As misguided and propagandistic as Margaret Lavinia Anderson unfortunately is, let's take a look at her historian husband, Dr. James Sheehan.

Prof. James J. Sheehan

He seems a little more level-headed than his wife, of whom he comments (regarding a paper of his, "The Problem of Sovereignty in European History," where James Bryce sadly gets a nod), "Margaret Lavinia Anderson is my most astute—although not always most gentle—critic." Naturally, a husband is in a most precarious position, but objectively, Dr. Anderson comes across as anything but "astute." if she were, she would force herself to be more open-minded, as real historians are duty-bound to do.

In a paper, "Contested Histories," Sheehan spills the beans on where he thinks the "Armenian" truth lies. But at least he does so fairly, without embarrassingly inflammatory language such as "denialist."

"The fate of the Ottoman Empire's Armenian minority is one of the most active contemporary examples of a politically charged contest over the past," Dr. Sheehan correctly tells us.  "Everyone agrees that in 1915, when the empire was engaged in a desperate struggle for its survival during the First World War, a large number of Armenians perished and many others were removed from the towns and villages in which they lived for centuries." True.

At issue is why and how the Armenian population of eastern Anatolia disappeared. One side claims that the Armenians died or were displaced in what amounted to a civil war, in which they were active participants rather than passive victims. Allied with the Russian invaders, they betrayed their country and its army, and killed tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of their Turkish neighbors. The other side regards what happened in 1915 as the result of orders given by the government in Constantinople to cleanse Anatolia of its Christian population—Nestorians, Assyrians, and Greeks, as well as Armenians—by killing the men and driving the women and children into the desert. This was not civil war but genocide, the intentional destruction of a particular culture and community, a foreshadowing of what would happen to Europe's Jews a quarter of a century later."

This is good. He is telling us accurately where both sides of this polarized discussion stand. (Although the fact that the Nestorians and Assyrians — aren't they pretty much the same thing? — and the Greeks were not subjected to a resettlement policy should have triggered his scholarly alarm bells as to how false these claims also happen to be. In addition, wasn't the "genocidal motive" to kill off not just the Christians, but anyone who didn't fit into the Turkish mold? Why then, were the Jews spared? And the Arabs, who also treacherously rebelled, as did segments of all these other populations? Why doesn't our "historian" pay attention to these facts and pure, simple logic?)

Now for the tricky part. Which side does Historian Sheehan go with? Here we go:

Although there are scholars on both sides, I think it is fair to say that the overwhelming majority of researchers outside of Turkey support some version of the Armenian narrative—even if some are uncertain about the term genocide.

We are getting into so much trouble.

Who are these "overwhelming majority of researchers"? Do they fit into the description of real historian that we observed at the top of this page? No. The real scholars, that is, those who dispassionately examine the real facts and not the propaganda, have been frightened away. What we're left with are unscrupulous Armenians such as Peter Balakian who write abominations as "The Burning Tigris," and his "genocide scholar" allies.

These views are upheld by a cowardly media, because everyone knows the genocide scholar is noble, since genocide is the worst crime against humanity. No one stops to think about their faith-based agenda, the hatred and racism they perpetuate or cause, and their harmful "end justifies the means" tactics.

When powerful and influential forces succeed in making their views the common wisdom, that has nothing to do with the "truth." And so far, that is what Sheehan is dangerously vouching for: the sanctity of majority opinion, the kiss of death for any real scholar to give credence to.

There are no shortcuts; the way to get at truth boils down to individual research, where one must scratch deep below the easy surface. A real scholar wouldn't give beans about what anyone else has to say. A real scholar would sit down and begin the long, hard work that is required.

Now Sheehan begins to cement his partisanship, and thus endanger his credibility, by blaming the "Turkish government":

The scholarly discourse, however, is deeply affected by the involvement of the Turkish government, which has vigorously and consistently denied that a genocide—or indeed any government-directed massacres—took place.

Yes, Prof. Sheehan. Instead of sounding so aghast, why not display your historical talents by coming up with the factual evidence that these massacres were government directed? I don't think he's going to do that. Because the "majority opinion," just like his wife, is telling him that "Turks are bad." That seems to be good enough for him.

 As a result of government pressures, discussion of the issue within Turkey is difficult and perhaps dangerous; access to relevant archival sources has been limited to those with "reliable" views.

Now he is beginning to sound like a card-carrying member of the Armenian propaganda league.

Is he telling us the material in the portion of the archives that have been made available is irrelevant? What is making him say that? By the same token, why is he not voicing his outrage that the archives in Armenia, and the Dashnak archives in Boston, are totally inaccessible?

