THE GERMANS

Johannes Lepsius

Johannes Lepsius was the one German who supported the Armenian cause with the utmost vehemence. The vicar's book, Germany and Armenia, was found to contain manipulations and forgeries, and it is the book Franz Werfel referred to in writing his "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh," Today some Armenians attach more importance to Lepsius’ work, as they are aware that other sources such as the Blue Book were products of the propaganda bureaus. (Ignoring that Lepsius directly received some information directly from Ambassador Morgenthau, as did Britain's Wellington House; as these other gentlemen, Lepsius never travelled into the Ottoman interior during "1915" to personally witness anything.)

 

Baron Hans Von Wangenheim was Germany’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Ambassador Morgenthau cast him to come across sort of like Conrad Veidt's villainous Nazi role in CASABLANCA, in his ghostwritten Ambassador Morgenthau's Story... ("Physically he was one of the most imposing persons I have ever known. ...He was six feet two inches tall; his huge, solid frame, his Gibraltarlike shoulders, erect and impregnable, his bold, defiant head, his piercing eyes, his whole physical structure constantly pulsating with life and activity---there stands, I would say, not the Germany which I had known, but the Germany whose limitless ambitions had transformed the world into a place of horror. ") and was later criticized by another American for misrepresenting the German ambassador's character.

 

Otto Liman Von Sanders, WWI general; head of the military mission sent by the Kaiser to Istanbul in the latter part of 1913, to reorganize the Turkish army in preparation for the coming war, and a commander at Gallipoli; he had much respect for Atatürk. Von Sanders served as witness for the defense at the trial of Talat Pasha's assassin.

 

 

 

 

Lt. General Bronsart von Schellendorf

 Bronsart von Schellendorf, Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Field Troops, was so incensed at the "kangaroo court" proceedings of the cursory Tehlirian trial, where no witness for the prosecution was called, that he wrote an article for a German publication. "Eye witnesses, who had seen the truth were not called. Why did one not take the statements of German officers, who were assigned at the time and were there to see the results of Armenian atrocities?" he wondered, going on to explain: "Since all the able Moslem men were in the army, it was easy for the Armenians to begin a horrible slaughter of the defenseless Moslem inhabitants in the area. They did not just go against the Turkish Eastern front army from a flank or at its back, but they simply cleaned out the Moslem inhabitants in those areas. They performed gruesome deeds, of which I, as an eye witness honestly say that they were much worse than what Turks have been accused of as an Armenian atrocity." Von Schellendorf termed Talat Pasha "no thoughtless murderer, but a far sighted statesman," and had only one reason to write his report, since the war was all over: "To help truth find its rightful place."

 

 THE AMERICANS

 

Adm. Chester, 1901

Colby M. Chester, Rear Admiral, United States Navy. The New York Times editor describes: "...One of America’s most experienced naval veterans. He was graduated from Annapolis in 1863, and served in the Civil War. He was one of Theodore Roosevelt’s closest friends, and for years has been an observer of world affairs." Chester wrote one of the few favorable articles regarding the Turks, and came under vicious attack.

 

Arthur Tremaine Chester, son of Rear Admiral Colby M. Chester, was the rare American of the period who got the chance to get up close and personal with the Turks. The representative of the U.S. Shipping Board in Istanbul, he would go on to build railroads for the newly formed Republic, and to head the "Chester Project," developing natural resources. Like his father, Chester was one of the few Westerners who saw through the thick smokescreen of propaganda; his "Angora and the Turks" appeared in The New York Times.

 

President Wilson

Woodrow Wilson, (1856-1924). President of the United States, 1912-1920. The preacher's son was extremely sympathetic to the Armenians' cause, and like his presidential predecessor Teddy Roosevelt, possessed enough hatred for the Turks to have declared, "There ain't going to be no Turkey." President Wilson declared Ottoman Ambassador Ahmet Rustem Bey as ‘persona non grata’ on September 19, 1914  after the ambassador replied to the ‘Washington Star’ that the American Press had defamed the Ottoman Empire with groundless claims of Armenian oppression, and that Washington had to learn how to treat blacks humanely. (Apparently Wilson could dish it out, but he couldn't take it.) On Jan. 8, 1918, Wilson declared the principle of self-determination for all the peoples "oppressed by Turkey," conveniently leaving out the principle of self-determination FOR Turkey.  It was he who arbitrarily decided to carve out "Greater Armenia" from Western Turkey, as if the Turks did not exist... in his plans to implement the stillborn Treaty of Sevres. Mustafa Kemal's reaction: "I find Mr. Wilson's project, tending to place several million Turks under the domination of several thousand Armenians, simply ridiculous." Although Wilson was the Armenians' greatest historic friend, he was naturally attacked by the ungrateful Armenians when he refused to go all the way by granting them three-quarters of a billion dollars and 70,000 American troops to secure the area of their "ancient homeland." (ADDENDUM, 3-07: Prof. McMillan, in her 2002 book "Paris 1919..." tells us a hero of Wilson's was William Gladstone; an excerpt: "'An ingrate and a liar,' said a Democratic boss in New Jersey [of Wilson] in a toast. Wilson never forgave those who disagreed with him. 'He is a good hater,' said his press officer and devoted admirer Ray Stannard Baker...The French ambassador in Washington saw "a man who, had he lived a couple of centuries ago, would have been the greatest tyrant in the world, because he does not seem to have the slightest conception that he can ever be wrong.")

