Yeghiazar Karapetian, born in 1886, Taron, Sassoun  (link)

 
“The Armenians enjoyed great privileges: they even interfered with the law suits and the complicated disputes.”

“The hatred towards the Armenian subjects was getting deeper and deeper. The fury was not limited only to the Armenian volunteers who had joined the Russian army and were fighting against them.”

“To worsen the irritation of the Turks against the Armenians, the government spread turbulent news declaring that the Armenian soldiers and officers serving in the army deserted the front when they seized the convenient opportunity and passed to the Russian side, betraying them and conveyed military secrets and turned their guns against the Turks. To this were added also the old spite and revenge. Talaat's and Enver's constitutional Turkey decided, by means of sword and fire, to eradicate the Armenians, their subject citizens who had always made the country flourish. An order came to disarm the Armenian soldiers serving in the Turkish army and form from them "Amele Tabours." They took the guns from all the Armenians serving in the Turkish army, formed labor battalions and made them construct roads and carry loads in the severe winter cold.”

"On February 20, at night, eighty representatives, invited from fifteen villages, gathered in the Arakelots Monastery for consultation and to get prepared for self-defense. The Sassounites had one thousand and five hundred rifles."

" In the night of February 27, 1918, a telegram was received informing that Andranik had left Erzroom to the Turks, because the soldiers hadn't obeyed his orders, and that the Armenian army had retreated to Hassanghala, toward Sarighamish."


WE LEARN: The Armenians were largely well off, and not oppressed. Ottoman-Armenians betrayed their country and joined the enemy. The "hatred" that resulted had nothing to do with the dishonest reasons the genocide industry provides, such as the Armenians' Christianity. During wartime, any nation's people will frown upon a minority community that turns treacherous, and the community will suffer as a whole. In other words, of course "spite and revenge" would develop against a people who behave as traitors.

If Armenian soldiers were deserting in good enough numbers, what recourse would there be for any nation but to disarm the rest who had demonstrated enough acts of treachery? These soldiers still had to serve (what army in the world would say, "You can go home now"), so they were assigned to labor battalions. As for the "severe winter cold," the soldier's lot is not an easy one, and it was not only Armenian soldiers who suffered. At least these men did not have to deal with the stress and danger of front line action.

Note the dishonesty in the next-to-last paragraph. Every Dashnak Armenian has it tattooed on his or her forehead that April 24 marked the beginning of the "genocide." Thus, there could have been no "self-defense" on February 20. These Armenians with the 1,500 rifles were preparing for rebellion.

Every Armenian treated Antranik as a god, and they wouldn't obey his orders? (For example, Soghoman Tehlirian, Talat Pasha's assassin, prayed to be part of Antranik's regiment when Tehlirian betrayed his country in 1914.) If Antranik was as great as his reputation, he would have rallied his troops (as we are told Dro had a special knack for doing) and tried to save Erzurum. Antranik's "military specialty" was in killing thousands of defenseless villagers.

Hakob Manouk Grigorian, born in 1903, Sassoun, Talvorik  (link)

 

In 1915 the Armenians fought against the Turks, the fedayis fought. The Turkish army came and massacred us. We ran to the mountains, to the woods. The Turks killed all my relatives. Only I remained alive from our family. They killed them all before my eyes. We ran away and hid ourselves in a dilapidated Turkish village. I became a shepherd to a Turk, I used to chop wood and serve my master.

Suddenly we heard that Armenian fedayis had come.

WE LEARN: Dashnak fedayis spread the spirit of rebellion to already disloyal Armenian villages, so that the "Armenians fought against the Turks," particularly during dangerous wartime, and such treachery provoked a response from the authorities. Those who got killed in the crossfire became "massacre" victims. What is being neglected in this discussion is, Who Fired the First Shot? If the Armenians had not acted treacherously, as in the example of the Ottoman Jews, would anything have happened to them?

The witness was twelve-years-old at the time. If "all" of his relatives were killed "before [his] eyes," why would he have been spared?