What is difficult (that is, hard to stomach) is for one-sided "genocide club" discussions to take place. Balanced discussion has been in existence for a long while. (Here is a 1990 example, where Levon Marashlian participated. Other "club" participants were invited, but shied away.) These days (actually, for years now, but it's getting worse), even purely propagandistic books by Vahakn Dadrian have found a home in Turkey, as the powerful tentacles of the well-financed industry have begun to close in.

 In response, Armenians and their supporters have lobbied parliamentary bodies throughout the world to pass resolutions affirming or commemorating the genocide. Up until now, 17 assemblies have voted to recognize the genocide, and in three countries (Uruguay, Argentina, and France) recognition has the force of law.

What a pity that a "historian" is choosing to give credence to the reasons why these resolutions have been finding acceptance, which has nothing to do with historical truth. As if the politicians voting for these resolutions are not swayed by Armenian wealth or intimidation tactics, along with ignorance and anti-Turkish prejudice, and as if it is the job of a politician to put aside real governmental work and endeavor to become a real historian.

(Regarding the word "response," implying that the poor, innocent Armenians were forced to do something against Terrible Turkish injustice: The Turks were silent over this episode for many years, as that is the cultural mentality of Turkish people, and it does not advertise its sufferings; in addition, there is a pride against legitimizing people practicing underhanded tactics... choosing instead to ignore them. The dirtiness of Armenian and Greek propaganda became widely evident by the 1920s, and Armenians were forced to crawl away. In 1965, with the 50th anniversary of their cause for existence and now-dim memories, they vigorously renewed their efforts. By 1973, when their cause spilled over to murderous terrorism, the Turks were finally forced to speak up. Therefore, any "response" was on the part of the Turks; once again, Armenian and Greeks act, and the Turks react. If Armenians began to bribe, sweet-talk or coerce biased, ignorant politicians in foreign nations, that was the natural next step, once their terrorists brought the genocide business into the forefront.)

Those who hoped that in Turkey the Armenian question would become the subject of scholarly discourse rather than of political proclamations were encouraged by the announcement that a conference on "Ottoman Armenians in the Period of the Empire's Collapse," sponsored by three Turkish universities, was to be held in Istanbul on May 25–27, 2005. An interdisciplinary meeting of Turkish scholars, this was to be the first open and critical discussion of the Armenian question to be held in Turkey.

Perhaps his fact-disrespecting wife has begun to compromise the man's scholarly head. We've just seen, with the penultimate link above, that this was far from the "first" discussion held in Turkey. The ones involved were not "scholars" either... not if we define a scholar as one who considers all the facts before arriving at a dispassionate conclusion, instead of arriving at the conclusion first, backing it up with tainted "evidence." (Like Anderson's Blue Book, for example.) He goes on to tell us that the event was criticized — rightly — as a "dagger in the back of the Turkish nation." That is exactly what it was. The affair was a closed door meeting of the genocide club, where even the attendees were screened to be of like mind. This was no "critical discussion," but a "preaching to the choir."

I thought it was the organizers (from what I had read in a genocide publication at the time these events were taking place), and not the "rector of Bosphorus University" (as Sheehan tells us. Where did he get that from?) who cancelled this show. If the organizers were fearful for their safety, they could have easily hired extra security. What most likely happened was that the club members cancelled the event, so that the outside world may perceive the Turkish government in its familiar role of monster. In any event, the show went on without a hitch (at Bilgi University) just a few short months later, and as key organizer Fatma Muge Gocek told it in an interview, the toadying Turkish government almost begged for the darned thing to be rescheduled. Here is a closer look at the episode.

Sheehan winds up with his having been asked to pen a letter  to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

ADDENDUM, Jan. 2007
 A Closer Look at Anderson's Scholarship

"Turks were (not) civilized people, for good reason."


Prof. Anderson must have been making good effort in her newfound "Armenian genocide" specialty in order to have been interviewed by Khatchig Mouradian on Nov. 16, 2006, featured in one of the many Armenian-friendly sites, zmag. Entitled "Germany and the Armenian Genocide," Prof. Anderson makes insightful comments at times, impressively having studied details of the story. Unfortunately, she stresses one side of the story, and relies heavily upon propaganda. As one example, for her, Lepsius is on the up and up, but Ernst Jäckh becomes the "worst person in Germany, as far as the Armenians were concerned." One doesn't need to read between the lines to figure Prof. Anderson nears the Armenians regarding that opinion, since Jäckh regarded the Turks as valid human beings, and Jäckh had the audacity to tell the truth.

While the accent of the interview is on "German responsibility in the Armenian Genocide," what serves as interest here are the giveaways of Prof. Anderson's extreme partisanship. She reveals off the bat that "Stephan Astourian, a specialist in Armenian history, without whom I could never have begun this. He was immediately helpful in steering me to the proper Armenian sources and letting me understand the historiography." The fact that Prof. Anderson gave such credence to "proper Armenian sources" is most revealing as far as her scholarly credibility, since Armenians, by and large, practice the Dashnak "end justifies the means" credo in their blind service to Hai Tahd, the Armenian Cause. In short, "proper Armenian sources" are a most rare commodity. (As most becoming familiar with this penchant for dishonesty, regarding "genocide" matters, come to realize. For example, a Reuters correspondent who got to know the ways of the Armenians had to warn, all the way back in 1895: "(Atrocity claims) must be established independently of Armenian testimony, or their value may be seriously questioned.")

