who fled from persecution in Spain following its re-conquest in 1492, Jews fled to theOttoman Empire from the regular pogroms to which they were subjected in Central and EastEurope and Russia. Catholics and Protestants likewise fled to the Ottoman Empire, oftenentering the service of the sultans and making major contributions to Ottoman military andgovernmental life. Many of the political refugees from the reaction that followed the 1848revolutions in Europe also fled for protection to the Ottoman Empire.

The claims that the Ottomans misruled non-Muslims in general and the Armenians inparticular thus are disproved by history, as attested by major western historians, from theArmenians Asoghik and Mathias to Voltaire, Lamartine, Claude Farrere, Pierre Loti, NogueresIlone Caetani, Philip Marshall Brown, Michelet, Sir Charles Wilson, Politis, Arnold, Bronsart,Roux, Grousset Edgar Granville Garnier, Toynbee, Bernard Lewis, Shaw, Price, LewisThomas, Bombaci and others, some of whom could certainly not be labelled as pro-turkish. Tocite but a few of them:

(6) SCHEMSI, Kara, Turcs et Armeniens devant I'Histoire, Geneve, Imprimerie ationale, 1919, p.19.

IlAVE THE TURKS ALWAYS ATTACKED 15AND MISRULED ARMENIA:--IS THROUGHOUT HISTORY? ------------------

Voltaire:

"The great Turk is governing inpeace twenty nations from different religions. Turks havetaught to Christians how to be moderate in peace and gentle in victory. "

Philip Marshall Brown:

"Despite the great victory they won, Turks have generously granted to the people in theconquered regions the right to administer themselves according to their own rules andtraditions. "

Politis who was the Foreign Minister in the Greek Government led by Prime MinisterVenizelos:

"The rights and interests of the Greeks in Turkey could not be better protected by anyother power but the Turks."

J. W. Arnold:

"It is an undeniable historic fact that the Turkish armies have never interfered in thereligious and cultural affairs in the areas they conquered."

German General Bronsart:

"Unless they are forced, Turks are the world's most tolerant people towards those ofother religions:"

Even when Napoleon Bonaparte sought to stir a revolt among the Armenian Catholicsof Palestine and Syria to support his invasion in 1798-1799, his Ambassador in IstanbulGeneral Sebastiani replied that "The Armenians are so content with their lives here that this isimpossible. "

----------------- 16 ARMENIAN CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS

QUESTION 4: DID THE TURKS REALLY TRY TO MASSACRETHE ARMENIANS STARTING IN THE 1890's?

The so-called "Armenian Question" is generally thought of as having begun in thesecond half of the nineteenth century. One can easily point to the Russo-Turkish war (1877 -78) and the Congress of Berlin (1878) which concluded the war as marking the emergence ofthis question as a problem in Europe. In fact, however, one must really go back to Russianactivities in the East starting in the 1820's to uncover its origins. Czarist Russia at the time wasbeginning a major new imperial expansion across Central Asia, in the process overrunningmajor Turkish Khanates in its push toward the borders of China and the Pacific Ocean. At thesame time, Russian imperial ambitions turned southward as the Czars s-oughtto gain control ofOttoman territory to extend their landlocked empire to the Mediterranean and the open seas. Asan essential element of this ambition, Russia sought to undermine Ottoman strength fromwithin by stirring the national ambitions of the Sultan's subject Christian peoples, in particularthose with whom it shared a common Orthodox religious heritage, the Greeks and the Slavs inthe Balkans and the Armenians. At the same time that Russian agents fanned the fires of theGreek Revolution and stirred the beginnings of Pan-Slavism in Serbia and Bulgaria, othersmoved into the Caucasus and worked to secure Russian influence over the Catholicos of theArmenian Gregorian Church of Echmiadzin, to which most Ottoman Gregorians had strongemotional attachments. The Russians used the Catholicos' jealousy of the Istanbul Patriarch togain his support to such an extent that Catholicos Nerses Aratarakes himself led a force of60,000 Armenians in support of the Russian army that fought Iran in the Caucasus in 1827 -1828, in the process capturing most ofIran's Caucasus possessions, including those areas wherethe Armenians lived. This new Russian presence along the borders of eastern Anatolia,combined with the support of the Catholicos, enabled them to extend their influence amongArmenians in the Ottoman Empire. Russian pressure in Istanbul finally got the Patriarch to addthe Catholicos' name to his daily prayers starting in 1844, furthering the latter's ability toinfluence Ottoman Armenians in Russia's favor in the years that followed. Most OttomanArmenians were still too content with their lot in the Sultan's dominions to be seriouslyinfluenced by this Russian propaganda, but those who immigrated to Russian Armenia to jointhe Russian effort against Ottoman stability and power. The lands that they abandoned wereturned over to Muslim refugees flooding into the Empire from persecution in Russia andEastern Europe. This led to serious land disputes when many of the Armenian emigrants, ortheir descendants, unhappy with life in Russia, sought to return to the Ottoman Empire in the1880's and 1890's.

The Russians were not the only foreign power seeking to protect the OttomanChristians. England and France sponsored missionary activities that converted manyArmenians to Protestantism and Catholicism respectively, leading to the creation of theArmenian Catholic Church in Istanbul in 1830 and the Protestant Church in 1847. However

OlD THE TURKS REALLY TRY TO 17MASSACRE THE ARMENIA is STARTI G IN THE 1890's? ------------------

these developments were not directly related to the development of the "Armenian Question",except perhaps as indications of the rising discontent within the Gregorian church which theRussians were seeking to take advantage of in their own way.

On the other hand, the Reform Proclamation of 1856 was of major importance. Whilenot abolishing the separate millets and churches and the institutions that they supported, theOttoman government now provided equal rights for all subjects regardless of their religion, inthe process seeking to eliminate all special privileges and distinctions based on religion, andrequiring the millets to reconstitute their internal regulations in order to achieve these goals.Insofar as the Armenians were concerned, the result was the Armenian Millet Regulation,drawn up by the Patriarchate and put into force by the Ottoman government on 29 March 1862.Of particular importance the new regulation placed the Armenian millet under the governmentof a council of 140 members, including only 20 churchmen from the Istanbul Patriarchate,while 80 secular representatives were to be chosen from the Istanbul community and 40members from the provinces. The Reform Proclamation of 1856 led England and France to bemore interested in Armenians which in return intensified the interests of Russia in the sameethnic group. Their concern was based on their own imperialist interests rather than theiraffection for Armenians. Russia now sought to gain Armenian support for undermining anddestroying the Ottoman state by promising to create a "Greater Armenia" in eastern Anatolia,which would include substantially more territory between the Black Sea and the Mediterraneanthan the Armenians ever had ruled or even occupied at any time in their history.

It was against this background that the Ottoman-Russian war (1877 - 78) awakenedArmenian dreams for independence with Russian help and under Russian guidance. Toward theend of the war, the Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul, Nerses Varjabedian, got in touch with theRussian Czar with the help of the Catholicos of Echmiadzin, asking Russia not to return to theOttomans the east Anatolian lands occupied by Russian forces. Immediately after the war, thePatriarch went to the Russian camp, which by then was at San Stephana, immediately outsideIstanbul, and in an interview with the Russian Commander, Grand Duke Nicholas, asked thatall of Eastern Anatolia be annexed to Russia and established as an autonomous Armenian state,very much like the regime then being established for Bulgaria, but that if this was not possible,and the lands in question had to be returned to the Ottomans, at least Russian forces should notbe withdrawn until changes favoring the Armenians were introduced into the governmental andadministrative organization and regulations of these provinces(7). The Russians agreed to thelatter proposal, which was incorporated as Article 16 of the Treaty of San Stephano. Even asthe negotiations were going on at San Stephano, moreover, the Armenian officers in theRussian army worked frantically to stir discontent among the Ottoman Armenians, urging themto work to gain" the same sort of independence for themselves as that secured by the Christians

(7) URAS, Esat, op. cit., pp. 212 - 215.

_________________ 18 ARMENIAN CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS

of the Balkans." This appeal gained considerable influence among the Armenians of EasternAnatolia long after the Russian forces were withdrawn.

The Treaty of San Stephano did not, however, constitute the final settlement of theRusso-Turkish war. Britain rightly feared that its provisions for a Greater Armenia in the Eastwould inevitably not only establish Russian hegemony in those areas but also, and even moredangerous, in the Ottoman Empire, and through "Greater Armenia" to the Persian Gulf andIndian Ocean, where they could easily threaten the British possessions in India. In return for anOttoman agreement for British occupation of Cyprus, therefore, to enable it to counter anyRussian threats in Eastern Anatolia, Britain agreed to use its influence in Europe to upset theprovisions of San Stephano, arranging the Congress of Berlin to' this end. As a result of itsdeliberations, Russia was compelled to evacuate all of Eastern Anatolia with the exception ofthe districts of Kars, Ardahan and Batum, with the Ottomans agreeing to institute "reforms" inthe eastern provinces where Armenians lived under the guarantee of the five signatoryEuropean powers. From this time onward, England in particular came to consider the"Armenian Question" as its own particular problem, and to regularly intervene to secure itssolution according to its own ideas.

A committee sent by the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul attended the Congress ofBerlin, but it was so unhappy at the final treaty and the Powers' failure to accept its demandsthat it returned to Istanbul with the feeling that "nothing will be achieved except by means ofstruggle and revolution. "(8) Russia also emerged from the Congress without having achievedits major objectives, and with both Greece, and Bulgaria being left under British influence. Ittherefore renewed with increased vigor its effort to secure control of Eastern Anatolia, againseeking to use the Armenians as a major instrument of its policy. Now, however, it was resistedin this effort by the British, who also sought to influence and use the Armenians by stirringtheir national ambitions, though in this respect, in the words of the French writer Rene Pinon,who is in fact known with his pro-Armenian views, "Armenia in British hands would becomea police station against Russian expansion." Whether under Russian or British influence,however, the Armenians became pawns to advance imperial ambitions at Ottoman expense.

It had been British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and the Tories who had defendedOttoman integrity against Russian expansion at the Congress of Berlin. But with theassumption of power by William E. Gladstone and the Liberals in 1880, British policy towardthe Ottomans changed drastically to one which sought to protect British interests by breakingup the Ottoman Empire and creating friendly small states under British influence in its place,one of which was to be Armenia. In pursuit ofthis policy, the British press now was encouragedto refer to eastern Anatolia as "Armenia"; British consulates were opened in every comer of the


DID THE TURKS REALLY TRY TO 19MASSACRE THE ARMENIANS STARTING IN THE 1890's 'I ------------------

area to provide opportunities for contact with the local Christian population; the numbers ofProtestant missionaries sent to the East was substantially increased; and in London an Anglo-Armenian Friendship Committee was created to influence public opinion in support of this newendeavour. The way how Russia and Great Britain used Armenians as a tool for their ownambitions has been adequately documented by numerous Armenian and other foreign sources.Thus, the French Ambassador in Istanbul Paul Carnbon reported to the Quai d'Orsay in 1894that "Gladstone is organizing the dissatisfied Armenians, putting them under discipline andpromising them assistance, settling many of them in London with the inspiration of thepropaganda committee." Edgar Granville commented that" There was no Armenian movementin Ottoman territory before the Russians stirred them up. Innocent people are going to be hurtbecause of this dream of a Greater Armenia under the protection of the Czar," and "theArmenian movements intend to attach Eastern Anatolia to Russia." The Armenian writerKaprielian declared proudly in his book The Armenian Crisis and Rebirth that "therevolutionary promises and inspirations were owed to Russia." The Dashnak newspaperHairenik in its issue of 28 June 1918 stated that "The awakening of a revolutionary spiritamong the Armenians in Turkey was the result of Russian stimulation." The Armenian PatriarchHoren Ashikian wrote in his History of Armenia "The protestant missionaries distributed inlarge numbers to various places in Turkey made propaganda infavor of England and stirredthe Armenians to desire autonomy under British protection. The schools that they establishedwere the nurseries of their secret plans." And the Armenian religious leader Hrant Vartabedwrote that "The establishment of protestant communities in Ottoman territory and theirprotection by England and the United States shows that they did not shrink from exploiting eventhe most sacred feelings of the West, religiousfeelings, in seeking civilization", going on to statethat the Catholicos of Echmiadzin Kevork V was a tool of Czarist Russia and that he betrayedthe Armenians of Anato1ia ..(9)

In pursuit of these policies, starting in 1880 a number of Armenian revolutionarysocieties were established in Eastern Anatolia, the Black Cross and Armenian societies in Vanand the National Guards in Erzururn. However these societies had little influence, since theArmenians in the Ottoman Empire still lived in peace and prosperity and had no realcomplaints against Ottoman administration. With the passage of time, therefore, these andother such Armenian societies within the Empire fell into inactivity and largely ceasedoperations. The Armenian nationalists therefore moved to center their organizations outsideOttoman territory, establishing the Hunchak Committee at Geneva in 1887 and the DashnakCommittee at Tiflis in 1890, both of which declared to be their basic goal the "liberation" fromOttoman rule of the territories of Eastern Anato1ia and the Ottoman Armenians.

According to Louise Nalbandian, a leading Armenian researcher into Armenianpropaganda, the Hunchak program stated that:

(9) SCHEMSI, Kara, op. cit., pp. 20 - 21.


"Agitation and terror were needed to "elevate the spirit" of the people. Thepeople werealso to be incited against their enemies and were to "profit"from retaliatory actions ofthese same enemies. Terror was to be used as a method of protecting the people andwinning their confidence in the Hunchak program. The party aimed at terrorizing theOttoman government, thus contributing toward lowering theprestige of that regime andworking toward its complete disintegration. The government itself was not to be the onlyfocus of terroristic tactics. The Hunchaks wanted to annihilate the most dangerous ofthe Armenian and Turkish individuals who were then working for the government aswell as to destroy all spies and informers. To assist them in carrying out all of theseterroristic acts, the party was to organize an exclusive branch specifically devoted toperforming acts of terrorism. The most opportune time to institute the general rebellionfor carrying out immediate objectives was when Turkey was engaged in war."(10)

K. S. Papazian wrote of the Dashnak Society:

"The purpose of the A. R. Federation (Dashnak) is to achieve political and economicfreedom in Turkish Armenia, by means of rebellion ... terrorism has, from thefirst, beenadopted by the Dashnak Committee of the Caucasus, as a policy or a method forachieving its ends. Under the heading "means" in their program adopted in 1892, weread asfollows: The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnak), in order to achieveits purpose through rebellion, organizes revolutionary groups. Method no. 8 is asfollows: To wage fight, and to subject to terrorism the Government officials, thetraitors, ... Method no.11 is: To subject the government institutions to destruction andpillage. "(11)

One of the Dashnak founders and ideologists, Dr. Jean Loris-Melikoff wrote that:

"The truth is that the party (Dashnak Committee) was ruled by an oligarchy, for whomthe particular interests of the party came before the interests of the people and nation..They (the Dashnaks) made collections among the bourgeoisie and the great merchants.At the end, when these means were exhausted, they resorted to terrorism, after theteachings of the Russian revolutionaries that the end justifies the means. "(12)

The same policy was described by the Dashnak ideologist Varandian, in History of theDashnakzoutune (Paris, 1932).