In 1908, in the days of Hurriyet*, my eldest brother Aghadjan, who was already married to avoid military service, had joined Andranik's army, and, I don't know how, he had gone to Russia, and had been living in Yalta for seven years far from his family. After four years, in 1912, I was called to serve in the Turkish army, but I ran away and went to look for my brother. My mother Mariam, tears in her eyes, used to repeat: "Times are complicated, son. A new storm is being prepared for the Armenians. Find your brothers, bring them home, let the members of the family come together again."

But how would they reunite as most of them were in Andranik's army?

Hrant had seen many hard days. In the spring of 1915 the Turk askyars invaded Hamzashekh to search for weapon and recruit the youth, but their main aim was to plunder, pillage, kill and deport the Armenians. They drove the inhabitants to the wilderness. My mother decided not to leave her house, so she stored weapons and provisions in the far end of our yard in the huge barn, and hid there. The soldiers opened fire on them, but my mother didn't shoot, she spared the children. But when they approached the door and tried to break it down, my mother fired, and didn't allow the soldiers closer. The policemen left a soldier to watch the barn, and they go away.

(*"Hurriyet" means "Liberty," referring to the liberal Constitution, circa 1908, of the Young Turks. "Askyar" means "soldier.")

WE LEARN: Even as early as 1908, when Ottomans and Dashnaks were briefly "buddies," Ottoman-Armenians were disloyal enough to run off and join the forces of Antranik, who had proved his disloyalty to his own Ottoman nation many times by this point, recently by fighting against the Turks in the Balkan Wars. Come 1912, still well before the "genocide," another son of this family went off to join the enemies of the Ottoman nation.

Note the ridiculous inconsistencies. It was the job of the authorities to come into Armenian villages to recruit disloyal Armenians into the army. Now these Armenian men were already reluctant, and the best way the Ottoman authorities figured to win them over was to "kill and deport." ("Deport"?) By the way, our "oral historian" is presumed to be in Antranik's army, far away, by the time of these happenings. He could not have witnessed any of these events, and was most likely "told" about them years later. (This was the exact pattern for Soghoman Tehlirian, Talat Pasha's assassin. He perjured himself at his 1921 Berlin trial, relating 1915 events as if he were there, when he was instead with Antranik, mowing down defenseless Turkish villagers.)

Here we have the mother who was entirely on the side of the rebellion to have "stored weapons" (do people understand why women also needed to be relocated during the forced migrations?). She actually fired on the "soldiers" or "policemen," we are told. I am living in the USA in the 21st century, and let me tell you if the police attempt to break my door down, and if I were to fire on them, I'd be pretty much signing my death warrant. Yet the Ottoman authorities left the woman alive to probably tell this tale years later. Does that make any sense?

Sedrak Abraham Harutyunian, born in 1904, Moosh, Arndjkous village  (link)

 

In 1915 the Russians were coming. The Kurds were running away eastward to Bitlis. But they fell on the people and began to plunder; they were even taking off their clothes and pillage. The Ottoman askyars came and drove away the Kurds.

We thought of going to the village of Gharakeshish, as it was of the main road and it would be safer. We began moving towards east. The Kurds began firing on us. A young woman gave birth to twins; she left them on the earth and ran away.

We reached Gharakeshish. There too they were kidnapping the pretty girls. Our five children — three boys and two girls: Samson, Enok, Souren, Azniv and Haykoush — died of hunger in one day. My mother went to the askyar and asked him to let her dig the ground and bury her children but he refused, saying, "No graves are allowed." We dug the earth somehow with our hands; we put them in and covered them.


WE LEARN: It wasn't only Armenians who were forced to move or be "deported." As Ara Sarafian found in the Ottoman archives, 702,900 Muslims were also being "deported" against their will, as with the Kurds cited here. That roughly corresponds to the entire number of "deported" Armenians (Boghos Nubar figured 600,000-700,000), but we never hear about these suffering Muslims.