She begins by minimizing Lepsius' efforts of distorting the evidence as "They do not bear significantly on the question of the Genocide’s character," and even questions whether it was Lepsius himself who performed the omissions. (Anything is possible, but chances are, who else but Lepsius would have been in charge of his own work? In the preface to his book, he accepted total responsibility for the book's contents. A protective Anderson, by the way, refers to "omissions," but not the forgeries of Lepsius' book. Some pro-Armenians have blamed tinkerings on the German Foreign Office, but that would mean Dr. Lepsius — who claimed complete independence of the German Foreign Office and complete freedom in his selection of the documents — was a complete dodo.) She then speculates, to her credit, that Lepsius was trying to protect Armenians, covering up cases of Armenian revolutionary violence. Yet she does so with a heavy heart, quickly adding, "the national school of Turkish historians will be quick to jump on this."

Any true historian who dutifully analyzes all of the facts would not need to "jump" on her speculation. An objective person is already well aware that the missionary Lepsius, as a bigoted Christian "churchman" (in Anderson's word), is not a source to be trusted. Anderson's explanation as to why Lepsius ignored episodes of when Armenians "struck back" (that is the way she would phrase it, of course; the reality of most Armenian-perpetrated violence had nothing to do with striking back, since Armenians engaged in first strikes): Lepsius was a "churchman," and thus "so disapproved of violence." What kind of nonsense is that? If Lepsius had an aversion to violence to the point where he could not write about it, why did he go out of his way to repeat — at times with perverse delight — the violent horror stories with Turks brandishing the swords? (In 1900, Sir Charles Eliot wrote, as "Odysseus" in "Turkey and Europe," that these stories were "largely the invention of morbid and somewhat prurient brains"; not uncommonly, sexually repressed "churchmen" were at the forefront of spreading such horrible tales.)

What Lepsius lacked was the moral fiber to treat people as equals, regardless of religious affiliation, the way Jesus Christ would have wanted him to. If Lepsius purposely covered up Armenian crimes in order to  present "a picture of almost complete Armenian victimhood," as Anderson herself is aware (while curiously presenting a similar picture herself), then what greater proof do we need that Lepsius was a phony baloney, and any "scholar" who gives credence to his claims is a rank amateur at best?

"And he was also trying to protect Armenians against what he had long known was the false charge of the German Turkophiles: that the Armenians were terrorists, that the “deportations” were a security measure against traitors, and that the CUP [Committee of Union and Progress] was only protecting the Ottoman state."

Look at the sheer, Lepsius-like bigotry of this woman. Why in heaven's name would there have been a good number of German "Turkophiles," when Germans were raised with the image of the Terrible Turkish bogeyman, the same as all Christian European nations? What Anderson is engaging in is a Dadrian-style character attack, classifying those who knew the truth as people who were so in love with Turks, they would turn a blind eye to Turkish crimes, in the same vein as the biased Lepsius. What these "Turkophiles" were guilty of was daring to give Turks a fair shake. That does not make one a "lover" of Turks. The reasons why genocide advocates are quick to label such honorable people as "Turkophiles" are twofold: one is an attempt to discredit such people and to dismiss their views in an underhanded attempt to stifle debate, and secondly — one must believe — because genocide advocates can't accept there were people who actually believed Turkish people also had the right to be considered as human beings, not worth less than cherished Christian Armenians.

And Prof. Anderson displays her lack of scholarly credibility in enormous fashion, by siding with Lepsius. Is the charge that Armenians were terrorists a "false" one? Is Anderson out of her mind? There is a wealth of Armenian-friendly sources from missionaries (such as the Reverends Dwight and Barton) to even a few Armenian historians (such as Louise Nalbandian) corroborating the thirty-odd year terror spree of the Dashnaks and Hunchaks, either coercing their fellow Armenians or in poisoning their minds, allowing nearly the entire community to turn traitor against their Ottoman nation. (As Leon Surmelian, for example, correctly depicted.) The "deportations" were certainly a security measure against those "Armenians (who) fought by the side of the Allies on all fronts" and were "belligerents de facto," as Boghos Nubar admitted; in short, "traitors." When one deals with traitors who are fighting on the side of the invading enemy (Anderson the propagandist tells us "the Armenians struck back when they could," when it was the Armenians who fired the first shot and it was the Ottomans who struck back), it becomes the duty of any government to keep the peace and subdue the rebels, as even the Armenian historian Borian tells us. Of course the CUP was "protecting the Ottoman state."

