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What follows are
excerpts from history Professor Mim Kemal Oke's book. (Thanks to www.ataa.org/ataa/ref/armenian/oke.html)
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| Chapter II |
THE ANATOMY OF THE ARMENIAN QUESTION
This chapter is devoted to setting forth the general
framework of the Armenian question. Armenian authors regard and interpret the actions of
their compatriots in the Ottoman Empire between 1877and 1917 as signs of the rising
Armenian nationalism. According to them, the 19th century was a period when there were
strong nationalist movements and when national states achieved their unity in Europe; and
the 20th century is a period when peoples in multi-national empires fought for
self-determination, and when some of them were successful. From this point of view, the
Armenian movement must be regarded as a 'struggle for national independence' which is
still going on today. I begin this chapter by discussing the actions of Armenians in terms
of the concepts of 'nation' and 'nationalism.' In other words, I begin by making an
analysis of this movement. I believe that the Armenian question can best be grasped,
evaluated and placed in a larger world perspective, after it is treated in detail in terms
of its philosophical organizational dimensions, the methods of struggle it employed, and
its place in the international system.
I. The Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in Light of the
Theories of Nation and Nationalism
…Ottoman and Western sources are agreed that Armenians
never constituted a majority in Cilicia or in the vilayet-i sitte, the six provinces of
Sivas, Erzurum, Harput, Bitlis, Diyarbakir and Van, which Armenians regard as their
original homeland. Statistical data obtained between 1912 and 1922 indicates that the
percentage of the Armenian population in the general population never rose above 30% in
Bitlis and above 26% in Van, the two provinces where Armenians were most heavily
concentrated. The available data indicate that there were 45 Muslims to each Armenian
living in these six provinces. Another characteristic of the Armenian population in the
Ottoman Empire was that it was dispersed throughout the country. According to McCarthy's
research, there were more Armenians in Ankara than in Harput. Under these conditions,
it is impossible to talk of an Armenia in Anatolia on account of the principle of
self-determination.
This being the case, a researcher inevitably feels the need
to investigate whether or not some enmity against Armenians in the Ottoman Empire may have
had an impact on the development of a national consciousness in this people in the
19th century, an influence similar to the impact of anti-Semitism on the rise of Zionism
in Europe. If this investigation is started from the first encounter between Turks and
Armenians, it becomes clear that there is no foundation to the claim that the Seljuks
invaded or conquered the lands of an independent Armenian State. Historical records show
that Sultan Arparslan conquered the Ani lands in 1064. However, this principate had
already been terminated by the Byzantines nineteen years before the Turks entered
Anatolia. What is more, after the Armenians passed under Turkish rule, the comfort and
welfare that they enjoyed far surpassed their situation under Byzantine, Arabic or Russian
administrations. The Armenians, who were living under the various kinds of pressure in
Central Anatolia and Cilicia as Byzantine citizens regarded the Seljuks as saviors and
welcomed becoming their vassals. During the periods of the Great Seljuk Empire and of the
Anatolian Seljuk state, the Armenian emirates lived in great freedom and tolerance like
the other Muslim and non-Muslim vassals of the Seljuks.
This tradition was observed also by the Ottomans. The first
Ottoman ruler Osman Bey permitted Armenians to be organized as a separate community in
order to protect them from the pressures of the Byzantine Empire, and the first Armenian
religious center was established in Kutahya. When Bursa was conquered and was made the
capital, this religious center was moved to Bursa. After Mehmet the Conqueror conquered
Istanbul, the religious leader Hovakim was brought from Bursa to Istanbul in 1461 and the
Armenian Patriarchate was established with a royal decree. In the millet system, whose
outlines were given above, Armenians were organized as the 'Grego millet' and were left to
the administration of their religious leader. Armenians living in towns and
villages in Eastern Anatolia were engage farming, Armenians in cities were engaged in commerce,
working as money-changers and goldsmiths, and in construction work as contractors."
Karal writes that the Armenian community used successfully the rights and privileges
granted to it, to quickly become prosperous, and that it also adopted the Ottoman culture,
lifestyle and administration, and earned the right to be called 'the loyal millet' by
winning the confidence of the Turks. Thanks to their loyalty, Armenians under Ottoman rule
achieved high public positions in addition to distinguishing themselves in commerce.
Especially after the Greek revolution, positions in the palace and in the foreign service
which were previously given to Greeks began to be entrusted to Armenians, and they also
could become governors, inspectors, ambassadors and even ministers.