Some of these Kurds were committing crimes for opportunistic reasons, many others were acting out of revenge either to pay back the Armenians for victimizing Kurdish families, or for joining the side of the Russian enemy. Regardless, we are being told that the Ottoman soldiers protected the Armenians and drove away the Kurds. If there was a "genocide" in place, such protection would make no sense whatsoever.

How peculiar for the gendarme to have grunted that no graves were allowed, when those as Samantha Power point to the validity of Talat Pasha ordering corpses to be "buried at once," so as not to turn off western observers. (Guess such proves Aram Andonian must have truly forged that telegram.) Regardless, here was one order that was promptly disobeyed, making one wonder why permission was needed in the first place.

Hmayak Boyadjian, born in 1902, Bitlis, Khaltik village  (link)

 

The fighting was against the Russians whom the Turks and the Kurds considered our 'uncles.' Till the Hurriyet the Christians weren't recruited in the army. After its proclamation, they began taking the Armenians to military service to fight against the Russians. Those who refused to serve were beaten and killed. They gathered all the weapons.

The people of our village were massacred together with those of Bitlis; as most of the inhabitants of our village were craftsmen, the Turkish government sent a detachment as if to protect us. They were afraid of our village inhabitants. There were also the soldiers of the surrounding Kurd aghas and our village was obliged to feed them all. They had already taken the Armenian youth to the Turkish army. They had dug trenches on our mountains to defend Bitlis. Considering who was skilled in what trade, they put them all to work. All the craftsmen were serving the army. They were cutting trees, the potters were making water-pipes to conduct water to Bitlis, and the tailors were making army uniforms. Three times a week they took the ready goods to hand over to the government.

WE LEARN: If the Ottoman-Armenians were overwhelmingly on the side of the Russians, there would have been every reason to consider Russia as a big brother, or as an "uncle" of the Armenians. If Ottoman-Armenians were part of the state, it should not be an outrageous concept to have expected them to serve on the side of the state, and those who refused to do so could expect some punishment. (Naturally, we are being told here that the punishment would amount to getting "beaten and killed." In reality, often Armenians would escape any punishment.)

As we may gather from the more honest telling of Sarian's diary, Armenians were asked if they had skills, and Sarian's father simply claimed he was a tailor, in order to receive better treatment. We already know from the witness before the previous one that when the government sent detachments to protect Armenians (and these were common ones not necessarily with skills), there was no "as if" about it. This particular witness is trying to give the idea that the Armenians were enslaved, when the fact was these Armenians were fortunate to be in the positions they were in, and he is also ducking the genuine purpose of the Turkish detachment. Reading between the propagandistic lines, once again we can see this detachment had but one purpose: to protect the Armenians.

 

He went and never came back. A few Armenian soldiers had decided to run away; the Turks opened fire on them, but they threw themselves into the Arax River and were saved. They joined the Russian army.

Before the deportation, in 1914, they took my eldest brother to the army; he became a corporal. Once he came to see us. My father said: "Khosrov, lao, don't go."

My brother said: "How can I? I'm a corporal, if I don't go, the Turks will burn you."

(This one is strange; it starts as Kurds but ends as Turks.)

The Kurd Hamidié soldiers came and asked my mother: "Where are your gold coins?"

Terror-stricken, my mother said: "There, they are in the jar." The Turks took the gold coins and went away.


And Peter Balakian tells us that Armenians were excited about being allowed in the army. What this propagandist "oral historian" is neglecting to tell us is that there actually were honorable Armenians who were proud to serve in the Ottoman forces, and some served with distinction. (Like Vahan Pastermadjian, the brother of the arch-traitor Armen Garo.) Note here the wording is that the authorities "took" the elder brother, implying that he was kicking and screaming. There were many deserters, not just Armenians. Is this "oral historian" telling us the way in which the government punished these many deserters was to go and burn their families? (Another "oral historian" below contradicts this claim. Deserters were imprisoned.)

Of course, it was more than a "few" Armenians who deserted. For example, the aforementioned Armen Garo "passed over with almost all the Armenian troops and officers of the Third Army to the Russians; to return with them soon after, burning hamlets and mercilessly putting to the knife all of the peaceful Mussulman villagers that fell into their hands."