(10) NALBANDIAN, Louise, Armenian Revolutionary Movement, University of California Press, 1963, pp.11 0-111.(11) PAPAZIAN, K. S., Patriotism Perverted, Boston, Baker Press, 1934, pp.14-15.(12) LORIS-MELIKOFF, Dr. Jean, la Revolution Russe et les Nouvelles Republiques Transcaucasiennes, Paris, 1920,p.81.

DID THE TURKS REALLY TRY TO 21MASSACRE THE ARMENIANS STARTING IN THE 1890's?

Thus as Armenian writers themselves have freely admitted, the goal of theirrevolutionary societies was to stir revolution, and their method was terror. They lost no time inputting their programs into operation, stirring a number of revolt efforts within a short time,with the Hunches taking the lead at first, and then the Dashnaks following, planning andorganizing their efforts outside the Ottoman Empire before carrying them out within theboundaries of the Sultan's dominions.

"If revolution is necessary to attract the attention and intervention of Europe, it wouldnot be hard to do so. "(13)

The first revolt came at Erzurum in 1890. It was followed by the Kumkapi riots inIstanbul the same year, and then risings in Kayseri, Yozgat, Corum and Merzifon in 1892 -1893, in Sasun in 1894, the Zeytun revolt and the Armenian raid on the Sublime Porte in 1895,the Van revolt and occupation of the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul in 1896, the Second Sasunrevolt in 1903, the attempted assassination of Sultan Abdulhamid II in 1905, and the Adanarevolt in 1909. All these revolts and riots were presented by the Armenian revolutionarysocieties in Europe and America as the killing of Armenians by Turks, and with this sort ofpropaganda message they stirred considerable emotion among Christian peoples. Themissionaries and consular representatives sent by the Powers to Anatolia played major roles inspreading this propaganda in the western press, thus carrying out the aims of the westernpowers to turn public opinion against Muslims and Turks to gain the necessary support to breakup the Ottoman Empire.

There were many honest western diplomatic and consular representatives who reportedwhat actually was happening, that it was the Armenian revolutionary societies that were doingthe revolting and slaughtering and massacring to secure European intervention in their behalf.

In 1876, the British Ambassador in Istanbul reported that the Armenian Patriarch hadsaid to him:

On 28 March 1894 the British Ambassador in Istanbul, Currie reported to the ForeignOffice:

"The aim of the Armenian revolutionaries is to stir disturbances, to get the Ottomans toreact to violence, and thus get theforeign Powers to intervene. "(14)

On 28 January 1895 the British Consul in Erzurum, Graves reported to the BritishAmbassador in Istanbul:

(13) URAS, Esat; op. cit., p.188.(14) British Blue Book, Nr. 6 (1894), p. S7.

----------------- 22 ARMENIAN CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS

"The aims of the revolutionary committees are to stir up general discontent and to getthe Turkish government and people to react with violence, thus attracting the attentionof the foreign powers to the imagined sufferings of the Armenian people, and gettingthem to act to correct the situation. "(15)

Graves also told New York Herald reporter Sydney Whitman that:

"If no Armenian revolutionary had come to this country, if they had not stirred Armenianrevolution, would these clashes have occurred ", answering" Of course not. I doubt if asingle Armenian would have been killed. "(16)

The British Vice-Consul Williams wrote from Van on 4 March 1896:

"The Dashnaks and Hunchaks have terrorized their own countrymen, they have stirredup the Muslim people with their thefts and insanities, and have paralyzed all effortsmade to carry out reforms; all the events that have taken place in Anatolia are theresponsibility of the crimes committed by the Armenian revolutionary committees. "(17)

British Consul General in Adana, Doughty Wily, wrote in 1909:

"The Armenians are working to secure foreign intervention. "(18)

Russian Consul General in Bitlis and Van, General Mayewski, reported in 1912:

"In J 895 and J 896 the Armenian revolutionary committees created such suspicionbetween the Armenians and the native population that it became impossible toimplement any sort of reform in these districts. The Armenian priests paid no attentionto religious education, but instead concentrated on spreading nationalist ideas, whichwere affixed to the walls of monasteries, and in place of performing their religiousduties they concentrated on stirring Christian enmity against Muslims. The revolts thattook place in many provinces of Turkey during J 895 and J 896 were caused neither byany great poverty among the Armenian villages nor because of Muslim attacks againstthem. In fact these villagers were considerably richer and more prosperous than theirneighbors. Rather, the Armenian revolts came from three causes:J. Their increasing maturity in political subjects;

(15) British Blue Book, Nr. 6 (1894), pp. 222 - 223.(16) URAS, Esat, op. cit., p. 426.(17) British Blue Book, Nr. 8 (1896), p.108.(18) SCHEMSI, Kara, op. cit., p.11.

DID THE TURKS REALLY TRY TO 23MASSACRE TilE ARMDHA. S START1:--1G 1:--1THE 1890's"!

2.The spread of ideas of nationality, liberation, and independence within the Armeniancommunity;3.Support of these ideas by the western governments, and their encouragement throughthe efforts of the Armenian priests. "(19)

In another report in December 1912, Mayewski wrote that:

"The Dashnak revolutionary society is working to stir up a situation in which Muslimsand Armenians will attack each other, and to thus pave the way for Russianintervention. "(20)

Finally, the Dashnak ideologue Varandian admits that the society "wanted to assureEuropean intervention, "(21) while Papazian stated that "the aims of their revolts was to assurethat the European powers would mix into Ottoman internal affairs. "(22). At each of theirarmed revolts the Armenian terrorist committees have always propagated that Europeanintervention would immediately follow. Even some of the committee members believed in thispropaganda. In fact, during the occupation of the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul the Armenianterrorist Armen Aknomi committed suicide after having waited in desperation the arrival of theBritish fleet. It can be seen thus that the basis for the Armenian revolts was not poverty, norwas it oppression or the desire for reform; rather, it was simply the result of a joint effort onthe part of the Armenian revolutionary committees and the Armenian church, in conjunctionwith the Western Powers and Russia, to provide the basis to break up the Ottoman Empire.

In reaction to these revolts, the Ottomans did what other states did in suchcircumstances, sending armed forces against the rebels to restore order, and for the most partsucceeding quickly since very few of the Armenian populace supported or helped the rebels orthe revolutionary societies. However for the press and public of Europe, stirred by tales spreadby the missionaries and the revolutionary societies themselves, every Ottoman restoration oforder was automatically considered a "massacre" of Christians, with the thousands ofslaughtered Muslims being ignored and Christian claims against Muslims automaticallyaccepted. In many cases, the European states not only intervened to prevent the Ottomans fromrestoring order, but also secured the release of many captured terrorists, including thoseinvolved in the Zeytun revolt, the occupation of the Ottoman Bank, and the attempted'assassination of Sultan Abdulhamid. While most of these were expelled from the OttomanEmpire, with the cooperation of their European sponsors, it did not take long for them to secureforged passports and other documents and to return to Ottoman territory to resume their

(19) General MA YEWSKI, Statistique des Provinces de Van et de Bitlis, pp.11-13, Petersburg, 1916.(20) SCHEMSI, Kara, op. cit., p.1 1.(21) VARANDIAN, Mikayel, History of the Dashnagtzoutune, Paris, 1932, p. 302.(~7) PAPAZIAN, K. S., op. cit., p.19.

_________________ 24 ARMENIA. CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS

terroristic activities. Whatever were the claims of the Armenian revolutionary societies andwhatever the ambitions of the imperial powers of Europe, there was one major fact which theysimply could not ignore. The Armenians comprised a very small minority of the population inthe territories being claimed in their name, namely the six eastern districts claimed as "historicArmenia" (Erzurum, Bitlis, Van, Elaziz, Diyarbakir and Sivas), the two provinces claimed tocomprise "Armenian Cilicia" (Aleppo and Adana) and finally Trabzon which was later claimedto have an outlet to the Black Sea coast. Even the French Yellow Book, which among westernsources made the largest Armenian population claims, still showed them in a sizeable minority:

Total Gregorian Armenian Armenian PercentPopulation Population of Total Population

Erzurum 645,702 134,967 20.90Bitlis 398,625 131,390 32:96Van . 430,000 80,798 18.79Elaziz 578,814 69,718 12.04Diyarbakir 471,462 79,129 16.78Sivas 1,086,015 170,433 15.68Adana 403,539 97,450 24.14Aleppo 995,758 37,999 3.81Trabzon 1,047,700 47,200 4.50

Thus even by these extreme claims, the Armenians still constituted no more than onethird of the provinces' population. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1910, theArmenians were only 15 percent of the area's population as a whole, making it very unlikelythat they could in fact achieve independence in any part of the Ottoman Empire without themassive foreign assistance that would have been required to push out the Turkish majoritiesand replace them with Armenian emigrants.

Russia in fact was only using the Armenians for its own ends. It had no real intentionof establishing Armenian independence, either within its own dominions or .in Ottomanterritory. Almost as soon as the Russians took over the Caucasus, they adopted a policy ofRussifying the Armenians as well as establishing their own control over the ArmenianGregorian church in their territory. By virtue of the Polijenia Law of 1836, the powers andduties of the Catholicos of Etchmiadzin were restricted, while his appointment was to be madeby the Czar. In 1882 all Armenian newspapers and schools in the Russian Empire were closed,and in 1903 the state took direct control of all the financial resources of the Armenian Churchas well as Armenian establishments and schools. At the same time Russian Foreign Minister

DID THE TURKS REALLY TRY TO 25MASSACRE THE ARME. IANS STARTING IN THE 1890's? -----------------

"Czarist Russia at no time wanted to assure Armenian autonomy. For this reason onemust consider the Armenians who were working for Armenian autonomy as no morethan agents of the Czar to attach Eastern Anatolia to Russia. "

Lobanov-Rostowsky adopted his famous goal of "An Armenia without Armenians", a sloganwhich has been deliberately attributed to the Ottoman administration by some Armenianpropagandists and writers in recent years. Whatever the reason, Russian oppression of theArmenians was severe. The Armenian historian yartanian relates in his History of theArmenian Movement that "Ottoman Armenia was completely free in its traditions, religion,culture and language in comparison to Russian Armenia under the Czars." Edgar Granvillewrites, "The Ottoman Empire was the Armenians' only shelter against Russian oppression."

That Russian intentions were to use the Armenians to annex Eastern Anatolia and notto create an independent Armenia is shown by what happened during World War I. In the secretagreements made among the Entente powers to divide the Ottoman Empire, the territory whichthe Russians had promised to the Armenians as an autonomous or independent territory wassummarily divided between Russia and France without any mention of the Armenians, whilethe Czar replied to the protests of the Catholicos of Etchmiadzin only that "Russia has noArmenian problem." The Armenian writer Borian thus concludes:

The Russians thus have deceived the Armenians for years; and as a result theArmenians have been left with nothing more than an empty dream.

__________________ 26 AR~lE:__IIAI CLAIMS AI D IIISTORICAL FACTS

QUESTION 5: WHAT IS MEANT BY THE TERNI "GENOCIDE" ?

This term refers to a well defined crime, the definition of which has been given in aninternational convention made after the Second World War: the "Convention for the Preventionand the Repression of the Crime of Genocide", approved by the General Assembly of theUnited Nations in its resolution of December 9, 1948 and which went into effect on January11, 1951, convention which Turkey signed and ratified.

In the convention the definition of the crime of genocide consists of three elements: forone thing, there has to be a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Then, this group has tobe subject to certain acts listed in the convention. The "murder of the members of the group,andforced transfer of the children of one group into another group and subjecting the membersof a group to conditions which will eventually bring about their physical destruction" comewithin the range of actions listed in the said convention. But the third element is the mostimportant: there has to be "an intent of destroying", in part or in whole the said group.

This key-description helps to differentiate between genocide and other forms ofhomicide, which are the consequences of other motives such as in the case of wars, uprisingsetc. Homicide becomes genocide when the latent or apparent intention of physical destructionis directed at members of any' one of the national, ethnic, racial or religious groups simplybecause they happen to be members of that group. The concept of numbers only becomessignificant when it can be taken as a sign of such an intention against the group. That is why,as Sartre said in speaking of genocide on the occasion of the Russell Tribunal on the VietnamWar, that one must study the facts objectively in order to prove if this intention exists, even inan implicit manner.(23)

(23) Prof. SOYSAL, Miimtaz, The Orly Trial, 19 February - 2 March 1985, Statement and Evidence Presented at the Trial,Ankara University, Faculty of Political Sciences, 1985

W[[AT IS MEA T BY THE TERM "GENOCIDE"?27 _

QUESTION 6: DID THE TURKS U DERTAKE A PLANNED AND SYSTEMATICMASSACRE OF THE ARMENIANS IN 1915 ?

"The Armenians have taken their place on the side of the Entente states without showingany hesitation whatsoever; they have placed all theirforces at the disposition of Russia;and they also areforming volunteer battalions. "(28)

The beginning of World War I and the Ottoman entry into the war on November 1, 1914on the side of Germany and Austria - Hungary against the Entente powers was considered as agreat opportunity by the Armenian nationalists. Louise Nalbandian relates that "The Armenianrevolutionary committees considered that the most opportune time to begin a general uprisingto achieve their goals was when the Ottoman Empire was in a state of war", (24) and thus lessable to resist an internal attack.

Even before the war began, in August 1914, the Ottoman leaders met with the Dashnaksat Erzurum in the hope of getting them to support the Ottoman war effort when it came. TheDashnaks promised that if the Ottomans entered the war, they would do their duty as loyalcountrymen in the Ottoman armies. However they failed to live up to this promise, since evenbefore this meeting took place, a secret Dashnak Congress held at Erzurum in June 1914 hadalready decided to use the oncoming war to undertake a general attack against the Ottomanstate(25). The Russian Armenians joined the Russian army in preparing an attack on theOttomans as soon as war was declared. The Catholicos of Echmiadzin assured the RussianGeneral Governor of the Caucasus, Vranzof-Dashkof, that "in return for Russia's forcing theOttomans to make reforms for the Armenians, all the Russian Armenians would support theRussian war effort without conditions. "(26). The Catholicos subsequently was received at Tiflisby the Czar, whom he told that" The liberation of the Armenians in Anatolia would lead to theestablishment of an autonomous Armenia separated from Turkish suzerainty and that thisArmenia could be made possible with the protection of Russia. "(27). Of course the Russiansreally intended to use the Armenians to annex Eastern Anatolia, but the Catholicos was toldnothing about that.

As soon as Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire, the Dashnak Society's officialorgan Horizon declared:

(24) ALBANDIAN, Louise, op. cit., p.11 1.(25) Aspirations et Agissements Revolutionnaires des Comites Armeniens avant et apres La Proclamation de LaConstitution Ottomane, Istanbul, 1917, pp.144 -146.(26) TCHALKOUCHIAN, Gr., Le Livre Rouge, Paris, 1919, p.12.(27) TCHALKOUCHIAN, Gr., op. cit.(28) URAS, Esat, op. cit., p. 594.