 

Gen. James Harbord

  James G. Harbord (1866-1947), Major-General U. S. Army; unable to gain a spot at West Point, Harbord joined the 4th Infantry Brigade in 1889. Dispatched to the Philippines (where the Americans' bloody conduct with the locals was not exactly spic and span) in 1902. Served with distinction against the Germans, although criticized (at the Second Battle of the Marne in July 1918) for his apparent willingness to launch infantry attacks without proper artillery support. The newly promoted Major-General headed the U.S. Government's investigative Commission sent to Anatolia in the Fall of 1919; his deliberate suppression of evidence showing Armenian crimes and atrocities against Muslims, as documented in the U.S. Archives, are carefully omitted by Armenian Americans. While considering the mandate, a U.S. senator declared, "General Harbord wrote as favorable report as he could...not so much with the pen of the military writer, who generally deals in hard, cold facts without ornamentation... [but] as a picture of the Armenians by the friend of the Armenians." He once reported, however, that "where Armenians advanced and retreated with the Russians, their cruelties unquestionably rivaled the Turks in their inhumanity." (American Military Mission to Armenia, # 151, June 1920)

 

Admiral Mark Bristol, 1919

Admiral Mark Lambert Bristol (1868-1939) fought in the Spanish-American and First World Wars, and served as the Commander of the U.S. Naval Detachment in Turkish waters and as the U.S. High Commissioner to Turkey (1919-1927); he witnessed first hand the Turkish War of Independence, the formation of the First Turkish Republic, and the early years of its existence. His papers, consisting of some 33,000 items, include reports, diaries, correspondence, copies of official dispatches, telegrams and appointment sheets... almost entirely ignored by Western scholars who take it upon themselves to study Turco-Armenian relations. Many of these wish to dismiss Bristol by painting him as "anti-Greek," "anti-Armenian," and "pro-Turkish," which is odd for a man who had written, "I have no use for the Turk." The truth is, Bristol looked at the situation even-handedly... much in contrast with the American ambassador at the time of the "Genocide," whose testimony one Armenian professor prefers to classify as "unimpeachable."

 

Ambassador Henry Morgenthau

 Henry Morgenthau (1856-1946), lawyer, real estate developer, was United States ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during the Armenian "Genocide." Hoping to get the United States involved in the war, the ambassador freely accepted at face value any and all reports critical of the Turks, as they arrived from the network of U.S. consuls, relying mainly on the claims of Armenians and missionaries. It didn't help that Morgenthau had an unabashed, racist dislike for Turks, looking upon them as inferior beings... and outraged that any Christian should be ruled by such a subhuman race — a view shared by many of his contemporaries... including most of his Consuls. Although Jewish, Morgenthau fancied himself a hero of Christians, as evidenced by his continued articles for the Armenian cause (especially in his succeeding role as Vice-Chairman of Near East Relief, an organization that vilified the Turks in order to raise money... becoming the most successful charity in American history) and by his egoistical decision to appear in the 1919 film, RAVISHED ARMENIA, as himself. (In his book, the superior American tells Talat Pasha that his "affairs are too important to be trifled with," after which Talat buckles under.) He allowed his Armenian secretary to elaborate on his own writings, further suggesting doing so would let him off the hook for "any error." A ghost writer scribed the commercially popular "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story," which deviated, at times significantly, from the letters and diaries it was based on; the book is still referred to as one of the big bits of evidence for the "Genocide," complete with presenting the made-up quotes by Turkish officials as authentic. One reason why Morgenthau — who was a Zionist — portrayed the Turks as evil incarnate was to goad the USA into war, in hopes of paving the way for a Jewish homeland. The book contains many racist lines such as, "The Turks, like most primitive peoples, wear their emotions on the surface..."; no wonder the Armenians hero-worship this man.

 

 

Leslie Davis

Leslie B. Davis, United States foreign consul in the Harput region of Turkey from 1915 to 1917; he is a "big gun" of the Armenians, a so-called "eyewitness." His reports were turned into an independently published book entitled "The Slaughterhouse Province." As with his fellow consuls and Morgenthau,  much of his information was filtered through employed Armenians.