(Not that we need Borian to tell us that, because the necessity of such self-defense on the part of a nation is obvious. The difference is, the Ottoman Turks endured a half-year of Armenian treachery after war was declared, as at war's outset and at Sarikamish, before reluctantly deciding upon the relocation policy, the first real sign of which was May 2, 1915. This was in opposition with how other nations usually conduct themselves, targeting suspicious minorities before they have had a chance to become treacherous, as with the USA and Canada vs. their innocent Japanese during WWII, and as with Britain vs. their innocent German men in 1914 WWI, where many of the latter were truly "deported," i.e. banished outside the country's borders.)

Those who enlist propagandistic sources, such as Lepsius, to tell history become propagandists in turn.

Anderson goes on to tell us Germany wooed the Armenians (in 1913-14), so that when the inevitable dissolution of the Ottoman Empire took place, Germany would have a friend. This is interesting, because it partly explains why so many Germans were pro-Armenian during the war years (Germans already had a built-in bias toward the Armenians as fellow Christians to begin with.) Germany had usually gone against the other powers in support of the Ottomans, serving as a check, but in 1914, Anderson tells us, Germany played a strong hand in forcing the Ottomans to sign the deadly "inspectorate" deal, which would not have simply granted "the Armenians in Eastern Anatolia a certain parity in public offices with the Muslim population there, and thus a kind of regional autonomy," as Anderson innocently explains, but would serve (since Russia would come in, and Ottoman governmental control would totally disappear) as the fatal step in ultimately removing these lands from Ottoman ownership; not far from what had happened in the Balkans, Crete and Lebanon.

Anderson next tells us the "elites" of German society were aware of the "extermination of the Armenians," such as professors, journalists, clergymen, the Deutsche Bank head and "important members of the Reichstag, such as the later winner of the Nobel Peace Price, the liberal Gustav Stresemann" (as if winning the Nobel Peace Prize would have made Stresemann a historical authority). How did these people know... since none of them were at the scene? Why, they knew because Armenians and missionaries like Lepsius told them.

"Lepsius gave an interview on the 5th of October, 1915, to a group of newspapermen in Berlin, to tell them what he had learned on his recent trip to Constantinople/Istanbul from late July to early August," Anderson tells us, but neglects the fact that Lepsius was not allowed to travel outside of Istanbul. (Not that it would have made a difference in reportage, since Lepsius had an agenda; but the point is, he did not witness anything firsthand.) So how did Lepsius know what he knew? Because Armenians and missionaries told him. (In addition to anything else Lepsius felt free to "expand upon.")

"There was so much self-censorship (in the German press) that the government didn’t have to intervene," Anderson tells us, relying in large part upon an Armenian-German's study of one Berlin newspaper (the Berliner Tageblatt), which published only five Armenian-related stories during 1915, all "pro-Turkish." (Does the reader get the feeling Prof. Anderson's heart was sinking, since the newspaper fell short of the New York Times' 145 hearsay-ridden articles for that year? )

Of course if the Ottoman Empire was allied with Germany it would have served Germany's purpose to keep a lid on further demonization of the Turks. But here is the trouble when a propagandist-scholar relies only on selective biased sources for an agenda-serving version of events. As the war continued, Christian bigotry grew strong in Germany, needled as the German people were by those such as Lepsius, whose accounts did get through from time to time. (Particularly once word filtered through from the foreign journals, as in Basel and Zurich, which had no problem with publishing Lepsius' propaganda.) As war correspondent George Schreiner related (Schreiner was the only American newspaperman who travelled into the Ottoman interior in 1915, according to co-editor Jay Winter's propagandistic book, America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915, and a reliable eyewitness who viewed these events firsthand. He knew there was no "genocide"), his own nation's censors didn't allow Schreiner's truth to get out to the press of the Allied nations and their supporters. (Remember, Britain had cut the cable from Germany; nations like the USA only got the propagandistic Allied view, mainly controlled by Wellington House.) Frustrated, Schreiner tried to get his accounts published in the German press. They refused him, as "The religious societies of Germany had finally... prevailed."

In other words, Anderson was correct when she told us "There was so much (press) self-censorship," but not always in the way she intended.

Anderson next tells us that she sees Lepsius "as a hero," which speaks volumes. (Dr. Lepsius was, after all, a scholar after Anderson's own heart, as Frank G. Weber summed up in his Eagles on the Crescent: "Not Objective.")

Why a hero? Because "He didn’t pay attention only to what was best for Germany." That's true. Lepsius's first master was his "duty to God," which gave him license to vilify people who did not make the grade as fellow Christians. One wonders whether Anderson would also view C. F. Dixon-Johnson "as a hero," since the Boer War veteran also "didn’t pay attention only to what was best for" England. Dixon-Johnson's first master was his "duty to the truth." But we already know what a partisan propagandist would say of Dixon-Johnson don't we? Dixon-Johnson would go straight into the ranks of the mindless "Turkophiles."