There was no more "Hamidiye" during this period; these were replaced by a "tribal cavalry."

Hayrik Manouk Mouradian, born in 1905, Shatakh, Jnouk village  (link)

 (This one is priceless)


Suddenly her childbirth pains began, and I was born. With a plant blade she cut my navel, took off her shirt and wrapped me in it. Seeing the weather change for the worse, my father came there, met my mother at the brink of the cave, brought us home and put me in a cradle. My grandma put a piece of rope under my pillow to tie up the evil, the village teacher put a pencil by my side, wishing me to be literate, and my grandfather, put the sword beside me, saying: "Let him be a fedayi."

During the battle Shatakh had 360-400 armed warriors, and the enemy brought an army of six thousand soldiers against us. The fighting lasted a month and a half.

We were defending the whole province. The Armenian lost forty-eight fighters, the Turks lost two thousand askyars.

Dro came to our village and delivered a speech, praising the heroic people of Shatakh and said, "Well done." But the Russian army began to retreat and the exile began. The whole road to Van was covered with corpses.

In 1915 the condition of the Russian soldiers was very grave. The Russian soldiers came to the Armenian houses and begged for bread, because they hadn't received any food for three months. But we, the Armenians loved the Russian soldiers; we called them 'kind Russians.'

On our deportation way Kostya (Constantin) Hambartsoumian was guiding us. We had an army of five thousand. The army was divided into several regiments: one regiment went on the left side of the valley, the other — in front of us, and the third — behind us. Thus, forty thousand Armenians came out of Van. We didn't know that the Turks had bribed Smko's bandit group. They had surrounded our way and closed it. We should go by the road of Khoy and join the Armenians of the Caucasus, but we were compelled to go to Salmast. (is he talking about a real army or not?)

We had two merchants in Iraq. They, Hakob efendi and Hovsep efendi, decided to transport us to Armenia. We came by the Persian Gulf, through the Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea and Batoum, where the representatives of the Soviet power met us on January 1, 1922. After sailing for 45 days we arrived to our Motherland, but we had lost about 10,000 people, most of them from epidemics.




WE LEARN: [1] Of yet another example of encouragement for Armenian youth to join the ranks of the terrorist Dashnaks/Hunchaks, indicating the practice may have been relatively widespread, [2] There was a considerable force of Armenian rebels at Shatakh; only one of many examples for those who insist there was no Armenian revolt, [3] When a smaller Armenian force mixes it up in full battle with a much larger Turkish force, according to Armenians, the Turkish losses will always be astronomically high; 48 vs. 2,000 in this case (not as bad as the contention of Aghasi, leader of the 1895 revolt in Zeitun, who wrote in his diary that 125 Armenians were killed, vs. 20,000 Turks.) [4] Some Armenian sources caught off-guard will vouch for genuine armies, while Vahakn Dadrian will insist there was no civil war and tug at our heartstrings with melodramatic statements such as:

"Where is going to come the logistics? Where is going to come the weaponry? Where is going to come the command and control system of this terror-stricken population whose main concern was how to survive the war?"

Lastly, [4] Armenians in large numbers died of disease. Naturally, they will always be added to the toll of genocide victims, or as genocide scholars such as Rudy Rummel like to tell us, must be considered among the "murdered."

Sahak Mirzo Bazian, born in 1913, Shatakh, Djnouk village  (link)

(Is this guy on the Turkish payroll? It must be read totally for sure; PRICELESS!)

The guards, seeing that they got no results in recruiting askyars, went out of the village, surrounded it and remained there. That didn't help either. The villagers neither came out of the wells, nor returned from the fields. And so, seeing that their three days' plunder, recruiting and surrounding the village gave no results, and losing hope about the arrival of the main forces, the eighty-person vanguard group decided to leave Djnouk and go to Hinents, collect the taxes and askyars, then go to the villages of Kaghpi, Vank and Sak. Everywhere, under the pretext of collecting taxes and askyars, they threatened, frightened and plundered. But everywhere the result was the same. Everywhere they collected the taxes but no askyars. The Armenians rebelled and didn't go to serve in the Turkish Army; they didn't want to become Turk askyars.