The Dashnak Committee also ordered its cells that had been preparing to revolt withinthe Ottoman Empire:

"As soon as the Russians have crossed the borders and the Ottoman armies have startedto retreat, you should revolt everywhere. The Ottoman armies thus will be placedbetween two fires: of the Ottoman armies advance against the Russians, on the otherhand, their Armenian soldiers should leave their units with their weapons, form banditforces, and unite with the Russians. "(29)

The Hunchak Committee instructions to its organizations in the Ottoman territory were:

"The Hunchak Committee will use all means to assist the Entente states, devoting all itsforces to the struggle to assure victory in Armenia, Cilicia, the Caucasus and Azerbaijanas the ally of the Entente states, and in particular of Russia. "(30)

And even the Armenian representative in the Ottoman Parliament for Van, Papazyan,soon turned out to be a leading guerilla fighter against the Ottomans, publishing a proclamationthat:

"The volunteer Armenian regiments in the Caucasus should prepare themselves forbattle, serve as advance units for the Russian armies to help them capture the keypositions in the districts where the Armenians live, and advance into Anatolia, joiningthe Armenian units already there."(31)

As the Russian forces advanced into Ottoman territory in eastern Anatolia, they wereled by advanced units composed of volunteer Ottoman and Russian Armenians, who werejoined by the Armenians who deserted the Ottoman armies and went over to the Russians.Many of these also formed bandit forces with weapons and ammunition which they had foryears been stocking in Armenian and missionary churches and schools, going on to raidOttoman supply depots both to increase their own arms and to deny them to the Ottoman armyas it moved to meet this massive Russian invasion. Within a few months after the war began,these Armenian guerilla forces, operating in close coordination with the Russians, weresavagely attacking Turkish cities, towns and villages in the East; massacring their inhabitantswithout mercy, while at the same time working to sabotage the Ottoman army's war effort bydestroying roads and bridges, raiding caravans, and doing whatever else they could to ease theRussian occupation. The atrocities committed by the Armenian volunteer forces accompanying

(29) HOCAOGLU, Mehmed, Tarihte Ermeni Mezalimi ve Ermeniler, Istanbul, 1976, pp. 570-571(30) Aspirations et Agissements revolutionnaires des Comites Armeniens, pp.151-153.(31) URAS, Esat, op. cit., pp. 5% - 600.

DID THE TURKS UNDERTAKE A PLANNED AND 29SYSTEMATIC MASSACRE OF THE ARMENIANS rN I9I5? ------------------

the Russian army were so severe that the Russian commanders themselves were compelled towithdraw them from the fighting fronts and send them to rear guard duties. The memoirs of alltoo many Russian officers who served in the East at this time are filled with accounts of therevolting atrocities committed by these Armenian guerillas, which were savage even by therelatively primitive standards of war then observed in such areas.(32)

or did these Armenian atrocities affect only Turks and other Muslims. The Armenianguerillas had never been happy with the failure of the Greeks and Jews to fully support theirrevolutionary programs. As a result in Trabzon and vicinity they massacred thousands ofGreeks, while in the area of Hakkari it was the Jews who were rounded up and massacred bythe Armenian guerillas(33). Basically the aim of these atrocities was to leave only Armeniansin the territories being claimed for the new Armenian state; all others therefore were massacredor forced to flee for their lives so as to secure the desired Armenian majority of the populationin preparation for the peace settlement.

Leading the first Armenian units who crossed the Ottoman border in'the company of theRussian invaders was the former Ottoman Parliamentary representative for Erzururn, KarekinPastirmaciyan, who now assumed the revolutionary name Armen Garo. Another formerOttoman parliamentarian, Hamparsum Boyaciyan, led the Armenian guerilla forces whoravaged Turkish villages behind the lines under the nickname "Murad", specifically orderingthat" Turkish children also should be killed as they form a danger to the Armenian nation."Another former Member of Parliament, Papazyan, led the Armenian guerilla forces thatravaged the areas of Van, Bitlis and Mush.

In March 1915 the Russian forces began to move toward Van. Immediately, on April11,1915 the Armenians of Van began a general revolt, massacring all the Turks in the vicinityso as to make possible its quick and easy conquest by the Russians. Little wonder that CzarNicholas II sent a telegram of thanks to the Armenian Revolutionary Committee of Van onApril 21,1915, "thanking it for its services to Russia." The Armenian newspaper Gochnak,published in the United States, also proudly reported on May 24,1915 that "only, 1,500 Turksremain in Van", the rest having been slaughtered.

The Dashnak representative told the Armenian National Congress assembled at Tiflis inFebruary 1915 that "Russia provided 242,000 rubles before the war even began to arm andprepare the Ottoman Armenians to undertake revolts", giving some idea of how the Russian-Armenian alliance had long prepared to undermine the Ottoman war effort(34). Under thesecircumstances, with the Russians advancing along a wide front in the East, with the Armenian

(32 ) Journal de Guerre du Deuxieme Regiment d'Artillerie de Forteresse Russe d'Erzeroum, 1919.(33) SCHEMSI, Kara, op. cit., p. 41 and p. 49.(34) URAS, Esat, op. cit., p. 604.

_________________ 30 ARMENIAN CLAIMS A:-;D HISTORICAL FACTS

guerillas spreading death and destruction while at the same time attacking the Ottoman armiesfrom the rear, with the Allies also invading the Empire along a wide front from Galicia to Iraq,the Ottoman decision to deport Armenians from the war areas was a moderate and entirelylegitimate measure of self defense.

Even after the revolt and massacres at Van, the Ottoman government made one finaleffort to secure general Armenian support for the war effort, summoning the Patriarch, someArmenian Members of Parliament, and other delegates to a meeting where they were warnedthat drastic measures would be taken unless Armenians stopped slaughtering Muslims andworking to undermine the war effort. When there was no evident lessening of the Armenianattacks, the government finally acted. On April 24, 1915 the Armenian revolutionarycommittees were closed and 235 of their leaders were arrested for activities against the state.It is the date of these arrests that in recent years has been annually commemorated by Armeniannationalist groups throughout the world in commemoration of the "massacre" that they claimtook place at this time. No such massacre, however, took place, at this or any other time duringthe war: In the face of the great dangers which the Empire faced at that time, great care wastaken to make certain that the Armenians were treated carefully and compassionately as theywere deported, generally to Syria and Palestine when they came from southern Anatolia, andto Iraq if they came from the north. The Ottoman Council of Ministers thus ordered:

"When those of the Armenians resident in the aforementioned towns and villages whohave to be moved are transferred to their places of settlement and are on the road, theircomfort must be assured and their lives and property protected; after their arrival theirfood should bepaid for out of Refugees' Appropriations until they are definitively settledin their new homes. Property and land should be distributed to them in accordance withtheir previous financial situation as well as their current needs; and for those amongthem needing further help, the government should build houses, provide cultivators andartisans with seed, tools, and equipment. "(35)

And it went on to specify:

"This order is entirely intended against the extension of the Armenian RevolutionaryCommittees; therefore do not execute it in such a manner that might cause the mutualmassacre of Muslims and Armenians."

"Make arrangements for special officials t6 accompany the groups of Armenians whoare being relocated, and make sure they areprovided with food and other needed things,paying the cost out of the allotments set aside for emigrants. "(36)

(35) Council of Ministers Decrees, Prime Ministry's Archives, Istanbul, Volume 198, Decree 133V163, May 1915.(36) British Foreign Office Archives, Public Record Office, 371/9158/E 5523.

DID THE TURKS UNDERTAKE 1\ PLA:--INED AND 31SYSTEMATIC MASSACRE OF TIlE ARMENIANS IN 1915" ------------------

"The food needed by the emigrants while travelling until they reach their destinationsmust be provided ... for poor emigrants by credit for the installation of the emigrants.The camps provided for transported persons should be kept under regular supervision;necessary steps for their well being should be taken, and order and security assured.Make certain that indigent emigrants are given enough food and that their health isassured by daily visits by a doctor... Sick people, poor people, women and childrenshould be sent by rail, and others on mules, in carts or onfoot according to their powerof endurance. Each convoy should be accompanied by a detachment of guards, and thefood supply for each convoy should be guarded until the destination is reached... Incases where the emigrants are attacked, either in the camps or during the journeys, allefforts should be taken to repel the attacks immediately. .."(37)

Out of the some 700,000 Armenians who were transported in this way until early 1917,certainly some lives were lost, as the result both of large scale military and bandit activitiesthen going on in the areas through which they passed, as well as the general insecurity andblood feuds which some tribal forces sought to carry out as the caravans passed through theirterritories. In addition, the deportations and settlement of the deported Armenians took place ata time when the Empire was suffering from severe shortages of fuel, food, medicine and othersupplies as well as large-scale plague and famine. It should not be forgotten that, at the sametime, an entire Ottoman army of 90,000 men was lost in the East as a result of severe shortages,or that through the remainder of the war as many as three or four million Ottoman subjects ofall religions died as a result of the same conditions that afflicted the deportees. How tragic andunfeeling it is, therefore, for Armenian nationalists to blame the undoubted suffering of theArmenians during the war to something more than the same anarchical conditions which

..afflicted all the Sultan's subjects. This is the truth behind the false claims distorting historicalfacts by ill-devised mottoes such as the ''first genocide of the twentieth century" whichArmenian propagandists and terror groups try to revive to justify the same tactics of terrortoday which brought such horrors to the Ottoman Empire during the last century.

(37) British Foreign Office Archives, 371 /9158/E 5523.


QUESTION 7: DID TALAT PASHA SEND SECRET TELEGRAMS ORDERINGMASSACRES?

Armenian propaganda claiming that massacres were an Ottoman government policyrequires proof that such a decision was in fact made. For this purpose the Armenians reduceda number of telegrams attributed to Talat Pasha supposedly found by British forces commandedby General Allenby when they captured Aleppo in 1918. It was claimed that they were foundin the office of an Ottoman official named Nairn Bey, and that they were not destroyed onlybecause the British occupation came with unexpected speed. Samples of these telegrams werepublished in Paris in 1920by an Armenian author named Aram Andonian, (38) and they alsowere presented at the Berlin trial of the Armenian terrorist Tehlirian, who killed Talat Pasha.Nevertheless, the court neither considered these documents as "evidence" nor was involved inany decision claiming the authenticity of them.

These documents were, however, entirely fabricated, and the claims deriving from themtherefore cannot be sustained. They were in fact published by the Daily Telegraph of Londonin 1922, (39) which also attributed them to a discovery made by Allenby's army. But when theBritish Foreign Office enquired about them at the War Office, and with Allenby himself, it wasdiscovered that they had not been discovered by the British army but, rather, had been producedby an Armenian group in Paris. In addition, examination of the photographs provided in theAndonian volume shows clearly that neither in form, script or phraseology did they resemblenormal Ottoman administrative documents, and that they were, therefore, rather crudeforgeries.

Following the Entente occupation of Istanbul, the British and the French arrested anumber of Ottoman political and military figures and some intellectuals on charges of warcrimes. In this they were given substantial assistance by the Ottoman Liberal Union Party,which had been placed in power by the Sultan after the war, and which was anxious to doanything it could to definitively destroy the Union and Progress Party and its leaders, who hadlong been political enemies. Most of the prisoners were sent off to imprisonment in Malta, butthe four Union and Progress leaders who had fled the country just before the occupation weretried and sentenced to death in absentia in Istanbul. Three other Goverp.ment officials weresentenced to death and executed, but it was discovered later that the evidence on which theconvictions had been based was false.

In the meantime, the British looked everywhere to find evidence against those who hadbeen sent to Malta. Despite the complete cooperation of the Ottoman Liberal Union

(38) ANDONIAN, Aram, Documents OfJiciels concernant les Massacres Armbniens, Paris, Armenian NationalDelegation, 1920.(39) Daily Telegraph, 29 May 1922.

DID TALAT PASHA SEND SECRETTELEGRAMS ORDERING MASSACRES?

33

government, nothing incriminating could be found among the Ottoman governmentdocuments. Similar searches in the British archives were fruitless. Finally, in desperation, theBritish Foreign Office turned to the American archives in Washington, but in reply, one of theirrepresentatives, R. C. Craigie, wrote to Lord Curzon:

"I regret to inform your Lordship that there was nothing therein which could be used asevidence against the Turks who are at present being detained at Malta ... no concretefacts being given which could constitute satisfactory incriminating evidence.... Thereports in question do not appear in any case to contain evidence against these Turkswhich would be useful even for the purpose of corroborating information already in thepossession of His Majesty's Government. "(40)

Uncertain as to what should be done with prisoners, who already had been held for twoyears, without trial, and without even any charges being filed or evidence produced, theForeign Office applied for advice to the Law Officers of the Crown in London, who concludedon 29 July, 1921:

"Up to the present no statements have been taken from witnesses who can depose to thetruth of the charges made against the prisoners. It is indeed uncertain whether anywitnesses can befound. "(41)

At this time the "documents" produced by Andonian were available, but despite theirdesperate search for evidence which could be presented in a court oflaw, the British never usedthem because it was evident that they were forgeries. As a result, the prisoners were quietlyreleased in 1921, without charges ever having been filed or evidence produced.

It is useful to reiterate the main elements in the chain of evidence constructed in provingthat Andonian's "documents" were all patent forgeries:

1. To show that his forgeries were in fact "authentic Ottoman documents" Andonian relied onthe signature of the Governor of Aleppo, Mustafa Abdi.ilhalik Bey, which he claimed wasappended to several of the "documents" in question. By examining several actual specimens ofMustafa Abdulhalik Bey's signature as preserved on contemporary official documents, it isestablished that the alleged signatures appended to Andonian's "documents" were forgeries.

2. In one of his forged documents, Andonian dated the note and signature attributed to MustafaAbdulhalik Bey. Again, by a comparison with authentic correspondence between the Governor

(40) l3 July 1921; British Foreign Office Archives 37116504/8519(4 I) British Foreign Office Archives 371/65041E87 45

--- 34 ARME IA. CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS

Aleppo and the Ministry of the Interior in Istanbul, on the date in question, it is proven thatthe Governor of Aleppo on that date was Bekir Sami Bey, not Mustafa Abdiilhalik Bey.

3. Consistently, Andonian's forgeries attest to the fact that he was either totally unaware of, orcarelessly neglected to account for, the differences between the Muslim Rurni and Christiancalendars. The numerous errors he made as a result of this oversight are, in and of themselves,sufficient to prove the fabricated nature of his "documents". Among other things, the errorsAndonian made in this respect served to destroy the system of reference numbers and dates thathe concocted for his "documents".

4. By way of a detailed comparison of the entries made in the Ministry of the Interior'sRegisters of outgoing Ciphers, wherein are recorded the date and reference number of everyciphered communication sent out by the Ministry, with the dates and reference numbers placedby Andonian on his forgeries, it is proven that his so-called "ciphered telegrams" bear norelationship whatsoever to the actual ciphers sent by the Ministry to Aleppo in the period inquestion.