Later in the interview, Anderson will go on to characterize Bronsart von Schellendorf as the "worst" German soldier, without explaining why. Could Bronsart von Schellendorf have also been a "Turkophile"? Or did Anderson simply not care for Bronsart von Schellendorf's powerful 1921 article, prepared solely for the purpose of, as he put it, helping "truth find its rightful place." (What other reason could have possibly motivated the German officer to have written such an article, well after the war drums had fallen silent? Incidentally, in the same paragraph, Anderson contends "German soldiers in the Ottoman Empire were not part of the German Army but were all under Ottoman command." That might have been true on paper, but does anyone believe the typically arrogant Germans would have permitted themselves to get pushed around by such second-class "human race" citizens they were largely in contempt of?)



(For example, Anderson will later tell us that "Field Marshall Liman von Sanders saved the Armenians in Edirne and Izmir." There is more to this story than the singular source genocide proponents point to — which would generally be von Sanders himself, along with his interviewer, Lepsius — and is deserving of deeper study. But if Liman truly deserved the credit, then what kind of "being under Ottoman command" is that? Furthermore, since Liman was the Ottoman military's German top dog, if he was so outraged over the idea of "deportations," why would he have not gone out of his way to put his foot down in other instances?)

(We'll take a small detour, here. In his 1921 Berlin trial testimony as witness for the defense of Talat's assassin, Liman accepts the Ottomans' relocation order as "a strategic military move." He says, however, that German officers intervened whenever they could, and often ignored orders... certainly going against the essence of "being under Ottoman command." He takes the credit for putting a stop to "deportations" from Adrianople [Edirne], by paying a visit to Istanbul with other officials. [It appears the Turks could be reasonable and civilized after all, despite what Anderson will go on to later assert.] He also claims that he stopped the "deportation" of 600 Armenians in Izmir, threatening to kill the Turkish gendarmes, which Lepsius had cited in his book. Now let's pause for a second. I don't have the statistics for the number of Armenians in 1915 Izmir [a Turkish source for 1918 put the number at 10,000], but if everything else is true, claiming that Liman stopped the "Smyrna deportation" would be misleading... as we don't know how extensive that "deportation" would have been. [There were plenty of cities/villages where only a smattering of Armenians were affected.] If anything, the general made a difference with only 6% of Izmir's Armenian population (ADDENDUM: A British writer cites 20,000 in the year 1914, which would bring the percentage down to 3%), and it serves to reason that as soon as Liman looked the other way, busying himself with affairs of war, the governor could have sneaked out the Armenians, if he were of the mind to do so. One must always dig deep to get at the heart of a matter, particularly if one calls oneself a "scholar.")

(ADDENDUM, 2-07: As related in The Ottoman Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide, Lewy, pp. 204-05, the Armenian population was 13,000. The vali, Rahmi Bey, was moderate and opposed to relocations. [Inside Constantinople, Einstein, p. 286.] In Aug. 1915, the execution of seven Armenians, for a 1909 offense, was reduced to fifteen years' imprisonment, when Morgenthau persuaded Enver. 2,500 Armenians were arrested in November following the appearance of pro-Allied leaflets, but most were freed later. A whole year passed with nothing happening to Izmir Armenians, when on Nov. 1916, upon finding outdated bombs/weapons, 300 Armenians were arrested and subjected to "deportation." This is when von Sanders intervened, stating such measures jeopardized military security. Rahmi Bey told the German that he was opposed to the relocations, Armenians found innocent would be allowed to return, and Rahmi promised there would be no further recurrences, a promise kept until the end of the war. It is important to keep in mind that by November 1916, the "genocide" had, in Dadrian's words, already "all but run its course," and there were likely not to be further episodes anyway. Those who simplistically state von Sanders saved the Izmir Armenians are not being honest.)

 Anderson does raise an interesting question. Lepsius was allowed to travel to Istanbul, and imposed himself upon the busy schedules of Talat and Enver, extracting interviews from the CUP leaders. No doubt Talat and Enver looked down upon the biased missionary, so why did they agree to give him the time of day? Anderson speculates "because the German Foreign Office put pressure on the Turks to receive him. "  Why? Because, Anderson further speculates, Lepsius felt the Armenians could be wooed onto the side of the Central Powers. (If so, was he out of his mind? The brainwashed and Turk-hateful Armenian community would have agreed to go up against the Russians, their "saviors"?)

"...And that if they weren’t rallied behind the German cause—and here was the dangerous corollary—that they could actually hurt the Germans and the Turks in the war. That is, of course, the very excuse the Turkish government uses to justify what happened."