That was the first step of the indignation and the resistance of the Shatakh people, which was created spontaneously from the depth of the popular masses. The first test of popular resistance. They recruited three men from Djnouk, three men from Hinents and five men from Kaghpi — eleven men altogether. Later all of them ran away from Sak, when they were surrounded in a house together with the Turks; knowing the secret passage of that house, they run away and a few Turkish soldiers followed them.

The second step was the encirclement of the eighty-person guard group in Sak, a village in the forest, where there were five houses of Armenians and a few houses of Kurds. Then they captured the group, which was taking the taxes to Tagh. The guards had impatiently been waiting for the auxiliary soldiers. They stayed in Sak for three days, but no assistance came. During those three days the Armenians of Sivtikin village, forming a group of 15-20 armed fighters attacked the kordon (the guard group of 80 people), snatched their arms and took them to Tagh.


WE LEARN: "The Armenians rebelled."

(Another Armenian eyewitness who should be getting money from the Turks.)

The Turks fought against the Armenians for thirty days. The Armenians were digging trenches. We had no experience, we didn't know what was taking place, but the children of Van knew a lot. When they brought us from Varag Monastery to Van, I saw at the Armenian quarters — in Aygestan, the band was playing "Our Motherland"1 to encourage the fighters. After thirty days, the Turks began to escape hearing the name of the Russians. As only a few men came back from Enver pasha's army, Andranik went and occupied Bitlis. The Russians didn't want to occupy Bitlis. Andranik occupied it with his volunteers.

(Before deportation orders!! And Armenian Volunteers were a separate group at least to some degree!)

When fighting was over I went to our village. My mother lived with her six sons. I and my step-brothers joined and brought back from the Kurds the animals they had stolen away from us. We became owners of two cows and one horse. The peasants of our village had escaped. Those who had arms and had fought had come and gathered in the Varag Monastery, which had become the center of the refugees.

The main reason of the Armenian Genocide was that the Armenians wanted to live with the Turks and Kurds with equal rights, but the Muslim religion wouldn't permit it. Besides, the most intelligent people of Turkey were the Armenians who had a highly developed culture; most of the architects, composers and merchants were Armenians. In order to avoid the Armenians' autonomy, in order not to create a new Bulgaria, they tried in every way to annihilate the Armenians.

( I thought it was because they wanted a pure Turkish land.)


And to add to Gokalp's excellent point, the main reason for the "Armenian Genocide" was not because the Armenians were deprived of rights. The statement of the Armenians' "highly developed culture" itself proves this (and so does, in a small way, the first paragraph of the next witness, below); if anything, the generally wealthier Armenians had become the masters of Ottoman society. No, the one and the only reason for the "Armenian Genocide" (that's a synonym for relocation, in pro-Armenian-speak) was that the Armenians rebelled.

This "oral historian" inadvertently is telling us the reasons concocted by the unscrupulous genocide industry, such as "pan-Turanism" or "Muslims hating Christians" are all deceitful. The Armenians were trying to set up an independent state, conducting a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing in the hopes of achieving it. It was the duty of the Ottoman state, as it would be the duty of any nation, to protect its territory and people. The way in which the Ottomans went about doing so was to temporarily move the treacherous Armenians away, until the danger was over... what Prof. Guenter Lewy correctly summarized as a "relatively humane" process. If the idea was to "annihilate" the Armenians, it would have been impossible for the majority of Armenians to have survived.

 Smbat Davit Davtian, born in 1905, Van, Narek village  (link)

 

In 1916 an order came that everyone should return to his village. (Are you sure it was a genocide) We hadn't gathered the wheat in 1915; it had grown again. We began reaping the wheat. The houses were burnt, only the walls had remained. We began covering the roofs of our houses. Once again an order came to leave our place and go to Eastern Armenia. We came and reached the Berkri Bridge, which had been reconstructed. We reached Igdir. We had nothing. My father had an acquaintance there; he went and found him. Then that man's wife and children came and took us to their house. We lived there till we were deported from Igdir.