5. Again, by comparing the Turkish "originals" of Andonian's "ciphered telegrams" with actualexamples of contemporary Ottoman ciphered messages, it is shown that the number groupingshe employed bear no relationship to the actual ciphers the Ottomans were using in that period.Thus, in his attempt to make his forgeries appear credible, he created a whole series ofunusable, non-existent ciphers. Further, from the dates he affixed to his forgeries in thiscategory, the Ottomans would have had to have used the same ciphers over a six-month periodwhich was impossible. By publishing a series of documents instructing officials to change theciphers they were using, it is shown that, in fact, the Ottomans were changing their cipher codeson average once every two months during the war years.

6. By comparing the manner in which the common Islamic injunction, Besmele, was writtenon Andonian's two forged letters with numerous examples of the way in which it appears on

, authentic contemporary Ottoman documents, it is suggested that Andonian's clumsy forgery ofthis term may well have stemmed from the fact that non-Muslims, even those who knewOttoman Turkish, did not employ this injunction.

7. A number of examples from Andonian's forgeries show that it is simply inconceivable thatany Ottoman official could have used such sentence structures and made grammatical errors.In the same vein, a host of expressions; allegedly uttered by prominent Ottoman officials areused, which no Ottoman Turk would ever have used. Andonian's intention in these instanceswas clear: he wanted nothing less than the Turks themselves to be seeming to confess to crimeswhich he had manufactured for them.

OlD T,\LAT PASHA SE:-!D SECRETTELEGRAMS ORDERf]\;G MASSACRES?

35 _

8. The forged documents, with two exceptions, were written on plain paper with none of theusual signs found on the official paper used by the Ottoman bureaucracy in this period. The factthat one of the forged Turkish originals was written on a double-lined paper, which theOttomans did not even use for private correspondence, constitutes an even more serious erroron Andonian's part. Even the two forgeries which appear at first glance to have been written onsome kind of official Ottoman stationery are actually written on blank telegraph forms, whichanyone wishing to send a telegram could pick up in any Ottoman post office.

9. At a time when the British were frantically searching the world's archives for anything to beused as "evidence" against the group of Ottoman officials whom they were holding for trial asbeing "responsible for the Armenian incidents", their failure to utilize Andonian's "documents"which were readily available in their English edition, strongly suggests that the BritishGovernment was fully aware of the nature of these forgeries.

10. Had documents of the nature of those concocted by Andonian ever actually existed, theirconfidential nature would have dictated that they be sent by courier for security reasons; ratherthan through the easily breachable public telegraph system. Likewise, had such documentsreally ever been written; it is inconceivable that they could have lain around in a file for threeyears, instead of being destroyed as soon as they had been read.

11. There are also numerous differences between the French and English editions ofAndonian's book. Indeed, these variations are of such significance that it is absolutelyimpossible to ascribe them to printing errors, or errors in translation.

12. Finally, the fact that even some authors with close links to Armenian circles, who serve asspokesmen for Armenian causes, have indicated their own doubt as to the 'veracity ofAndonian's "documents" should.not be overlooked.

In short, from start to finish the so-called "Taldt Pasha Telegrams" are nothing morethan crude forgeries, concocted by Andonian and his associates.

Moreover the Ottoman archives contain a number of orders; whose authenticity candefinitely be substantiated, issued on the same dates, in which Talat Pasha orderedinvestigations to be made to find and punish those responsible for the attacks which were beingmade on the deportation caravans. It is hardly likely that he would have been orderingmassacres on one hand and investigations and punishments for such crimes on the other.

------------ 36 ARME IAN CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS

A letter forged by Aram Andonian with the date, February 18, 1331 (March 2,1916). The letter opens with a"bismillah" (blessing), which would never have been written by a Moslem. The forger, Andonian, made his most fatalmistake with the date, however. He was obviously not well enough versed in the tricks of converting to the Rumi year ofthe Ottomans, where a difference of thirteen days between the Rumi and Gregorian calendars must be taken into account.The date he put on the letter was off by a full year. Instead of 1330 (1915), he wrote 1331 (1916). The contents of theletter are supposed to be evidence of the long advance planning of the resettlement operation of 1915.(42)

..-

.> -.

••---

(42) Feigl, Erich. A Myth of Terror, 1991, Edition zeitgeschichten-Freilassing- Salzburg, p. 85

DID TALAT PASHA SEND SECRETTELEGRAMS ORDERING MASSACRES 0

37 .....

An American aid organization called "the Near East Relief Society" was allowed by theOttoman Government to stay and fulfill its functions in Anatolia during the deportations. Evenfollowing the entry of U.S.A. into war on the side of Entente powers against Ottoman Empire,the same organization was permitted to remain in Anatolia. This was dealt in the reports of theAmerican Ambassador Elkus in Istanbul. In this case, if an order for "massacring Armenians"had been given, would the Ottoman Government have allowed to an American organization tobe witness to the "massacres". In other words, it is ridiculous to suppose that the Ottomans saidto America: "We are massacring Armenians. Why don 't you have a look at it." Such anallegation could never be a logical explanation of historic facts.

Finally, and in the end most important, when the war came to an end, the Armenianpopulation still was substantially in place in Western Anatolia, Thrace and Istanbul. Had theOttoman government ordered massacres, evidently they too would have been killed. And forthat matter, had the Ottoman government wanted to eliminate all the Armenians in the Empire,it could have done so far more easily by killing and disposing of them where they lived, ratherthan undertaking a large-scale deportation of those in the Eastern war zones under the eyes offoreign observers.

The claim, thus, that the Ottoman government ordered and carried out a generalmassacre of Armenians in the Empire cannot be sustained and is disproved by the facts.

----------------_ 38 ARMF 'IA" CLAIMS A~D HISTORlC'I\L FACTS

QUESTION 8: DID 1,5 MILLION ARMENIANS DIE DURING WORLD WAR I ?

Armenian propagandists claim that as many as 1, 5 to 2 million Armenians died as theresult of "massacres". Like the rest of their claims, this also is imaginary, with the numberclaimed being increased over time. At first, immediately following the war the Armeniansclaimed that as many as 600,000 had been killed. Later they raised it to 800,000 and now theytalk about 1,5 million and tomorrow they may talk even about three million. The 1918 editionof Encyclopedia Britannica said that 600,000 Armenians had been killed; in its 1968 editionthis was raised to 1,5 million.

How many Armenians did die? It is impossible to determine the number exactly, sinceno complete death records of statistics were kept during those years. The only basis on whicheven an estimate can be made is the actual Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire at thetime. Even here figures vary widely, with the Armenians claiming far more than other sources:

Claimed ArmenianPopulation

1. The Armenian author Leart, based on figuresProvided by the Patriarchate of Istanbul

2. The Armenian historian Basmajian3. The Armenian National Committee at the

Paris Peace Conference4. The Armenian historian Kevork Aslan5. The French Yellow Book6. Encyclopedia Britannica7. Constenson8. Lynch9. Official Ottoman census statistics for 1914

10. Annual Register (London)

2,560,0002,380,000

2,250,0001,800,0001,555,0001,500,0001 400,0001,345,0001,295,0001,056,000

Leaving aside the Armenian figures, which are evidently exaggerated, the westernestimates vary between 1,056,000 and 1,555,000 which more or less correspond with theofficial Ottoman census report of 1,295,000. How, then, could 1,5 million Armenians havebeen massacred even had every Armenian in the Empire been killed, which of course did nothappen?

Therefore, what are the real Armenian losses? Talat Pasha, in a report presented to thelast congress of the Union and Progress Party, stated that this number was estimated at around300.000. Monseigneur Touchet, a French clergyman, informed the congress 'of "Oeuevred'Orient" in February 1916, that the number of dead is thought to be 500.000, but added thatthis figure might have been exaggerated.

OlD 1.5 IlLLlON ARME. IA. SOlE DURP.-IG WORLD WAR J? 39

Toynbee estimates the number of the Armenian losses as 600.000. The same figureappears in the Encyclopedia Britannica's 1918 edition. Armenians had also claimed thesame number before. Bogos Noubar, head of the Armenian delegation at the Paris PeaceConference, declared that after the war 280.000 Armenians were living in Turkey and700.000 Armenians have emigrated to other countries. According to the estimation ofBogos Noubar, the total number of the Armenian population before the war was 1.300.000.Therefore, it can be concluded that the number of the Armenian losses was around300.000. This figure reflects the same proportion, according to their total population, of the 3million loss of Turkish lives during the same period. Once more, facts do not correspond withthe Armenian claims.

40 ARMENIAN CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS

L

",

QUESTION 9: IS THE SEVRES AGREEMENT STILL IN FORCE?

The Armenian propagandists claim that the Sevres Agreement, which provided for theestablishment of an Armenian State in eastern Anatolia, is still legally in force, and use it tobase their claims for the "return" of "Armenian lands". In fact, this agreement was never putinto force. It was superseded and replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne, and thus no longer hasthe force of law. In addition, after the Dashnaks established an Armenian Republic in Erivanon 28 May 1918, it signed the Batum Treaty of 4 June 1918with the Ottoman Government. Thistreaty was described by Foreign Minister Hadisian of the Armenian Republic as involving thefull disavowal on the part of the latter of all claims on the territory or people of the OttomanEmpire including its Armenians and the lands claimed by the Armenian nationalists:

"The Armenians of Turkey no longer think of separatingfrom the Ottoman Empire. Theirproblems no longer are even the concern of relations between the Armenian Republicand the Ottomans, Relations between the Ottoman Empire and the Armenian Republicare excellent, and they must remain that way in the future. All Armenian political partiesfeel the same way. Continuation of this good neighborly spirit is one of the principalpoints of the program recently announced by the Armenian Government, of which I amForeign Minister. "(43).

Even the Dashnak organ Hairenik stated on 28 June 1918:

"Russia's policy of hostility toward Turkey emboldened the Armenians of the Caucasus;that is why the Caucasus Armenians were involved in clashes between two friendlyraces. Thank goodness that this situation did not last too long. Following the RussianRevolution, the Armenians of the Caucasus understood that their security could beachieved only by haying good relations with Turkey, and they stretched out their handsto Turkey. Turkey also wanted to forget the events of the past, and grasped the out-stretched hand in friendship. We agree that the Armenian Question has been resolvedand left to history. The mutual feelings of suspicion and enmity created by foreign agents

, have been eliminated." (44)

These declarations make it clear that the Armenian Question was closed by theagreements concluded, following World War I; that the events that had taken place were theresponsibility of the Russians and Armenians, not of the Turk, and that if anyone had beenmistreated it was the Turks, no-one else.

It is true that the World War I settlement was reopened for a time by the Armenian

(43) SCHEMSI, Kara, op. cit., p. 3l.(44) SCHEMST, Kara, op. cit., pp. 31- 32.

IS THE SEVRES AGREEME T STILL IN FORCE '? 41 _

Republic. Despite the Dashnak declarations, Armenian bands began to raid into easternAnatolia in the summer of 1918. On 28 May 1919, first anniversary of the foundation of theArmenian Republic by the Dashnaks, it declared that "Armenia has annexed Eastern Anatolia"thus laying claim to the territories of eastern Anatolia which had been returned to the OttomanEmpire following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. To examine the Armenian claims andrecommend a settlement, American President Wilson sent an American investigationcommittee to Anatolia in the fall of 1919 under the leadership of General James G. Harbord. Ittoured through Anatolia during September and October, and then reported to Congress that:

"The Turks and Armenians lived in peace side by side for centuries; that the Turkssuffered as much as the Armenians at the time of the deportations; that only 20% of theTurkish villagers who went to war would be able to return to their homes; that at thestart of World War 1and before the Armenians never had anything approaching amajority of the population in the territories called Armenia; they would not have amajority even if all the deported Armenians were returned; and the claims that returningArmenians would be in danger were not justified. "C45)

As a result of this report, in April 1920 the American Congress rejected the proposalwhich had been made to establish an American Mandate over Anatolia for the purpose ofenabling the Armenians to establish their own state in the East.

On 10 August 1920 the Armenians joined in signing the long-hop ed-for Treaty ofSevres, which provided that the Ottoman government would recognize the establishment of anindependent Armenian state, with boundaries to be determined by President Wilson. This treatywas, however, signed only by the Ottoman Government in Istanbul, while most Turks, andmost of the country accepted the leadership of the Ankara government, led by MustaphaKemal, who actively opposed the treaty and its provisions.

In the meantime, following the Armistice of Mondros which concluded the fighting ofWorld War I in 1918, the province of Adana was occupied by the French. The British occupiedUrfa, Marash and Antep but later left these also to the French.

As French forces occupied these provinces, in south and southeast Anatolia, they wereaccompanied by Armenians wearing French uniforms, who immediately began to ravageTurkish villages and massacred large numbers of Turks. These atrocities stirred the Turks ofthe area to resist, once again leading to the spreading of propaganda in Europe that Turks weremassacring Armenians. This time, however, since the French themselves were forced to sendthe Armenians to the rear to end the atrocities, the Armenian claims were evidently false, andno-one really believed them.


-------------- 42 ARMENIAN CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS

After the American Congress rejected a Mandate over Anatolia, the Armenian Republic in theCaucasus, starting in June 1920, attacked Turkey, sending guerilla bands as well asorganized army units into eastern Anatolia, and undertaking widespread massacres of thesettled population. The Ankara government moved to the defense in September, and within ashort time the Armenian forces were routed, eastern Anatolia was regained, and order andsecurity re-established. By the Treaty of Gumru (Alexandropol) signed by the AnkaraGovernment and the Armenian Republic on 3 December 1920, both sides accepted the newboundaries and acknowledged that the provisions of the Treaty of Sevres were null and void.The Armenians also renounced all territorial claims against Turkey.

Shortly after this the Red Army entered Erivan and established the Soviet ArmenianGovernment. However through a revolt in Erivan on 18 February 1921 the Dashnaks onceagain took over control of Armenia. The new Vratzian Government sent a committee to Ankaraon 18 March asking for Turkish assistance against the Bolsheviks, a strange event indeedconsidering that only two years previously the Dashnaks had organized an Armenian invasionof Turkey. The Dashnak government did not last very long, however, and the Soviets soonregained control of Erivan.

On 16 March 1921 Turkey signed the Moscow Treaty with the Soviet Union, by whichthe boundaries between Turkey and the Soviet Union were definitively drawn. As arranged inthis agreement, on 13 October 1921 Turkey signed the Kars Agreement with Soviet Armenia,confirming the new boundaries between the two as well as their agreement that the provisionsof the Treaty of Sevres were null and void once and for all.

The situation on the southern front was settled by the Treaty of Ankara signed withFrance on 20 October 1921. France evacuated not only its own troops, but also the Armenianguerillas and volunteers who had cooperated with them, and most of the Armenians who hadgathered at Adana in the hope of establishing an Armenian state there. Most of theseArmenians were settled in Lebanon. This agreement made possible the subsequent return ofHatay to Turkey, thus fulfilling the provisions of the Turkish national pact which had beendrawn up by Mustapha Kemal and the leaders of the Turkish War for Independence.

All these settlements effectively nullified Armenian ambitions for a state in easternAnatolia. The Treaty of Lausanne, signed on 24 July 1923 in place of the Treaty of Sevres, didnot even mention the Armenians, which is why Armenian nationalists even today try toresurrect the Sevres treaty which never really was put into force.

IS THE SEVRES AGREEME 'T STILL IN FORCE? 43 _

QUESTION 10: ARE THE ARME IANS OF TURKEY BEl G OPPRESSEDTODAY?