Poor Professor Anderson. Shooting herself in the foot, again and again. She just validated "Turkish propaganda," using the testimony of her very own "hero."

In other words, Lepsius may have been aware of this "excuse" that the Armenians had the potential to be dangerous. The only reason why he didn't want to talk about it openly, as Anderson speculated earlier, was because he hated violence. Brother!

"But I think that in fact Lepsius was trying to exaggerate the military danger of the Armenian revolutionary movement in order to get Germany to pressure the Turks to stop the deportations and massacres."

Very logical. (That is, probably logical in the mind of Lepsius, hoping to save Christians, but let's examine the effect on those he was hoping to convince.) If the military danger of the Armenians was a threat, as German officers in the front lines (such as the "worst," von Schellendorf) were already aware, the Germans would then have to put a halt to the relocation policy (the Ottoman leaders were already attending to curtail the massacres that had occurred, by changing the marching routes, for example), which was a response to the Armenian military danger in the first place.

"But by the time he got to Constantinople, by late July or early August 1915, most Armenians had already been deported, and it was clear to the German government that they had nothing to offer the Germans and posed no military threat to the Turks."

Remember, she was attempting to explain why Lepsius was granted access to the Ottoman leaders. She went in circles, only to shoot herself in the foot once again. If the Armenians were neutralized by the time of Lepsius' visit, what was the reason why doors were opened to him... particularly since Ambassador "Wangenheim said that the Turks don’t want to see Lepsius," as Anderson put it? (What she's not telling us, of course, is that the segment of the Armenian population who would have served as a military threat mostly escaped being "deported." Young Armenian men — such as the assassin Lepsius and Liman von Sanders defended in 1921— had hightailed it either to Russia or the mountains to fight against their nation, along with many of the deserters conscripted into the Ottoman army.)

A more valid theory could be that "the German Foreign Office put pressure on the Turks to receive him," not because Lepsius was crying that the sky might fall, but because "The religious societies of Germany had finally... prevailed," as Schreiner accurately informed us. (But actually, these forces gained greater power as the war progressed. "The Armenian File" much more sensibly tells us "Lepsius convinced the Wilhelmstrasse that his intention was not to put pressure on the Turks but instead to argue the patriarchal entourage into greater loyalty toward the Ottoman regime," and to Amb. Wangenheim, "the liquidation of the Armenians would seriously and perhaps irreparably diminish the prospects of Germany’s ascendancy in Turkey after the war.")

Lepsius is quoted as having justified the Armenians' importance by stating “One cannot treat a nation of four million as a quantité négligeable,” half in Russia and the other half in "Turkey." Goes to show what a reliable disseminator of information Lepsius was. The worldwide Armenian population of the period was around three million, not four. Four million is what Armenian propagandists such as Pastermadjian claimed, and still claim. The Ottoman Empire had the largest Armenian population, at the median "neutral" consensus of 1.5 million, 1.7 million tops. (Toynbee, before hooking up with Wellington House, thought around a million, in 1915.)

Lepsius, at the Berlin trial of Talat's assassin in 1921, provided testimony that the Armenian Patriarch had told him the Ottoman-Armenian population was 1.85 million. (1,845,400 was the precise figure Lepsius provided in his book's intro.) This was a far cry from the Patriarch's official figure of 2.1 million, the figure propagandists prefer. So we have corroborated two things. Lepsius attained his information from highly unreliable and propagandistic sources, such as the Armenian Patriarch. But because Lepsius was a shameless propagandist himself, he took the propaganda information (1.85 million in this case) and put a further spin on it (2 million). The second thing we have corroborated is that Lepsius was a liar, and academics who still think of this liar as a "hero" had better try to salvage what may be left of their scholarly credibility.

To further confirm Lepsius' aversion to truth, Anderson next quotes the churchman as having said, "...One half, the Russian half, is constantly courted and flattered, while the other, the Turkish half, faces only oppression." In point of fact, the Ottoman Armenians had it much better than the Russian-Armenians. In their campaign to spread the seeds of hatred, the Dashnaks/Hunchaks craftily told ignorant Ottoman-Armenians life would be much better for them on the border's other side, and many who were thus suckered later tried to return to where the going was good. Even the Turk-hating fellow churchman, Cyrus Hamlin wrote (regarding his 1890s conversation with a Hunchak terrorist):

'But your people do not want Russian protection. They prefer Turkey, bad as she is. There are hundreds of miles of conterminous territory into which emigration is easy at all times. It has been so for all the centuries of the Moslem rule. If your people preferred the Russian Government there would not be now an Armenian family in Turkey.'