We approached Van and were about to enter the town, the Turks stopped us and started to look for males. The heroes of Van, who were probably watching with field glasses, began to fire. Some of the Turks fell, others fled and we were saved and entered Van. In the town there were also foreign consuls. Mother, who was leaning against a post, said: "Boys, put your ears here and listen." We listened and heard voices. It probably was a telegram post. Mother said: "Call your father from America, let him come."

We were lodged in Van in the school building. Every morning the brass band marched, playing, in the streets of Van, followed by the children. The self-defense of Van had already begun. An Armenian told us: 'Children, go and collect the used bullets so that they can prepare new ones.' We went and collected the bullets and handed them to the workshop.

The day came when the battle became more intense in Van and Aygestan. The Vaspourakanis, who had gathered there, defended with unyielding will and determination Aygestan and the center of Van, Kaghakamedj, where violent combats took place. Hearing that the Russian army was advancing from Salmast to Van, the Turks departed panic-stricken. Our heroes attacked and not only they exterminated the Turks but also acquired a considerable amount of artillery units, bullets, etc.

On the 6th of May the Armenian flag waved over the citadel of Van. The Vaspourakanis welcomed with great love the Russian soldiers and the Armenian volunteers under the leadership of General Andranik pasha. When it was merrymaking all over a Russian officer approached us and took a photo: me, mother and my brother. Then the Russian revolution began, which compelled the Russian Army to go back to Russia, and with them many refugees came to Armenia...


Keep in mind the "6th of May" was about a month before the "genocide" began. Only four days prior, the Ottoman leadership began to consider the "genocide" (i.e., "relocation") process, since what these treacherous Armenians were engaged in was nothing short of war. Once again, since we have the umpteenth "oral historian" using the dishonest phrase "self-defense," one can only call it defense if one is being attacked. It was the Armenians doing the attacking.

Patrick Avetis Saroyan, born in 1906, Van  (link)

 
I was seven years old, when the Turk gendarmes came, threatened us and told us that we should hand over our fire-arms. They often came and threatened father and my uncles.

At the kindergarten my teacher was Mrs. Mankassarian, who taught me the alphabet. At school we were educated with the spirit of patriotism.

In 1914, an eclipse of the sun was observed. The church bells rang. Many people predicted that there would be war. At the beginning of 1915, in April, the Turk gendarmes, led by the monster Djevdet, attacked Van. (??????? that is questionable) They had already gathered the young men as if recruit them, but they had slaughtered them on the way. My uncle Ghevond had managed to escape from that massacre.

From the third floor of our house my father was watching, lest the Turks should come down from the fortress towards Kaghakamedj. All of a sudden father saw that the Turks were getting down the fortress with ropes. Father began to fire, and the Turks stopped coming down. Everything was for the front. Refugees started to come from Kharakonis and entered Aygestan.

The Turks used new kinds of cannons, with which they dropped shells on our houses. They were long and mortar-shaped cannons. The bombs often did not explode, and our women rendered them harmless very carefully.

On May 5, when we won, the Turks began to flee by boats over the lake. They took away with them their families, too. The victorious Van people came from Aygestan to Kaghakamedj with a great musical band and began kissing each other.

Aygestan was at a distance of 4-5 km from Kaghakamedj. Soon the Russian army approached Van. My father had raised me on his shoulders to see things better. Finally, the clatter of horses' hoofs was heard. The first who approached Van was General Andranik, then — Dro, Hamazasp, Gay. Andranik didn't enter Van. After the battle some people of Van began to plunder the houses of the Turks. My father didn't participate in it. In those days, holding me by the hand, father took me to the top of the fortress. In a clearing father saw fifteen eggs. He put them in his handkerchief and we took them home. Mother laughed at father, saying: "He went to rob a caravan, but brought only a feather."

Before the fight the Turks had taken away Ishkhan and had killed him by night. I remember Ishkhan's funeral. He was a great Dashnak activist and had taken part in the fedayi movement. Ishkhan's coffin was put in St. Vardan Church, a requiem was held, and his son used to say: "I'll do hop-hop and kill Turks."