Armenian nationalist propagandists from time to time claim that the Armenians ofTurkey are being persecuted. This is done, not only to reinforce their claims that the Turkspersecuted Armenians throughout history, but also to provide a unifying bond for Armenianaction groups and to get foreign states to intervene in Turkish internal affairs. Like the otherArmenian claims, this also is not based on fact.

The 40,000 - 50,000 Armenians living in Turkey today are in no way separated fromthe remainder of the population. They are full Turkish citizens, with the same rights andprivileges as other Turkish citizens, with their lives, liberties and happiness guaranteed by law.The Armenians of Turkey continue to worship in their own churches and teach in their ownlanguage in their own schools. They publish newspapers, books and magazines in Armenianand have their own social and cultural institutions in addition to participating fully in thoseopen to all Turks. The Armenian community in Istanbul has 30 schools, 17 cultural and socialorganizations, two daily newspapers called Jamanak and Marmara, two sports clubs, namedShishly (Sisli) and Taksim, and many health establishments as well as numerous religiousfoundations set up to support these activities.

Most of the Turkish Armenians continue to be Gregorian, and are led by a Patriarch. Inaddition there are a number of Catholic and Protestant Armenians who have their own churchesand other institutions.

The Armenians of Turkey are as free to live prosperous and happy lives as are Turks ofother religions. Many of them are prosperous merchants as well as leading members of the artsand professions. The Armenians of Turkey are proud to be Turkish citizens and, along with allother Turks, deeply resent the lies about their country spread in their name by outsideArmenian nationalists. In particular they abhorred the terroristic attacks carried out by thesegroups on Turkish diplomats, citizens; and interests throughout the world.

On November 1st 1981 the Armenian Patriarch held a memorial service at thePatriarchate to commemorate the Turkish diplomats slaughtered by Armenian terrorists and tocondemn these acts done in the name of the Armenian people. In February 1982 the Patriarchvigorously denied the claims made by the Council of Europe that Turkey is oppressing itsminorities, stating "The Armenians of Turkey are Turkish citizens, they live in peace in Turkey,they practice their religion freely and benefit from the freedom of belief" Following theArmenian terrorist assassination of Turkish Consul-General Kemal Ankan in Los Angeles on28 January, 1982, the Armenian Patriarch stated "The Turkish Armenians, like all other Turkishcitizens, learned of this with great sorrow", and appealed for "all Armenians living outsideTurkey to rise up against these illegal activities and murders." Turkish Armenians themselvesthus put the lie to the claims of the Armenian propagandists.

------------ 44 ARMENIA CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS

THE ORLY TRIAL

19 February - 2 March 1985

TESTIMONY OF PROFESSOR MUMTAZ SOYSALANKARA UNIVERSITY

Your Honour,

I do not know any of the accused and I was not at Orly Airport on the day of the attack.I am here upon the request of the lawyers of the third party. Why? I could have appeared before .:this court as a moral witness, since of the 42 Turks (31 of whom were diplomats and civilservants) who were killed by Armenian terrorists, 12 had been my former students orcolleagues, and among the victims of the Orly attack my countrymen form the majority.

But I am here, to clarify another matter for you. In my status as a witness, I was notallowed, to take part in the former sessions of this trial and therefore could not follow thedevelopments apart from reading what the local papers wrote. But what I did read in the localpapers proved the necessity for this clarification. The defense lawyers, by requesting thetestimonies of certain political personalities, were counting on making them talk, among otherthings, of the "genocide" of Armenians and in this way expecting to bring politics into the trial.Their efforts may have proved to be vain, at this stage. But I have my suspicions that they willpursue this intention nevertheless. And this is not simply a presentiment, but a conviction, sincethis pattern has repeated itself in all the trials of this kind. Did not the psychiatric expert talkhere of a certain fervent idealism which, he claimed could have prompted the accused tocommitting the crimes with which they are being charged, and did they not, in turn, talk of,childhood nourished with feelings of vengeance against the people responsible for thegenocide? I have come here to talk about this very problem.

I am neither a historian nor an ethnologist. I am a jurist. It seems to me that the incidentsof 1915 and the events that led to or followed them are closely pertinent to an analysis of allkinds of crimes, which pretend to be morally inspired by a feeling of collective revengeattributed to these incidents. This analysis is also necessary in speaking of the motive to attractinternational interest to injustices that remain unpunished.

As a jurist, I am surprised by the ease, in fact the lighthearted way in which the term"genocide" is used, especially in this country by everyone from statesmen to the mere partisansof the Armenian cause. And yet, this term refers to a well defined crime, the definition of whichhas been given in an international convention made after the Second World War: the"Convention for the Prevention and the Repression of the Crime of Genocide", approved by theGeneral Assembly ofthe United Nations in its resolution of December 9, 1948 and which wentinto effect on January 11, 1951; convention which Turkey signed and ratified.

In the convention the definition of the crime of genocide consists of three elements: forone thing, there has to be a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Then, this group has to

TESTIMONY Of PROfESSOR MOMTAZ SOYSAL 47-----------------------------

be subject to certain acts listed in the convention. The "murder of the members of the group,andforced transfer of the children of one group into another group and subjecting the membersof a group to conditions which will eventually bring about their physical destruction" comewithin the range of actions listed in the said convention ... But the third element is the mostimportant: there has to be "an intent of destroying", in part or in whole the said group.

This key-description helps to differentiate between genocide and other forms ofhomicide, which are the consequences of other motives such as in the case of wars, uprisingsetc. Homicide becomes genocide when the latent or apparent intention of physical destructionis directed at members of anyone of the national, ethnic, racial or religious groups simplybecause they happen to be members of that group. The concept of numbers only becomessignificant when it can be taken as sign of such an intention against the group. That is why, asSartre said in speaking of genocide on the occasion of the Russell Tribunal on the Vietnam War,that one must study the facts objectively in order to prove if this intention exists, even in animplicit manner.

A survey of three groups of facts will be sufficient to reach a conclusion on this matterin connection with the Armenian problem. The first group of facts concerns eight centuries ofhistory, from the eleventh to the second half of the nineteenth century, during which Turks andArmenians of Anatolia led a peaceful coexistence that has not been equaled in the annals of thepeoples of the world. From the time of the conquest of Asia Minor by the Turks to the era ofnationalism, no major conflict, no armed struggle brought these two communities against eachother. In the entire history of the world there are no two other peoples with languages, andreligious beliefs manner for different, who have managed to coexist in such a peaceful and longperiod. We are proud of this tolerance on the part of the Turkish people, who in this way madepossible such an exceptional coexistence. This exceptional situation becomes even moreremarkable in that it paved the way for deep cultural exchange fruits of which are still evidentin the daily life of both peoples: for example most of the family names of Armenians arecompositions of Turkish words (mostly names of professions) with an Armenian suffix. On theother hand the contemporary Turkish music and art is full ofthe names of composers and artistsof Armenian origin.

The second group of facts is related more precisely to the incidents of 1915 and to theevents, which led to or followed these. The second half on the nineteenth century was the eraof nationalism for different ethnic groups, which formed the Ottoman Empire. It was a newcurrent of thought which prompted each people to engage in an armed struggle in order toestablish its own state on parts of the imperial territories. Almost all of them succeeded, withthe exception of the Armenians whose struggle for independence differs on exceptional frontfrom the other national fights: as a hard working people endowed with many talents in arts andartisanry and faithful to the Sultan's authority, the Armenians spread throughout Asia Minorand even to the European territories of the Empire, so that they lost their majority status in the

----------------- 48 ARMENIA CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS

lands which they had been inhabiting before the times of the Turks. In this way there was nota single part of Eastern Anatolia by the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of thetwentieth century that was inhabited by an Armenian majority. Therefore there was no nationalliberation movement, to use a fashionable term, in any specific part of the territories of theEmpire, which could be called "Armenia". There were only uprisings and acts of terrorismcommitted by the Armenians in different comers of the country. As any self-respecting statethe Ottoman state took some measures, sometimes very severe, to protect itself from theseactivities.

Then the First World War started. In 1915 the Ottoman Empire was fighting on severalfronts. While it fought in the West to resist the attacks of the allied forces in the Dardanelles,the East was threatened by the invasion of the Armies of Czarist Russia. We must note thatRussia was one of the main great powers that took an interest in the Armenian question, duringall of the second half of the nineteenth century with the aim of accelerating the disintegrationof the Ottoman Empire from which it hoped eventually to benefit to a great extent. During thewar the Russian rulers made use of their involvement with the Armenian cause with a view todevastate the Ottoman lines of defense. This brought about collaboration between the RussianArmy and the Armenian rebels, including those who were doing their military service withinthe Sultan's army. In the eyes of the leaders of the Armenian revolt this.may have been anecessary cooperation on their path to their national independence. But for the Ottomans it wastreason. In this atmosphere of war there followed a series of insurrections, rebellions, reprisalsand mutual killing. It is at this time that the government had to take a difficult decision:

1. to transfer the Armenian soldiers from the combat troops into the non-combatingtroops;

2. to evacuate the Armenian population from the zone of operations in south-easternAnatolia and to the north of present-day Syria, which at the time was still part of the Empire.These were measures necessary to ensure the security of the troops and to protect the passagesfor the provisioning of the Army.

It was a painful relocation. The transport of all the Armenian population was carried outin very strict conditions, across a very mountainous and arid region. Means of transportationwere scarce and the people being displaced generally had to cover long distances on foot, oftenharassed and attacked by some tribes who had escaped the authority of the state. At the timeepidemics were running strong as well as famine that hit the whole civilian population and eventhe military. At times the over-zealous attitude of some administrators who, in their efforts tofulfil the government orders, did little in the way of measures to be taken for the protection ofthe displaced persons, aggravated the unfavorable circumstances. In brief, a tragedy was livedthrough in those days in that part of Anatolia, but it was a common tragedy, causing mutualsuffering and taking thousands of victims on both sides.

TESTIMONY OF PROFESSOR MOMTAZ SOYSAL 49-----------------------------

But this tragedy cannot be called genocide. Because it lacks the essential element forthe qualification of genocide, that is the intention to destroy the Armenian ethnic group as such.It is a question of wartime action, decided upon in an atmosphere of armed conflict, in the heartof a dying Empire beset by disorder and disorganization. The relocation of the Armenianelement obviously had consequences that at first glimpse may fulfil the conditions set out bythe 1948 Convention. There were killings involving the members of the group especially byirresponsible members of some of the tribes of the region. There was physical suffering dueespecially to the geographical and climatic conditions in a country already devastated by thewar. It is also true that some orphans were adopted by Muslim families. But that was in no wayprompted by the intention to bring about a forced transfer of the children of one group toanother group, to use the language of the convention, but on the contrary, inspired, in a spiritof solidarity and charity, by the centuries of peaceful coexistence which had tied together theAnatolian families. The intention to destroy an ethnic group, in part or as a whole is absent inall this series of events, since all the sources, even the most ardent advocates of the Armeniancause, accept that none of these measures were applied to the Armenians in the areas distant tothe war fronts or to the Armenians who had settled in the big cities such as Istanbul and Izmir.On the other hand, many civil servants, even district officers of Armenian origin maintainedtheir position during all these incidents which hit the eastern regions of the country, continuingin this way the long tradition of the Ottoman State to open the doors of its administration tonon-Muslim elements. In fact the Ottoman administration boasted of several Armenianministers and ambassadors (even to important capitals such as Berlinand Vienna" etc) and highranking offices in its service.

As to the eastern Anatolian region, Turkey is in possession of innumerable documentsin its Ottoman archives - letters, telegrams, circulars etc. (of which some have been recentlypublished), in which governmental authorities display efforts, in spite of the tragiccircumstances of a desperate war, for the protection and safety of the displaced persons. Itcould be that they failed in these efforts in certain cases. But these failures can certainly not beconsidered as proof of an intention of genocide comparable in any way to that of Hitler whoseultimate aim had been the total destruction of the Jewish race, an end towards which all themechanism of the State had been directed.

The third group of facts which makes it possible to reject the accusations of "genocideof Armenians 'by the Turks" concerns the harmonious relations between the Turkish people andthe Armenian minority in today's Turkey.

It is necessary to review the characteristics of the three last generations of Armeniansliving abroad and to compare their lot with those of the Armenians in Turkey, in order tounderstand the nature of these relations.

The first generation consists of the exiled, those who had to leave the country during orbefore the fall of the Empire, who have suffered and whose kin were victims of the First World

_________________ 50 ARME, IAl CLAIMS A. D HISTORICAL FACTS

War. Some of these Armenians reacted to this situation with a feeling of revenge and, forgettingthat the sufferings had been experienced on both sides, engaged themselves in individual actsof terrorism against Ottoman officials.

The second generation of Armenians abroad consists of those who have adaptedthemselves into their surroundings, people who became integrated with the new society whichreceived them and who, thanks to their remarkable qualities as a hardworking and artisticallytalented people, distinguished themselves in their new society, achieving prosperity andpopularity. It is this fmal point that led part of the third generation, that of today's youngArmenians abroad to assert their national identity once more through acts of violence. Thetarget is to prevent the past from being forgotten, to stop the progressive integration ofArmenians in their new surroundings and the disappearance of Armenian culture.Unfortunately in order to assert their identity, these young people chose the easiest way: thatof violence. The acts of violence carried out by these young people obviously hold severaldangers for them. But compared to the worthwhile cultural and intellectual efforts, to be madefor the perpetuation of an Armenian identity, these act of violence are doomed to remain toosimple and too futile a choice.

But the third generations of Armenians who live in Turkey are not going through thiskind of an identity crisis. For they have all the means of perpetuating the characteristics of theirethnic group, as in the days of peaceful coexistence in the bosom of the Empire. In addition,their rights as a religious minority are guaranteed by an international treaty: the Treaty ofLausanne, signed in 1923 and of which France is the depositary. The cultural exchangebetween the Turkish people and the Armenian minority continues and the two communitiesshare the same kind of life in an atmosphere of peace without grievances. It should be notedthat even before the onset of the terrorism, which swept over Turkey prior to 1980, theArmenians of Turkey have never taken part in acts of violence. The few isolated incidents,which took place, were the doings of Armenians indoctrinated and trained abroad. The case ofthe notorious "Seminary Jerusalem", must be considered within this context. One of theaccused, according to the Press, apparently said that he was forced to carry on his studies inJerusalem because of a lack of Armenian schools in Turkey. Allow me, Your Honour, to list afew examples from among the 19 nursery schools, 20 primary schools, 29 secondary schoolsand 5 high schools (lycees) in which the instruction is carried out in the Armenian languageand which have easily recognizable Armenian names: the Bezesyan nursery and primaryschool, the Levon Vartuhyan primary school, the Semerciyan Gemeran nursery and primaryschool, the Karagozyan primary school, the Aramyan Uncuyan Secondary school, theBezciyan secondary Scholl, the Sanakyan Nunyan, Eseyan, Getronagan etc. high schools.