Anderson's "hero" also accused Abdul Hamid of having conducted an "extermination policy" against the Armenian people. How moral is that, to make such ruinous charges without factual evidence? Particularly from a "churchman," who should have taken pains to observe the Ninth Commandment. (The one prohibiting false witness against one's neighbor. Perhaps Lepsius would have preferred to go against Christ's teachings and to have used the loophole, arguing a sub-human like a Turk would not constitute a "neighbor.") When Armenians rebelled, it was the sultan's duty to put down these rebellions. Sometimes innocents got caught in the fray. But the bigoted Christian West was mindlessly engaged in what the Armenian apologist, Richard Davey, called the "great Armenian horrors' boom all over the western world and America too," and this right of self-defense that any nation would claim would constantly be presented in the western press as "massacres"... since different rules apply to "lesser" peoples. (Writing in 1894, Davey also served as character witness for the alleged "exterminator": "the Sultan is so free from the spirit of cruelty which disgraced some of his ancestors, that it is difficult to get him to sign even the death-warrant of a murderer. He invariably commutes the sentence to imprisonment. He has much to contend with.")

Anderson continues:

"It is not only now that Turkey tries to deny what happened. Even then the CUP tried to keep everything absolutely secret in order to maintain 'deniability' at all times."

Hoo-boy!

"On the 16th of July, 1915, the U.S. Ambassador to Constantinople, Henry Morgenthau, wrote to the American State Department that 'a campaign of race extermination is in progress,' yet he recommended against any protest."

Yes, Morgenthau, like Lepsius, was entirely influenced by Armenians (his English-speaking assistants in particular) and missionaries since Morgenthau, like Lepsius, never travelled into the interior to see things for himself. Along with his racial prejudice and high and mighty ways, Morgenthau allowed himself to send inflammatory and inaccurate messages as the above to the home office. In earlier months, Morgenthau sent reports indicating his awareness of the weakness of the central government (allowing for locals to ignore orders to protect Armenians, and to surely make it difficult to implement a "Final Solution" policy) and of the Armenian revolts. In the coming months, Morgenthau would pursue his own agenda, likely influenced by his Zionist feelings. (He was very close to the politically pro-Armenian Rabbi Stephen Wise, in anticipation of knocking the Ottomans out, and paving the way for a Jewish homeland.) One reason why Morgenthau's diplomatic career had ended in Jan. 1916, when he left his post, was because he was regarded as a loose cannon by the U.S. government. Yet here, Anderson tries to paint a picture of Morgenthau as a responsible employee of the U.S. government. One does not share confidential information with those such as Lepsius and Lord Bryce, as Morgenthau did, if Morgenthau's priority was to represent his country, which was supposed to be "neutral." (Morgenthau did receive authorization from his boss, Lansing, but the ambassador stretched this permission — which called for Morgenthau's "discretion" — to the limit by giving Lepsius open access to his Embassy's files and copies of their contents.)

I'd like to learn where Morgenthau "recommended against protest." Perhaps he did in private communications (I didn't get that idea from the ones I've read, deeper into 1915), but that only goes to show what an unreliable character he was, since the very essence of "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" was "protest." Anderson's interviewer asks why Morgenthau could have been so level-headed, even to the extent of suggesting that the missionary groups keep a lid on their emotions as well:

"Well, don't forget that when diplomatic pressure was brought to bear upon Abdul Hamid in 1896, he responded by massacring the Armenians in Istanbul/Constantinople. People like Morgenthau did not think the Turks were civilized people, for good reason. I’m not saying there weren’t any civilized Turks in the Ottoman Empire, but Turks and Kurds had already behaved so horribly in the 1890s, that some people didn’t think the Ottoman government would respond to something like the pressure of European and American public opinion. Morgenthau didn’t. Noting that even men like Morgenthau believed this, I think, gives a little bit of respectability to other people—like the pope—who believed, however mistakenly, that you could get more accomplished for the Armenians by working behind the scenes to convince Turks to do this or that."

Zowie! What are we going to do with Professor Margaret Lavinia Anderson?

First, she's dumbly telling us Abdul Hamid was behind the 1896 "massacre" of Armenians in Istanbul. She must have been referring to the aftermath of the Dashnak takeover of the Ottoman Bank, where organixzed Armenian terrorists were throwing their bombs ("...[T]hey did not kill instantly, but tore their flesh apart, and made them writhe with pain and agony." Hayik Tiryakian, as quoted in Vartanian's History of Dashnakstuin, pp. 160-3) on the populace from rooftops all over town... in hopes of provoking massacres, to get the Europeans in. (The other major outbreak of Armenian-instigated violence in Istanbul was the Babiali Demonstration, taking place the previous year.) Here is Kamuran Gurun on the aftermath of the bank matter, from "The Armenian File":

According to Western sources, the number of Armenians killed as a result of this incident was between 4,000 and 6,000. A document concerning this subject has not yet been found in the Ottoman archives. However, in our opinion, the figure 6,000 is exaggerated. In the case of the Babiali demonstration, too, the disorders continued for a few days, but the number of dead did not exceed 172. To be able to reach the figure 4,000-6,000, the incident had to last for weeks. Moreover, it is written in all the sources that the Muslims fought with sticks and knives, and it is hardly possible to kill so many people with these means. We have nowhere encountered the number of Muslims killed. But according to the British document, 120 soldiers of the Grand Vizier were killed, and there were approximately 25 wounded. (111) Again in the same document it is stated that about 300 Muslims were arrested because of the incidents, and that the preventive measures taken by the Government were satisfactory. A special court was established for this incident, and the Muslims and the Armenians who were arrested were tried in this court.