Aram Manoukian: Pretty scary looking.

Then General Nicolaev organized the Van government which began to function. On 15th of July, General Nicolaev demanded that the Armenians should migrate, for the Turkish army had received great reinforcements and was getting ready to attack. The Armenian leaders, Aram Manoukian and others, refused to migrate and they said to Nicolaev: "We got our victory without any outer help, and we have a strong will-power to defend our country." But Nicolaev and Andranik, as leaders, agreed to retreat together with the Russians. A great commotion started.

The Kurds came down from the mountains to plunder us. We were walking day and night with blood-stained feet, exhausted, hungry. We reached Orgov. After Bayazet we ascended a mount and my eyes fell on Ararat. It was the first time I saw the sacred mountain. I forgot the hardships we had had and our tiredness. I remembered Raffi's words: "Will there ever come a time when the Armenian flag will float on top of Ararat."


WE LEARN that Armenian schools were hotbeds of rebellion. No doubt these policies were directed by Dashnak activists as Ishkhan (a traitor whom, we are told above, got killed by the Turks), and the cycle of hatred kept getting fueled.

The Ottomans were engaged in desperate war, and Djevdet was going to spend precious resources by attacking the Van Armenians for no reason? What an awful propagandist. If anything, Djevdet had his hands full fending off murderous Armenians. On April 24, the only "deportation" being considered was Djevdet's nerve-wracking evacuation of Muslims, victims of the Armenians.

 
In 1914 I began to attend school. But in April 1915 there was no school any more, because World War I had started, and the Turks had attacked us. All the Armenian males were being taken to the army, but they didn't draft my father, since he was supplying the Turks with shoes.

In 1914, when the World War broke out, Eastern Armenia and the Armenians of Tiflis organized volunteer troops and joined the Russian army. The Turks had sixty thousand Armenians in their Army. When the Turks learned about it, they took the Armenian soldiers out of the army, organized working battalions and began to slaughter them.

When the news reached Van, the people of Van organized a Military Council, barricaded the town and built defensive positions; in the middle of Van were the Turkish barracks; the Armenians set fire to it and demolished it.

Beginning from the 6th of April 1915, up to the 4th of May the Armenians were defending themselves with success. On May 4 the Russian army entered Van, in which was included also the Armenian army consisting of six thousand soldiers under the leadership of General Andranik. The Russian authorities elected Aram Manoukian as the leader of the town of Van. This way we lived till the beginning of July. In the beginning of July 1915 the Russian authorities ordered the Armenians to migrate.


This eight-year-old kid had actual evidence, then, that the Turks were slaughtering the Armenians in the Ottoman army. That is amazing. Or is it possible this "oral historian" was feeling free to add the slippery claims of genocide lore, as so many other "oral historians"?

WE LEARN that it was the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire, along with some from Georgia, who filled the ranks of the "volunteers." (Many who filled the ranks of the Armenians in the Russian Army also came from the Ottoman Empire, at one point or another, a good number during the outbreak of war.)

If there were some 1.5 million Ottoman-Armenians before the war (2 million and over, according to pro-Armenians), and there was such mass mobilization that Ambassador Morgenthau wrote thousands of Turks were dying daily from starvation because few were left to till the fields, it's remarkable that only a small number of the 18-45 Armenian males were conscripted. (60,000, we are told here.) If that number is accurate, we can see most Armenian men succeeded in either running off to the Russians, deserted, and/or stayed behind and formed guerilla units from behind-the-lines. Up to 100,000, according to Prof. Justin McCarthy.

Nshan Soukias Abrahamian, born in 1908, Van, Aldjavaz (Ardske) province, Ziraklu village  (link)

 

(This one is interesting; reminds me of the stories that I heard from my family, sincere and truthful. Shows the horrors of wartime, people killing others just for mere trousers or some food. Horrible.)

“Killing was a common thing then. They had killed a draftee for a few apricots”