It is precisely against this reciprocal tolerance and this peaceful coexistence between theTurkish people and the Armenian community that the young Armenians abroad are directingtheir terrorism. But up to now all such efforts have proved futile and neither the Turkish people

TESTIMO Y OF PROFESSOR MOMTAZ SOYSAL 51-------------------------- __

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

nor the government has had recourse to acts of violence against the Armenian community inTurkey.

And yet terrorism persists and people continue to talk of the "genocide" of seventy yearsago. Why? Because genocide is a crime against humanity and that the convention which I havealready mentioned defines it as "a crime against humanity". It is easily possible, in speaking ofgenocide, to influence world public opinion, to mobilize it against a State, a nation or a people.It is also an imprescriptible crime, a crime that must be punished regardless of the time at whichit had been committed. The authors of that crime must therefore be chastised everywhere andat all times and, since this crime, in the eyes of the Armenian terrorists, is one that can beattributed to all the Turkish nation, the representatives of the present Turkish State and itscitizens must be punislred: young diplomats, whose parents were not even born at the time ofthe incidents, simple workers boarding their national airliner to go on home leave.

This is why Armenian terrorists prefer to distort history and to describe as genocide ahuman tragedy shared by two people in circumstances of war. This serves them, as a pretext tocommit further acts of terrorism. But according to the juridical definition given by the UnitedNations Convention which speaks of an intention to destroy, even in part, the members of anational, ethnic, racial or religious group, because they are members of that group, their ownacts take on a genocidal aspect: to kill Turks because they are Turks and to attempt to place abomb in an airplane simply because it belongs to the Turkish Airlines, transporting Turkishpassengers; that in itself is "genocidal" act, if not genocide itself. Thank you, Your Honour.

Me. VERGES accuses Professor Soysal of giving "a most cynical" interpretation of"genocide" which, he says cost the lives of one million and half Armenians in eastern Anatolia.Then having read a passage from the book of the Belgian Minister Baron de Brouckere he asksProfessor Soysal what he thinks of these dramatic descriptions of the said incidents.

PROF. SOYSAL: It is very easy to select similar passages from among a quantity ofbooks written by the partisans of the Armenian cause. I could have done the same and readpages, and pages in books that describe the massacre of the Turks by Armenians in the sameregions ofthe country. We, too, can give numbers to speak for themselves. Numbers taken fromOttoman census figures and confirmed by reports of the consuls of great powers of Europe,which clearly indicate that the total number of Armenians living in the Empire at the time didnot exceed 1,300,000. It is therefore absurd to talk of "a million and a half dead people", evenaccepting the dismal hypothesis of a massacre of all the members of the Armenian communityin the various regions of the State. I could have in the same way quoted passages from foreignauthors who give another version of the events, a version which is not as biased against


Ottoman rulers. I could have cited the book of a French officer, Commander M. Larcher, "TheTurkish War within the First World War" which bears a preface by Marechal Franchet d'Esperaywho commanded the forces of the allied occupation army and talks of the "correct behavior"of the Turkish people and military authorities. We must not forget that all these events tookplace in an era in which a large Empire was falling with all the disorder that such an eventimplies.

There were certainly some administrators who abused their powers in an excess of zeal.But they were punished by Ottoman tribunals following the war, as the individuals responsiblefor these excessive behaviors and not as executors of a government policy aiming at genocide.

Me. VERGES after having read a passage by Lord Bryce on the cruelty of the Turks,and an extract from the book by M. Morgenthau, United States Ambassador to Istanbul, on theevents of 1915, asks the opinion of Professor Soysal on these.

PROF. SOYSAL: Your Honour, I have just said a few moments ago that if we wereallowed to produce here before you a stack of books, we could have quoted passagesexpressing just the opposite of what has just been read here. But it is true that the quantity ofanti-Turkish, pro-Armenian books is immense. All was done to prove the existence of an actof genocide on the part of the Turks: false arguments were based on false documents, andfalsifications. As to Morgenthau, we must be sure to note that both. he and especially hissuccessors who happened to be in Istanbul during the occupation of the Allied Forces had thepossibility to obtain irrefutable proof certifying the responsibility of Ottoman rulers in the said"genocide". But nothing of the kind happened, not even after all the archives came under thecontrol of the occupying military forces.

Me. VERGES, notes that M. Morgenthau was not in Istanbul at the end of the war andmentions this time Doctor Lepsius, German missiortary, and asks what Professor Soysal thinksof him.

PROF. SOYSAL: M. Morgenthau, as ambassador in a warring country, never set footoutside Istanbul and all his reports reflect the information supplied to him by his dragomanswho were more often than not of Armenian origin; and by the missionaries. Doctor Lepsius wasalso a missionary. I have noticed that, in the passage that has just been read, he mentions thecase of the Jews of the Ottoman Empire. Allow me, Your Honour, in connection with this tosay something very soon, in a few years, Turkey will be celebrating the five hundredthanniversary of the Exodus of Jews from Spain into Turkey. Escaping religious inquisition andrepression these people found refuge in the territories of the Ottoman State which gave themasylum and piece with an administrative system based on self-government of non-Muslimcommunities. We are proud of this system and of this past full of tolerance towards theChristian and Jewish peoples of the Empire.

TESTIMONY OF PROFESSOR MDMT AZ SOYSAL 53

54 ARMEN[AN CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS

Me. BOURGUET reproaches Professor Soysal for having made a political speechinstead of supplying a legal explanation and accuses him, with hiding behind the principle ofnon-retroactivity of the penal code in talking of an international convention which only wentinto effect after the Second World War. He asks also why in his testimony he has used theterm "Armenian element" to designate the Armenian "people".

PROF. SOYSAL: The fact that the Convention for the Prevention and Repression ofthe Crime of Genocide dates from 1948 has nothing to do with our discussion. What I am tryingto explain by using the juridical definition given in that text is the exact nature of the eventswhich took place in the historic period beginning at the end of the nineteenth century andlasting up to the aftermath of the First World War. I take the definition of the said conventionas a touchstone and accepting the existence of a human tragedy common to Turkish andArmenian people of Eastern Anatolia alike, I say that these incidents do not constitute a crimeof genocide attributable to the Ottoman rulers. We are ready to confront our own history andto assume responsibility for it, even in the case of a subsequently defined crime. I know fullwell that there is a discussion among jurists on the retroactive character ofthe convention. Eventhough the very term, "genocide", is a term fabricated at the aftermath of the Second WorldWar, we can, it is true, argue that convention is "declarative" of law, in that it confirms theexistence of a crime already condemned by humanity. That it is retroactive or not changesnothing in the essence of our discussion here, since the historic facts are not of a nature to provethe existence of such a crime.

As to the term "Armenian element" which I used, I should like to remind Your Honourthat this is not the only term I used in talking of Armenians. I have used other terms such asethnic group, people, minority etc. The qualification does not change the juridical argument.The convention speaks of a group that could be an ethnic group, a people, a minority, or if youlike a nation. The Armenians of the Ottoman Empire certainly formed a group in the sense ofthe convention. But this point is not relevant to what I am trying to explain mainly the non-existence of the crime of genocide against this group.

Me. BOURGUET asks about the number of "Kurds" living in Anatolia.

PROF. SOYSAL: I see no relation between this question and our discussion here, butI perceive the insinuation. Turkey is a unitary republic based on the equality of its citizensbefore the law, without distinction of race, religion or language. It is true that there are citizensof the Turkish Republic whose maternal language is not Turkish, but in a state, which makesno distinction among its citizens in connection with the language, which they speak, this pointhas no juridical consequence. To accentuate this principle even further, the issue of maternallanguage no longer comes up in the recent population census questionnaires. It is thereforedifficult to give a number. It is as if you were asked to give the number of Britons in France.Which number could you give? The number of peoples inhabiting Brittany? They are not all

Britons. The numbers of people of Briton origin who live all aver France? It is impossible togive such a number, in view of the different degrees of kinship and different concepts of originin the people themselves.

Juridically speaking, the term "minority" applies only to the three non-Moslemcommunities established as such by the Treaty of Lausanne: the Greek Orthodox, Armenianand Jewish minorities. The rights of these people have been guaranteed by an internationaltreaty in addition to the already existing guarantees accorded to all citizens of Turkey by theconstitutional order of the country.

Me. BOURGUET asks the meaning of the term "Mountain Turks"

PROF. SOYSAL: I am aware that this term has been circulating abroad, in order toridicule the Republican attitude concerning Turkish citizens of different ethnic groups. InTurkey, as in France, citizenship is not an ethnic or racial category but a juridical one. It hasnothing to do with the ethnic origin and the ethnic origin of a person has no juridicalimplications. The term used by Maitre Bourguet is never used in Turkey, but it is sometimeseen in foreign books, in derisive manner. It may also have been used in the early days of theTurkish Republic to erase all traces of ethnic hostility, an effort which merits only praise. Butthis term is not current in today's Turkey.

Me. BOURGUET referring to the number of victims ofthe 1915 incidents declares thata reduction of the number of victims does not indicate that the crime did not take place and thatthe fact of having escaped death does not prove the lack of a genocide or an attempt in thatdirection.

PROF. SOYSAL: A reduction or an increase in the number of the victims makes nodifference in the nature of the crime, if the crime does exist. That is why I shunned numbers inthe course of my deposition. What I tried to demonstrate was that there was no intention topartially or totally destroy the Armenian ethnic group on the part of the authorities of theOttoman State. That is the essential aspect of the problem. Without the existence of thisintention, the admission of the mutually-experienced human tragedy does not mean theadmission of the alleged genocide.

Me. BOURGUET asks why Turkey insists in not admitting the "genocide" and wishesto be informed of the difference, in the eyes of the Turks, between the concept of genocide andthat of massacre, especially from the point of view of juridical consequences.

PROF. SOYSAL: At first let us bring some precision, since law requires, above all,very precise concepts: what I contrast to the concept of "genocide of the Armenians by theTurks" is not the "concept of the massacre of Armenians by the Turks". 0, the apposition is

TESTlMO:-JY OF PROFESSOR MOMTAZ SOYSAL 55

between the "genocide of Armenians by the Turks" on one side and "the tragedy shared by thetwo communities at a very precise period of history which consisted of rebellions, appraisals,reprisals, acts of revenge and mutual killings". If we should speak in terms of numbers, I couldalso supply the number of two and a half million Turks who perished during the same periodat the end of the nineteenth century, until the aftermath of the First World War. A majority ofthese people met their death in the incidents in the eastern region of Anatolia. I negate nothing.I only observe the historic facts and note the absence of an intention to destroy an ethnic group,because it is that ethnic group. To admit genocide under the circumstances would be to admita non-truth. It would also mean, accepting an affront, an insult to the Turkish people whose pastis full of examples of tolerance and goodwill towards other religious communities. It is aninsult to a nation, which is still eager today to continue this peaceful coexistence with theArmenian cornmunity on its territory, in a unitary republic. It would also mean to admit theconsequences of unilateral propaganda and the persistence of hostility between the twopeoples. We nurture no collective hatred against Armenians. To admit the existence of genocidewould be to admit also the necessity of a collective pardon before history, a history withoutblemish, in this respect, for the Turkish people, when in the period when the rest of the worldwas tom by religious quarrels. It would be also to admit territorial claims on the heritage of thepresent Turkish Republic. Anatolia was the cradle of several civilizations and several people inthe past. Today it belongs to the Turks, to the Turkish Republic. Because genocide is animprescriptible crime, the young Armenian terrorists of our days assume the right to punish thisRepublic and its citizens. Humanity cannot accept this concept of chastisement and revenge.The incidents in question took place seventy years ago and it is futile to rummage through thepages of history in an effort to recreate new mutual enmities. To accept the existence of thesepages is a moral duty for all historians and all men of conscience, but to interpret these pagesin a unilateral manner and to accuse only one of the peoples indulging in the common strife isan attitude that the collective conscience of humanity cannot accept.

Me. BOURGUET reads the text of a telegram, attributed to Talat Pasha, Minister ofInterior of the Ottoman government, in 1915, and asks if this telegram, which according to himis evidence of the existence of genocide, is authentic and would like to have explanations onthis subject.

PROF. SOYSAL: This telegram is a false one. What is being published nowadays inseveral propaganda books is the photograph of a photograph and the original does not exist.Because the original was a false one fabricated bya certain Andonian, who published a bookat the time of the trial of Tehlirian, the assassin of Talat Pasha, in 1921, in Berlin. The tribunalof Berlin never accepted 'the authenticity of this text, nor that of other documents published inthe book. But its publication influenced public opinion and the assassin was acquitted. Thesedocuments which were supposedly sold to Mr. Andonian by a low-ranking employee of theOttoman administration contains notes "signed" by the Prefect of Aleppo whose real signature,as appears in the Ottoman archives, in no way corresponds to the one on the false document.

--------------- __ 56 ARME lA, CLAIMS Al D HISTORICAL FACTS

There are also errors of date resulting from the fact that the person who fabricated the falsedocuments was not well informed in the conversion of the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Irepeat, I am not a historian, but I must note that Turkish historians have meticulouslydemonstrated and published other errors relating to the ciphers used in telegrams and to theheadings of the documents, so that these documents have lost all the value attributed to them.They have in fact become examples of falsification perpetuated in the hope to distort historyfor political causes.

Me. BOURGUET asks why the Turkish side does not make available to foreigners theOttoman archives in order to disprove the accusations, and underlines the Turkish authoritiesreluctance to submit documents relating to the Armenian question to be examined by thePermanent Tribunal of Peoples which met in Paris in 1984 to make a judgement on the sameproblem.

PROF. SOYSAL: The Ottoman archives are open, to the extent that their classificationpermits, to scholars of goodwill of all nationalities. It is obvious that some precautions arerequired to safeguard the past heritage, especially in the case of such a controversial problem.The study of Ottoman archives, containing millions of documents in a difficult language andwriting requires an extraordinary amount of expertise. What has just been published from outof these by a limited number of experts already proves exactly the opposite of what has beenpropagated for a long time on this subject. Turkey therefore has immense gain, contrary to whatsome are thinking, to open its Ottoman archives to the use of scholars.

As to the Permanent Tribunal of Peoples, I think that the Turkish authorities are readyto send officially requested documents by legally constituted tribunals. For example, this Courtof Assizes can request the Turkish authorities to send a document or an official notice and thisrequest will certainly be promptly met. But since the Permanent Tribunal of the Peoples is atribunal of opinion, constituted by individuals of private status, whatever their intellectualcompetence may be, I think that the Turkish authorities have abstained from making officialcontacts with this organization which,- -in their eyes, risks becoming an instrument ofpropaganda for the Armenian cause.

Me. ZAVARIAN referring to eight centuries of peaceful coexistence between theTurkish people and the Armenians and to the characteristics of the Armenian community asdescribed by Professor Soysal, tries to contrast what he calls the "peasant side" of the Turks tothe "artistic sense" of Armenians and to draw some conclusions from this for the analysis ofthe problem.

PROF. SOYSAL: I did not make any comparisons in praising the qualities of theArmenian people. If by such a tentative analysis what is meant is that the Turks, less refinedthan their Armenian neighbours, would be more inclined towards acts of violence, there is herean insinuation that I reject with great indignation. I cannot allow my people to be insulted.TESTIMO:--1Y OF PROFESSOR MOMTAZ SOYSAL 57 _

Me. ZAVARIAN asks what the date 24 April 1915 signifies for the Turks.