(Footnote 111: F.O. 424/188, No. 190, enclosure 1. Holdwater note: Prof. Erich Feigl, from "A Myth of Terror," added: "...it was now possible to dream up tales of '4000-6000 Armenians killed in the rioting;. Not the least bit of evidence could be found to support these figures in the secret report of the British Embassy (F. 0. 424/188, Nos. 149 and 169). But what difference did that make?")

More Western insight on the aftermath may be read of here, where we are informed, "The soldiers and police took no part in the killing," further distancing Abdul Hamid from involvement.

This was a period of great danger for the "Sick Man of Europe," and in reality, Abdul Hamid was worried sick over giving the European imperialists a reason to come in and take the spoils of his ailing empire. This is mainly why he often allowed for Dashnak terrorists to freely walk away (or to give them light sentences), time and again. Exactly in opposition to Anderson's uneducated claim, that "the Ottoman government would (not) respond to something like the pressure of European and American public opinion," the Ottoman government was totally beholden to European diplomatic pressure, backed up by their military threats and the fact that the "Sick Man" was nearly a European colony by this point, what with the Capitulations and foreigners' immunity from Ottoman law. (It is true the Ottomans would not have respected the public opinion of these nations, since public opinion was based on biased and dishonest reportage... no different than these days. But they certainly could not ignore the hostility resulting from Christian bigotry. The Ottomans' trap was, the more they provided reforms, the freer the Armenians became to practice their mischief.)

Yet Anderson is irresponsibly telling us Abdul Hamid actually ordered the violence resulting from Armenian provocation. She's not offering proof. What can be done with such an unprofessional, pseudo-scholar?

Note Anderson does not mention the cause of this riot: the Dashnak Armenian terrorists. (Remember, in her world, as we have read above, the fact of Armenian terrorists must be considered a "false charge.") No, the reason she presents for Abdul Hamid's alleged massacre order was that he had a fit over diplomatic pressure.

Absolutely irresponsible.

Of course, it's easy for Anderson to believe a Turk like Abdul Hamid would have flipped out, because "Turks were (not) civilized people, for good reason." She tries to soften her horrible assertion by adding "I’m not saying there weren’t any civilized Turks" (possibly in the same disingenuous manner as Armenians approving of Armenian terrorism of the 1970s-80s by making sure to add that they did not condone terrorism), yet goes on to validate the Turks' half-human nature by adding that they "had already behaved so horribly in the 1890s," they would not be capable of listening to reason.

Ugly. A university would be up in arms if a professor resorted to Ku Klux Klan literature in presenting a depiction of Jews and blacks. Yet someone such as Anderson gets away with her blatant racism, because she is against "genocide" and for "human rights."

She doesn't care that Armenians and Turks co-existed with relative harmony for centuries, and that Armenians were allowed to prosper to the extent of being, to a degree, the masters of Ottoman society. She doesn't want to know that the sudden violence of the 1890s happened to coincide with the creation of the Armenian terror groups. Moreover, she doesn't give a darn about the thousands of Turks the Armenians killed during the 1890s (any more than she cares about the some 500,000 the Armenians and some Russians killed during their times of control of eastern Anatolia, 1915-1920), because these people don't even rate as human beings. Turks are simply not civilized people, for good reason!

She finishes her above statement by giving credit to men like the pope and... Morgenthau??... for harboring hopes to get these Turks to start behaving like human beings. However, she then slips in that these naive men were mistaken in their beliefs. In short, Turks are simply beyond hope. They are just not civilized people, for good reason!

She has more dunderheaded things to say in the rest of the interview (such as: "A colleague of mine who teaches Turkish history in the United States [let us not give his name because I don’t think he could visit his family in Turkey if his name is published] told me that he has no doubt that there was a Genocide"; in other words — aside from the fact that this fellow is offering a mere opinion based on propaganda and no hard evidence; there are now plenty of opportunistic Turks having jumped on the popular and profitable genocide bandwagon — genocide advocating Turks like Taner Akcam and Fatma Muge Gocek can never hope to go back to Turkey, fearing for their lives as they must, because Turks are not civilized people, for good reason), but frankly I have had enough of the propagandistic professings of one Professor Margaret Lavinia Anderson.