James Gerard

 James G. Gerard was not exactly a major player, but was such a fanatical Armenophile, deserves mention. The former ambassador to Germany served as president of the ACIA, the forerunner of ANC. Set up by Vahan Cardashian (below), who broke Armenophile  Rev.  Barton's heart (see below) with ad hominem attacks. (Barton wrote, in his reply to Bristol, that "Gerard signs anything that Cardashian writes.") James Gerard was so hateful of Turks, he suggested they could be dealt with by adopting the US system of park-like reservations as were used for the American Indians. (Not removed from the idea of the Sèvres Treaty, actually.) Source: Nicole and Hugh Pope's Turkey Unveiled, 1998, p. 60 (Comite national d'etudes sociales et politiques, seance du 13 janvier 1919, in N. Politis, Les Aspirations sociales de la Grece, Paris 1919. Thanks to Mustafa).

 

The Reverend James Barton was in charge of N.E.R.

James L. Barton D.D., Secretary of the Foreign Department of The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions; in his response to Admiral Bristol's letter, he was heartbroken most Armenians did not appreciate his diligent efforts on their behalf, and further reported: "With reference to the false reports that come through reporting massacres of the Armenians by the Turks. There is no one who can deprecate this more than I do." On the other hand, the reverend compiled a volume entitled, "Turkish Atrocities," after asking missionaries in 1918 to file their detailed reports. Gregory Topalian, who reviewed the volume in an Armenian web site wrote: "James L. Barton collected these reports because he was afraid that the genocide of Armenians might be denied. He writes, 'Even Lord Bryce’s book upon the subject is seriously questioned in some quarters.' He may therefore be seen as a visionary, as he saw the seeds of denial quite obviously already planted in 1918. The Gomidas Institute and Ara Sarafian should be commended for bringing these reports to the public domain."

 

A 1919 photo of Robert College, in Istanbul

Cyrus Hamlin, born 1811, descended from French Huguenots, married thrice, missionary in Turkey working mostly with Armenians (1838-1860), and first president and co-founder of the American missionary college in Istanbul (Robert College,1860). The reverend was aware of London's propaganda bureau (established in the 1870s) which had, for its objective, the foreign spreading of news that made the Turks and Muslims look bad. He wrote that the ongoing attack on the Turks of this “one-sided and unreliable information” about any people would, "after a long period of unchallenged time, would create hostility and hatred that would not be easily overcome.” Dr. Hamlin appealed to missionaries to denounce "the abominations" of Armenian terror in an 1893 American magazine article, but his near-lone voice of sanity among the Christian flock was ignored. However, Dr. Hamlin was far from on the side of the Turks; the missionary in him apparently didn't care much for the Ottomans, as (in the article) he sniffs the country is "bad." He also wrote an article the following year entitled, "The Genesis and Evolution of the Turkish Massacre of Armenian Subjects."

 

Aram Andonian

Aram Andonian,  writer and forger, who had separately published a 1920 book ("The Memoirs of Naim Bey") in three languages (English, French and Armenian), either referred to or printed so-called “documents” that he attributed to the Ottoman leaders, principally to Talat Pasha... never being able to show the originals of the so-called “documents,” later claiming to have “lost” them.  While the victors of the First World War were searching all corners for such documents to accuse the Ottoman leaders, then detained in the Island of Malta, they chose not to assess the “telegrams” fabricated by Andonian. Aram Andonian eventually admitted, in a letter (July 26, 1937) to an Armenian lady (Mary Terzian) residing in Geneva (Switzerland) that his book was not a historical piece, but a propaganda work, and that others used it freely in the way that they preferred. 

 

 

Hagop Andonian

   Hagop Andonian was Ambassador Morgenthau's right hand man who may have played a significant part in making up "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story." He apparently typed the transcript called "Diary," among the collections of Morgenthau papers. Likewise, he probably also prepared the lengthy weekly letters to members of Morgenthau's family. The American ambassador wrote that this relieved him "of all responsibility for any error," and these were the writings that formed the basis of the book. Morgenthau further wrote that his secretary's services were "indispensable." Andonian followed his boss to America, and was a guest at Morgenthau's dinner table and even a sometime movie companion; eligible for the draft in 1918, Morgenthau got him out by insisting his friend's services were indispensable for the writing of his book. Andonian might have been related to fellow maker-upper Aram Andonian, as it has been speculated "Andonian" is not that common a name in the Armenian community.