PROF. SOYSAL: First, allow me, Your Honour, to say precisely what this date meansfor the Armenian cause. For them it is the date of the beginning of the "genocide", therefore adate that must be commemorated each year. They wish that all the peoples in the worldremember this date because it marks the beginning of a series of crimes against humanity.

In reality what did happen exactly on that date? It is the day when the Ottomangovernment gave the order to arrest the leaders of the Armenian revolutionary committees andto try them before military tribunals for the act of treason.

Me. ZAVARIAN noting that 650 Armenian intellectuals, writers, poets, doctors,lawyers, scholars, priests and political personalities were imprisoned on this date inConstantinople, then deported and assassinated, asks whether this is not a proof of genocide.

PROF. SOYSAL: First it is not Constantinople, but Istanbul, the name that Turks havealways given to that city. Then, the Armenians were not arrested because they were Armenianintellectuals but simply because they were leaders of committees which ordered the Armeniansof the Eastern provinces to revolt against the State and to cooperate with the Russian army. Forthe government of a warring country threatened with invasion, a different attitude would nothave been thinkable. These leaders were not assassinated but simply transferred to the interiorregions of the country, into the provinces of central Anatolia. The fact that some of them weresentenced and paid with their lives for treason intolerable in times of war certainly constitutesno proof of genocide.

Me. ZAVARIAN asks about the locations to which the Armenians of the easternprovinces were transferred.

PROF. SOYSAL: That yellow book to which you have been referring all through thistrial and which is entitled "Crime of Silence" contains all the reports submitted to the"Permanent Tribunal of the Peoples", I also have it in my pocket. You will find in it, on page6 or 8, a map showing with arrows the itineraries of the relocated Armenians. We must notehere that the displacement took place within the frontiers of the State towards the south-east ofthe same country. There is no question therefore, of a "deportation" in the sense that this wordacquired in the course of the Second World War.

Me. ZAVARIAN notes that the Germans did not use the word "deportation" while theydeported millions of Jews to exterminate them.

PROF. SOYSAL: I can see what is intended by this remark. The scenario of theprevious trials repeats itself here too, I am sure that the next step will be to mention the famous

_________________ 58 ARMENIAl CLAIMS Al D HISTORICAL FACTS

phrase attributed to Hitler at the beginning of the Second World War: "After all who remembersnow the extermination of the Armenians?". But it has been demonstrated later, especially by anAmerican researcher, Heath Lowry, that Hitler never uttered this sentence attributed to him byan English journalist. And the documents accepted by the urenberg Tribunal do not containsuch a phrase. The only document referred to as evidence of this phrase was rejected as a falsedocument by the same international tribunal. It is noteworthy that there is continued effort tomobilize Jewish public opinion in the world against Turkey and to provoke a universalcondemnation of the Turks by putting the Turks and Hitler in the same basket.

Me. ZAVARIAN alludes to the request of official pardon which the Federal Republicof Germany made in the name of the German people and to the positive effect of this gestureon the relations between Germany and Israel.

PROF. SOYSAL: One more example is seen here of the ultimate aim of the Armeniancause and of its terrorists: to force the Turkish governments to accept the existence of the so-called "genocide" and, thereupon to oblige them to pay indemnities to a fictitious Armenianentity, as was the case between Germany and the State of Israel. This is pure fantasy, and noviolence, no terror in the world will make us beg forgiveness for a crime that was notcommitted. Israel is not a good example in this context and the parallel drawn here isunacceptable. But to speak of it seriously, and to push the various Armenian communities ofthe world in the part of an impossible dream is not a very honest attitude towards the Armenianpeople.

Me. ZAVARIAN having read an extract from the newspaper "Le Monde" where a newsitem datelined Ankara, mentions a phrase by Prime Minister Turgut Ozal on the necessity of anew attitude in the Armenian affair, asks whether one can speak of a change in Turkey's officialpolicy in connection with assuming responsibility for the "genocide". He feels that ProfessorSoysal, as the jurist specializing in these subjects, and who has defended the policy of theTurkish government at other similar occasions, must be in a position to answer this question.

PROF. SOYSAL: This comment reminds me of the famous La Fontaine fable of theFox and the Crow. There is an effort to bring out of my mouth words that might indicate anofficial mission in order to make me appear as the official spokesman for the government. I amnot a spokesman for anyone. I am speaking here as an academician and as a journalist and thisis the first time that I bear witness in a trial concerning Armenian terrorists. What the PrimeMinister may have said on the subject does not engage me in anyway. Anyway, he came upwith further remarks on that subject.

What I am saying personally in my position as expert witness before this tribunal isquite clear: I say that history must be accepted as such, and facts must be restituted in the sameway that they were mutually experienced by the two peoples. We Turks have nothing to fear

TESTIMONY OF PROFESSOR MOMT AZ SOYSAL 59

Thank you, Your Honour, for having given me the occasion to speak. It does not happen

from this kind of confrontation since the accusation of a premeditated and organized genocideaiming at the destruction of the Armenian ethnic group cannot stand against an analysis of thetrue historic facts in this subject. Up to now the Turkish Republic preferred not to talk aboutthese facts in the hope of forgetting the past and restoring peace and harmony on the Anatolianland, and in its relations with its neighbours. It is for this reason that in our schools we choseoblivion and the silence both in the subject of the suffering inflicted on the Turkish people byArmenians and Greeks, and in the subject of the human tragedies that all these people havelived through together. This Turkish silence lasted seventy years. But others have beenspeaking, and distorting history while doing so, and creating another image in which we appearas the guilty side. This image, based on the accounts of only one of the sides and on theinterpretations of the circles hostile towards the Turks, has covered along distance and even ifwith faltering steps, reached counter-truths. Now we must restitute the truth. They forced us tospeak and we shall speak.

Me. ZAVARIAN wishes to be informed of the causes of the events of 6 and 7September 1955 during which Christian minorities of Istanbul suffered some material damage,as an outcome of anti-Greek demonstrations in connection with the Cyprus affair.

PROF. SOYSAL: Your honour, I think I can detect the ulterior motive behind thisquestion. The defence seems to imply that the Turk is the barbarian, the brute; he destroys, hekills. These insinuating and the degrading description does not correspond in any way torealities of a people who can be proud of creating one of the most tolerant civilizations ofhistory. Incidents such as those of 1955 in Istanbul are frequent in the contemporary world tomby international conflicts and their repercussions on the national scenes. But to deduce fromthis some consequences to accuse a single nation portrays a bad intention nurtured by historichatred. The brotherhood of mankind will never become a reality if one continues to sow hatredamong peoples in this way.

often.

------------- 60 ARMENIAN CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS

DECLARATION

MADE BY

AMERICAN ACADEMICIANS

(May 19, 1985)

Attention Members oftbe U S House of The undersigned American academicians who specialize in

Turkish, Ottoman and Middle Eastern studies are concernedthat ,the ~urre~t language, embodied ,in House Joint Resolu tion

• •192 is uusleading and/or inaccurate 111 several respects,

• Specifically, while fully supporting the concept of aRepresentatlVles :~~~~;;U~yo::~~~:Y::~oo~~;~~n~;~Man, ••which singles out for special recognruon.••, , .tbe one and one half million people of Armenianancestry who were victims of genocide perpetrated in Turkeybetween' 1915 and 1923 ...••

~:!::'

Our reservations focus on the use of the: words "Tuckey" and "genocide" and may be:summarized asfollows:• From the: fourteenth century until 1922, the area currently known is Turkey, or more correctly, theRepublic of Turkey. was part of the territory encompassing the multi-natlonal, multi-religious stateknown as the Ottoman Empire. It is wrong to equate the Ottoman Empire with the Republic of Turkey inthe same way thai it is wrong to equate the: Hapsburg Empire with the Republic of Austria. The: OttomanEmpire, which was brought to an end in 1922, by the successful conclusion of the Turkish Revolutionwhich establlshcd the present day Republic of Turkey in 1923. Incorporated lands and peoples whichtoday account for more than rwenry-fivc distinct COuntries in Southeastern Europe. NOrth Africa, and theMiddle East, only one of which is the Republic of Turkey. The Republic ofTnrkey bears no responsibiliryfor any events which OCcurred in Ottoman times, yet by naming "Turkey" in the Resolution, its authorshave Implicitly labeled it as guilty of the "genocide" it charges transpired between 1915 and 1923;• As for the charge of "genocide:" No signarory of this statement wishes to minimize the scope of Arrnc-nian suffering. we arc likewise cognizant that it cannot be viewed as separate from the suffering expert-enced by the Muslim inhabitants of the region. The weight of evidence so far uncovered points in thedirection of serious inter-communal warfare (perpetrated by Muslim and Christian irregular forces). com-plicated by disease. famine. suffering and massacres in Anaroua and adjoining areasduring the First WorldWar. Indeed. throughout the years in question, the region was the scene of more or less continuous war-fare. not .unlikc the tr -acdy which has gone on in Lebanon for the past decade. The resulting death tollamong both Muslim an Christian communities of the region was immense. But much more remains to be

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discovered before historians will be wit to son Out precisely responsibility between warrlng and inno-.cent, and to identify the causes for the events which resulted in the death or removal of large numbers ofthe eastern Anatolian populauon. Christian and Muslim alike.

Statesmen and politicians make history, and scholars write it. For this process to work scholars must begiven access to the written records of the statesmen and politicians of the past. To date, the relevantarchives in the Soviet Union, Syria, Bulgaria and Turkey all remain, for the most part. closed to dis-passionate historians. Until they become available the histor-y of (he Ottoman Empire in the periodencompassed by H.). Res,' 192 (1915-1923) canner be adequately known,

We believe that the proper position for the United States Congress to take on this and related issue", Istoencourage full and open access to ill historical archives, and not to make charges on historical eventsbefore they are fully understood. Such charges as those contained in H.J. Res. 192 would inevitably reflectunjustly upon the people of Turkey, and perhaps set back Irreparably progress htstonans arc just nowbeginning to achieve in understanding these tragic events.

As the above comments illustrate, the history of the Ottoman-Armenians is much debated amongscholars. many of whom clo not agree with the historical assumptions embodied in the wording of H.J.Res. 192. By passing the resolution Congress will be attempting to determine by legislation which side or ahistorical question is correct. Such a resolution. based on historlcallv questionable assumptions, can onlydamage the cause of honest historical enquiry, and damage the credibility of the American lcgrsfauveprocess.

Signatories of 1"( Statement of H.], Res, 192 addressed to the Members of the U,S, House of Representatives:Iltaat AboGD·[J·HIli~O/HiJtor'fCaJ.,fOrYII1Su.tcCN"tI"SHV11~8t-adlStrInbM~IAlhAD.ocJat.- hofnJ~ f1/ Turtub

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ATTENTIONMEMBERS OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

(May 19, 1985)

The undersigned American academicians who specialize in Turkish, Ottoman andMiddle Eastern Studies are concerned that the current language embodied in House JointResolution 192 is misleading and/or inaccurate in several respects.

Specifically, while fully supporting the concept of a "National Day of Remembrance ofManis Inhumanity to Man," we respectfully take exception to that portion of the text whichsingles out for special recognition:

"... the one and one half million people of Armenian ancestry who were victims ofgenocide perpetrated in Turkey between 1915 and 1923 .... "

Our reservations focus on the use of the words "Turkey" and "genocide" and may besummarized as follows:

From the fourteenth century until 1922, the area currently known as Turkey, or morecorrectly, the Republic of Turkey, was part of the territory encompassing the multi-national,multi-religious state known as the Ottoman Empire. It is wrong to equate the Ottoman Empirewith the Republic of Turkey in the same way that it is wrong to equate the Hapsburg Empirewith the Republic of Austria. The Ottoman Empire, which was brought to an end in 1922, bythe successful conclusion of the Turkish Revolution which established the present dayRepublic of Turkey in 1923, incorporated lands and people which today account for more thantwenty-five distinct countries in Southeastern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, onlyone of which is the Republic of Turkey. The Republic of Turkey bears no responsibility for anyevents which occurred in Ottoman times, yet by naming 'Turkey' in the Resolution, its authorshave implicitly labeled it as guilty of "genocide" it charges transpired between 1915 and 1923;

As for the charge of "genocide," no signatory of this statement wishes to minimize thescope of Armenian suffering. We are likewise cognizant that it cannot be viewed as separatefrom the suffering experienced by the Muslim inhabitants of the region. The weight of evidenceso far uncovered points in the direct of serious inter communal warfare (perpetrated by Muslimand Christian irregular forces), complicated by disease, famine, suffering and massacres inAnatolia and adjoining areas during the First World War. Indeed, throughout the years inquestion, the region was the scene of more or less continuous warfare, not unlike the tragedywhich has gone on in Lebanon for the past decade. The resulting death toll among both Muslimand Christian conununities of the region was immense. But much more remains to bediscovered before historians will be able to sort out precisely responsibility between warringand innocent, and to identify the causes for the events which resulted in the death or removalof large numbers of the eastern Anatolian population, Christian and Muslim alike.

DECLARATION MADE BY AMERICAN ACADEMICIANS 63 _

RIFAAT ABOU-EL-HAJProfessor of HistoryCalifornia State University at Long Beach

ILHAN BASGOZDirector of the Turkish Studies Programat the Department of Uralic & Altaic StudiesIndiana University

Statesmen and politicians make history, and scholars write it. For this process to workscholars must be given access to the written records ofthe statesmen and politicians of the past.To date, the relevant archives in the Soviet Union, Syria, Bulgaria and Turkey all remain, forthe most part, closed to dispassionate historians. Until they become available, the history of theOttoman Empire in the period encompassed by H.J. Res. 192 (1915-1923) cannot beadequately known.

We believe that the proper position for the United States Congress to take on this andrelated issues is to encourage full and open access to all historical archives and not to makecharges on historical events before they are fully understood. Such charges as those containedH.J. Res. 192 would inevitably reflect unjustly upon the people of Turkey and perhaps set backprogress irreparably. Historians are just now beginning to achieve in understanding these tragicevents.

As the above comments illustrate, the history of the Ottoman-Armenians is muchdebated among scholars, many of whom do not agree with the historical assumptions embodiedin the wording of H.J. Res. 192. By passing the resolution Congress will be attempting todetermine by legislation which side of the historical question is correct. Such a resolution,based on historically questionable assumptions, can only damage the cause of honest historicalinquiry, and damage the credibility of the American legislative process.

SIGNATORIES TO THE STATEMENT ON H.J. RES. 192ADDRESSED TO THE MEMBERS OF

THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SARAH MOMENT ATISProfessor of Turkish Language & LiteratureUniversity of Wisconsin at Madison

DANIEL G. BATESProfessor of AnthropologyHunter College,City University of New York

-------------- 64 ARMENIAN CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS

KARLBARBIRAssociate Professor of HistorySiena College (New York) ULKUBATES

Professor of Art HistoryHunter CollegeCity University of New York

SIGNATORIES TO TIlE STATEMENT 0'1 HJ. RES. 192 65 _ADDRESSED TO THE MEMBERS OF TilE U.S. HOUSE OFREPRESE 'TATIVES

GUSTAV BAYERLEProfessor of Uralic & Altaic StudiesIndiana University

ANDREAS G. E. BODROGLIGETTIProfessor of Turkic & Iranian languagesUniversity of California at Los Angeles

KATHLEEN BURRILLAssociate Professor of Turkish StudiesColumbia University

RODERIC DAVISONProfessor of HistoryGeorge Washington University

WALTER DENNYAssociate Professor of Art History &Near Eastern StudiesUniversity of Massachusetts

DR. ALAN DUBENAnthropologist, ResearcherNew York City

ELLEN ERVINResearch Assistant Professor of TurkishNew York University

CAESAR FARAHProfessor of Islamic& Middle Eastern HistoryUniversity of Minnesota

CARTER FINDLEYAssociate Professor of HistoryThe Ohio State University

MICHAEL FINEFROCK,Professor of HistoryCollege of Charleston

ALAN FISHERProfessor of HistoryMichigan State University

CORNELL FLEISCHERAssistant Professor of HistoryWashington University (Missouri)

TIMOTHY CHILDSProfessorial Lecturer at SAIS,Johns Hopkins University

SHAFIGA DAULETAssociate Professor of Political ScienceUniversity of Connecticut

JUSTIN McCARTHYAssociate Professor of HistoryUniversity of Louisville

JON MANDAVILLEProfessor of the Historyof the Middle EastPortland State University (Oregon)

RHOADS MURPHEYAssistant Professor of Middle EasternLanguages & Cultures & HistoryColumbia University

PIERRE OBERLINGProfessor of HistoryHunter College of the City University ofNew York

ROBERT OLSONAssociate Professor of HistoryUniversity of Kentucky

DO ALD QUATAERTAssociate Professor of HistoryUniversity of Houston

WILLIAM GRISWOLDProfessor of HistoryColorado State University

WILLIAM HICKMANAssociate Professor of TurkishUniversity of California, Berkeley

JOHN HYMESProfessor of HistoryGlenville State CollegeWest Virginia

RALPH JAECKELVisiting Assistant Professor of TurkishUniversity of California at Los Angeles

JAMES KELLYAssociate Professor of TurkishUniversity of Utah

PETER GOLDENProfessor of HistoryRutgers University, Newark

TOM GOODRICHProfessor of HistoryIndiana University of Pennsylvania

A DREW COULDPh.D. in Ottoman HistoryFlagstaff, Arizona

MICHAEL MEEKERProfessor of AnthropologyUniversity of California at San Diego

THOMAS NAFFProfessor of History & Director, Middle EastResearch InstituteUniversity of Pennsylvania

WILLIAM OCHSENWALDAssociate Professor of HistoryVirginia Polyteclmic Institute

WILLIAM PEACHYAssistant Professor of the Judaic & NearEastern Languages & LiteraturesThe Ohio State University

HOWARD REEDProfessor of HistoryUniversity of Connecticut

TIBOR HALASI-KUNProfessor Emeritus of Turkish StudiesColumbia University

1. C. HUREWITZProfessor of Government EmeritusFormer Director of the Middle EastInstitute (1971-1984) Columbia University

HALIL INALCIKUniversity Professorof Ottoman History & Member of theAmerican Academy of Arts& SciencesUniversity of Chicago

RONALD JENNINGSAssociate Professorof History & Asian StudiesUniversity of Illinois

66 ARMEl lA, CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS

KERIMKEYAdjunct ProfessorSoutheastern UniversityWashington, D.C.

DANKWART RUSTOWDistinguished University Professor ofPolitical ScienceCity University Graduate School New York

STANFORD SHAWProfessor of HistoryUniversity of California at Los Angele

METIN KUNTProfessor of Ottoman HistoryNew York City

AVIGDOR LEVYProfessor of HistoryBrandeis University

DR. HEATH W. LOWRYInstitute of Turkish Studies Inc.Washington, D.C.

JOHN MASSON SMITH, JR.Professor of HistoryUniversity of California at Berkeley

ROBERT ST1,\ABAssistant Director of theMiddle East CenterUniversity of Utah

JAMES STEWART-ROBINSONProfessor of Turkish StudiesUniversity of Michigan

SIGNATORIES TO THE STATEME TON ILJ. RES. 192 67ADDRESSED TO THE MEMBERS OF TIlE U.S. HOUSE OFREPRESE TATIVES

FRANK TACHAUProfessor of Political ScienceUniversity of Illinois at Chicago

DAVID THOMASAssociate Professor of HistoryRhode Island College

WARREN S. WALKERHome Professor of English & Director of theArchive of Turkish Oral NarrativeTexas Tech University

WALTER WEIKERProfessor of Political ScienceRutgers University

MADELINE ZILFIAssociate Professor of HistoryUniversity of Maryland

ELAINE SMITHPh.D. in Turkish HistoryRetired Foreign Service OfficerWashington, D'C-

EZEL KURAL SHAWAssociate Professor of HistoryCalifornia State University, Northridge

FREDERICK LATIMERAssociate Professor of History (Retired)University of Utah

BERNARD LEWISCleveland E. Dodge Professor of NearEastern HistoryPrinceton University

GRACE M. SMITHVisiting Lecturer in TurkishUniversity of California at Berkeley

DR. SVATSOUCEKTurcologist,New York City

JUNE STARRAssociate Professor of AnthropologySUNY Stony Brook

DR. PHILIP STODDARDExecutive Director,Middle East InstituteWashington, D.C.

------------------------____ 68

METIN TAMKOCProfessor of International Lawand RegulationsTexas Tech University

MARGARET L. VENZKEAssistant Professor of HistoryDickinson College (Pennsylvania)

DONALD WEBSTERProfessor of Turkish History, Retired

JOHN WOODSAssociate Professor of Middle EasternHistoryUniversity of Chicago

ARME IA)! CLAIMS A)!D HISTORICAL FACTS

BIBLIOGRAPHYIn Foreign Languages(in alphabetical order)

1. AI-Meza'em al-Ermeniyya wa al-Haka'ek (in Arabic), Ankara Vaqif al-Diyanet al-Turkiyya, 1983.

2. Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and Modem Turkey: 1912-1926, Istanbul, Bogazici University, 1984.

3. Armenian Terrorism and The Paris Trial; Terorisme Armenien et Proces de Paris, Ankara, Ankara University, 1984.

4. Armenische Propaganda gegen die Tiirkei und die Wahrheit, Ankara, Institut fiir Aussenpolitik, 1982.

5. Aspirations et agissements revolutionnaires des comites Armeniens avant et apres la proclamation de la ConstitutionOttomane, Istanbul, 1917.

6. Ataov, Tiirkkaya, A Brief Glance at the "Armenian Question", Ankara, Ankara Chamber of Commerce, 1984; 2ndpr., Ankara, Sistem Ofset, 1984.

7. Ataov, Tiirkkaya, A British Report (1895): "The Armenians Unmasked", Ankara, Sevinc Matbaasi, 1985.

8. Ataov, Tiirkkaya, A British Source (1916) on the Armenian Question, Ankara; Sistem Ofset, 1985.

9. Ataov, Tiirkkaya, An Armenian Author on "Patriotism Perverted"; Un auteur arrnenien s'exprime sur le "Patriotismeperverti"; Ein armenischer Autor uber "Patriotismus Missbraucht", Ankara, Sistem Ofset, 1984; 2nd pr., Ankara, Sistem Ofset,1985.

10. Ataov, Tiirkkaya, An Armenian Source: Hovhannes Katchaznouni; Une source Armenienne: HovhannesKatchaznouni; Eine Armenische Quelle: Hovhanness Katckaznouni; Fuinte Armenia: Hovhanness Katchaznouni, Ankara,Sistem Ofset, 1984; 2nd pr.: Ankara, Sistem Ofset, 1985.

II. Ataov, Tiirkkaya, Armenian Participation in Ottoman Cultural Life, Ankara, Sevinc Matbaasi, 1985.

12. Ataov, Tiirkkaya, A "Statement" Wrongly Attributed to Mustafa Kemal Atatiirk, Ankara, Siyasal BilgilerFakiiltesi, 1984; 2nd pr., Ankara, Sistem Ofset, 1985

13. Ataov, Tiirkkaya, De Andonian "Documenten", Welke Aan Talat Pasha Worden Toegeschreven, Zijn Bedrog,Ankara, Siyasal Bilgiler Fakultesi; 1984.

14. Ataov, Tiirkkaya, Deaths Caused by Disease: In Relation to the Armenian Question; Les deces relevant demaladies, en relation avec la question arrnenienne, Ankara, Sistem Ofset, 1985.

15. Ataov, Tiirkkaya, Hitler and the "Armenian Question"; Hitler et la "Question armenienne", Ankara, Sistem Ofset,1985.

16. Ataov, Tiirkkaya, La Participation des Armeniens a la vie culturelle ottomane, Ankara, Sevinc Matbaasi, 1985.

17. Ataov, Tiirkkaya, Talat Pasa'ya Atfedilen Andonian "Belgeler"i Sahtedir: Talat Pasa'yin Verakirvatz AndonianiVaveratugteri Gegdz Yen (in Armenian); ZaifWatha'ek Andonian al-Iati nisubat hata'en ila Tal'at Basha (in Arabic); EsnadiAndonian kabe Talat Pasha muntasab shuda sahteki est (in Persian), Ankara, Sistem Ofset, 1984

18. Ataov, Tiirkkaya, The Andonian "Documents" Attributed to Talat Pasha are Forgeries; Les "Documents"d'Andonian attribues a Talat Pacha sont des faux; Die Talat Pascha zugeschrie benen Andonianischen "Dokumente" sindFalschungen, Ankara, Siyasal Bilgiler Fakultesi,1984; 2nd pr.: Ankara, Sistem Ofset, 1984.

19. Ataov, Tiirkkaya, Une "declaration" faussement attribuee a Mustafa Kemal Atatiirk, Ankara, Sistem Ofset, 1984.

20. Ataov, Tiirkkaya, Un Rapport anglais (1895): "Les Armeniens demasques", Ankara, Sevinc Matbaasi, 1985.

21. Ataov, Tiirkkaya, Une source britannique (1916) relative a la question armenienne, Ankara, Sistem Ofset, 1985.

22. Congres National, Documents relatifs aux atrocites commises par les Armeniens sur la population musulmane,Constantinople, 1919.

23. Das armenier Problem in neun Fragen und neun Antworten, Ankara, Institut fiir Aussenpolitik, 1982

BIBLIOGRAPHIE 69

24. Direction Generale de la Presse et de l'Information, Documents, Ankara, 1982.

25. Direction Generale de la Presse et de l'Information, Documents sur les Armeniens ottomans, t. II, Ankara, (1983).

26. Direction Generale de la Presse et de 1'Information, 70eme Anniversaire d'un journal armenien: 1908-1979,Ankara, 1979.

27. Directorate General of Press and Information, Documents, VoI.l, Ankara (1982).

28. Directorate General of Press and Information, Documents on Ottoman Armenians, Vol. II., Ankara, (1983).

29. Gurun, Kamuran, The Armenian File, London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, in association with K. Rustem andBrother, 1985

30. Giiriin, Kamuran, Le dossier armenien, Paris, Triangle, 1984.

31. International Terrorism and the Drug Connection, Ankara, Ankara University, 1984

32. Karal; Enver Ziya, Armenian Question: 1878-1923, Ankara, Gunduz, 1975.

33. La Cuestion Armenia en Nueve Preguntas y Respuestas, Ankara, Instituto de Politica Extranjera, 1982.

34. Le General Mayevski, Les massacres d'Armenie.

35. Le probleme armenien: neuf questions, neuf reponses, Ankara, Institut de politique etrangere, 1982.

36. Le terrorisme international et Ie trafc de stupefiants, Ankara, Universite d'Ankara, 1984.

37. McCarthy, Justin,Mluslims and Minorities: the Population of Ottoman Anatolia and the End of the Empire, NewYork and London, New York University Press, 1983.

38. McCmthy, Justin, Terrorismo Armenio: La Historia Como Veneno y Como Antidoto, Kentucky, E.U.A.,Universidad de Louisville, 1984.

39. Mise au point sur Ia propagande armenienne contre la Turquie, Ankara, Institut de Politique Etrangere, 1982.

40. Proces de I 'attentat d'Orly: 19 fevrier - 2 mars 1985, depositions et pladoirie, Ankara, Faculte des SciencesPolitiques, 1985.

41. Terrorist Attack at Orly; Statements and Evidence Presented at the Trial, February 19 - March 2, 1985, Ankara,Faculty of Political Science, 1985

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43. Setting the Record Straight on Armenian Propaganda Against Turkey,

44. Simsir, Bilal N., Aperqu historique sur la question armenienne, Ankara, Societe Turque d'His- toire, 1985.

45. Simsir, Bilal N., ed., British Documents on Ottoman Armenians: Vot. I, 1856-1880, Ankara, Turkish HistoricalSociety, 1983.

46. Sirnsir, Bilal N., The Deportees of Malta and the Armenian Question: Ankara, Foreign Policy Institute, 1984

1985.47. Simsir, Bilal N., ed., Documents Diplomatiques Ottomans, Vol. l. (1886-1893), Ankara, Societe Turque d'Histoire,

48. Simsir, Bilal N., The Genesis of the Armenian Question, Ankara, Turkish Historical Society 1984; 2nd pr.: 1985.

59. Sonyel, Selahi R.; Displacement of the Armenians: Documents; Le Deplacement des populations armeniennes:Documents; Ermeni Tehciri ve Belgeler, Ankara, Baylan Matbaasi, 1978.

50. The Armenian Issue in Nine Questions and Answers, Ankara, Foreign Policy Institute, 1982.

51. Feigl, Erich. A Myth of Terror, 1991, Edition zeitgeschichten-Freilassing- Salzburg, p. 85

______________________ 70 ARME"IIAN CLAIMS A"ID HISTORICAL FACTS

VOLTAIRE:"The great Turk is governing in peace twenty nations from different religions.Turks have taught to Christians how to be moderate in peace and gentle in victory."

THE DASHNAK COMMITTEE'S ORDERTO ITS CELLS:"As soon as the Russians have crossed the borders and the Ottoman armies havestarted to retreat, you should revolt everywhere. The Ottoman armies thus will beplaced between two fires. If the Ottoman armies advance against the Russians,on the other hand, their Armenian soldiers should leave their units with theirweapons, form bandit forces, and unite with the Russians."

BRITISH CONSULIN ERZURUM, GRAVESreplied to the question of New YorkHerald Reporter Sydney Whitman "If no Armenian revolutlonarv had come to thiscountry, if they had not stirred Armenian revolution, would these clashes haveoccurred?", as follows:"Of course not. I doubt if a single Armenian would have been killed."

IN THE 19th CENTURYIN THE OTTOMANEMPIRE:", > '29 Arm~nians achieved highest governmental ranks,

22 Armenians became ministers, including Ministers of Foreign Affairs,33 Armenians were elected to the Parliament,7 Armenians were appclnted as Ambassadors, 11 as Consul Generals,11 Armenians served in universities as professors.

Armenian Claims and Historical Facts

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