 

 

Arshag Schmavonian

Arshag K. Schmavonian was employed by the United States Embassy in Istanbul for over sixteen years, as a legal advisor and translator, and Morgenthau, not knowing any of the languages spoken in Istanbul, extensively relied upon him. He accompanied the ambassador on almost every official visit and also to meetings with American businessmen and missionaries. Schmavonian assisted the ambassador in the writing of his cables. He was later transferred to Washington, where he remained "Special Advisor" in the employ of the U.S. State Department. He died in January, 1922.

 

 

     

Boghos Nubar Pasha (1851-1930) was one of two Armenian delegations sent to the Paris Peace Conference; his letter published in the January 30, 1919 edition of The Times of London openly spells out the true belligerent nature of the Armenians during the war.

 

 

 

Eddie "The Big Ragu" Mekka (Eddie Mejikian) played Tehlirian in ASSIGNMENT BERLIN (1981), with  a budget of nearly one million (accor- ding to a press report; where did that money COME from? Lordy, the deep pockets of Armenians... )

Soghoman Tehlirian, Armenian assassin whose mother ordered him to kill, a la "Son of Sam," in his supposed visions. The Armenian Weekly's Ara Khachatourian reported, in an article entitled, "2,000 Remember Armenian Hero Soghomon Tehlirian": "More than 2,000 Armenian-Americans from across California gathered on March 16, 2002 at the monument commemorating the great Armenian hero Soghomon Tehlirian to pay homage to the memory of his heroic act of justice. On March 15, 1921, Tehlirian assassinated Talaat Pasha, the mastermind behind the Armenian Genocide, on a street in Berlin, Germany. Tehlirian was subsequently tried for the crime and found not guilty." Tehlirian was a Dashnak who betrayed his nation and joined the Russians in 1914, fighting straight though

Soghoman Tehlirian

so that he could not have been with his family at the time of the "deportation," as he falsely testified, where his entire family was said to have been exterminated. However, one of his brothers had also joined the Russians. After the war, he joined the A.R.F.'s "Nemesis" assassination squad and the hit man also took the life of a fellow Armenian, Mugerditchian. Assuming the New York Times got it right, the killer also heroically shot and wounded Talat Pasha's wife, a crime for which he apparently wasn't even tried... in a post war Germany scared to death of being blamed for the "genocide."

Vahan Cardashian

Vahan Cardashian was the role model for today's practitioners of pro-Armenian propaganda, claiming anything that is expedient regardless of truth, and engaging in vicious ad hominem attacks. (Fittingly, he came under attack from fellow Armenians, as well... chiefly for being "pro-Turk," of all things.) Cardashian even went after die-hard friends of Armenians, such as the Rev. James Barton and President Woodrow Wilson (see "Wilson, the Wrecker of Armenia"), when these folks would not go far enough for Hai Tahd. He got his start in the USA by bamboozling an older wealthy American woman who made it possible for him to attend Yale Law School; he promptly divorced her afterwards. The Ottoman embassy in the USA was kind enough to hire Cardashian, and the lawyer rewarded them by passing on secrets to the Allies. (Beware of the legendary story of his resigning in disgust, once he found his family to be victims of the "genocide"; he was caught spying and was fired in late October 1915. See "Life and Papers of Vahan Cardashian, Armenian Review, 10:3-39 Aut. 1957, p. 104.)  The unethical Dashnak was appointed director of the A.R.F. central committee media office in 1918, a close confidante being the terrorist Armen Garo. (In the USA as Armenia's minister, soon to direct the hit man squad NEMESIS.) In 1919, Vahan Cardashian established the American Committee for the Independence of Armenia (ACIA) in 1919, which developed into today's Armenian National Committee (ANC, or ANCA). Frighteningly, one member among many other American Turcophobes was Charles Evans Hughes, soon to be a Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. James Gerard (above) called Cardashian a "one- man army who did more to help lick the awful Lausanne Treaty in America than any other single American or group of Americans."

General Dro

      Drastamat Kanayan, a.ka. "General Dro," whose last name means "one who bleeds" in Turkish, but this mass murderer knew how to make others bleed. His reputation made by massacring women and children (that is, apparently, the coward literally targeted women and children) of Muslim villages during World War I, the general put his "skills" to work for Adolf Hitler a few decades later. Commander of the infamous 812th Armenian battalion during World War II; possibly nicknamed as the 'Jew Hunter' by the Nazis. Condemned to be shot by a firing squad of Stalin's goons, the Diaspora Armenians smuggled him into the USA by reportedly bribing INS (Immigration) functionaries. He lived in the United States until his death in Massachusetts, in 1956. The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal organization must have ignored him because he was only a poor, innocent Armenian (and Holocaust Man Elie Wiesel evidently does not even care), and Dro not only escaped justice, his remains were flown into Armenia in 2000 (once Armenian-Americans reportedly raised almost a quarter of a million dollars in just two days) and honored in a huge ceremony by that country's president and chief patriarch.