Although he must have exaggerated to some extent, an author
who writes about this subject argues that Armenians who already had economic power and
social prestige obtained also bureaucratic power after the 1830's or the 1840's, that they
began to participate in the reform movements and in other developments in the country not
only as a demanding or influencing party, but as one which could make propositions,
implement them and give direction to developments. Gurun, who compares the standing of
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire with the situation of their descendants living in
communities in various countries in the world, argues that the latter never achieved the
freedoms enjoyed by the former, and says: 'It is obvious that the privileges present in
the Ottoman Empire were nothing less than a landless autonomy.' This author goes on to say
that the practice of granting autonomy to a nation which does not have land is unheard of
in international law, but that 'these opportunities were officially given by the Babiali
to the Armenian community, at a time when no state was interested in them, and there was
no such subject as the "Armenian Question".'
In short, prior to the last quarter of
the 19th century there was no 'Armenian Question' for the Ottoman on the one hand, and, on
the other, the Armenian subjects had no problem with their Turkish administrators that
they could not solve. An important source showing that this opinion was shared in general
in the Armenian community as well, is a document written by Mihran Boyaciyan, a graduate
of the Mekteb-i Miilkiye (School for Civil Servants) and district head of the Castelloryso
Island of the province of Cezair-i Babrisefid (the province of the Islands of the Aegean
Archipelago). In his work entitled 'Cenab-i Peygamber-i Zisan Tarafindan Musdadit ve
Himayeyi Havi Hiristiyanlara Ihsan Buyurulan Abidname-yi Mubareke' ('The Holy Contract
Granted by the Glorious Prophet to Christians Who are Entitled to Privileges and
Protection')" Boyaciyan notes that all rights and freedoms granted to non-Muslims by
Islam were also recognized for all the subjects of the Ottoman Empire, beginning with the
Armenians. Arguing that this state was committed to the ideal of justice, he writes:
A country without justice is like a ship without a
rudder; it will be carried away by winds and waves coming from any direction, and will
finally be smashed to pieces against a rock. Consequently, justice is the soul of the
state. If proper justice exists in a country, God will doubtlessly grant that country his
blessings, favors and love, so that it will progress and will gain fame and power....
Because justice and general security existed in the Ottoman lands in those times when
tyranny and oppression reigned in the neighboring states, the Christian peoples of those
states took refuge in the Ottoman State from the oppression and cruelty of Europeans, and
the Ottoman State soon expanded with conquests in Asia, Africa and Europe thanks to the
just application without any discrimination of the canonical law which is a living example
of justice.
(. . . . . )
(Holdwater: Mihran
Boyadjian, who once served as a civil inspector for the Bitlis and Musul provinces, was
later [probably in early 1919] recruited by the British High Commission as an informer, in
preparation for the Malta Tribunal.)
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III. The Organization of the Armenian Separatist
Movement:
The Revolutionary Committees and Their Methods of
Struggle
With the budding of nationalistic feelings among the
Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire, the first stage was accomplished in the
way of establishing an independent Armenia. Now it was time to realize as soon as
possible the goals expressed in the two quotations above. Several societies began to
be formed with the purpose of establishing an independent Armenia, first in Turkey
and then also outside of Turkey. At the beginning, these societies kept their real
purpose secret, and pretended to be charitable societies. From the perspective of
our subject, the Hunchaks and the Association of Armenian Revolutionary Societies (Dashnaktsutiun)
were the most important among these societies. The Hunchak Revolutionary Party was
established on Marxist principles in 1887 in Switzerland by Avadis Nazarbekian, an
Armenian from the Caucasus, a female friend of his named Maro whom he married later
on, and by their student friends from the Caucasus. There were many Russian
Armenians among the leaders and members of this organization. The headquarters of
this Revolutionary Party was later moved to London. The Hunchak Revolutionary
Party declared that its goal was to 'free the Turkish Armenia' and Part IV of its
political program makes clear the methods to be used for this purpose:
The only way of achieving our immediate goal is to
start a revolution, that is, using force to upset all order in the Turkish Armenia,
forcing the people to start a war against the Turkish Government with a general
revolution.
The means of these activities are:
1 Propaganda: using the press, publications and
oral means to spread the revolutionary ideas of Hunchak in the millet, and
especially among the workers, establishing a revolutionary organization among them,
and organizing revolutionary regiments.
2 Terror: using terror as punishment against
Turkish administrators, secret agents, informers, and traitors. Terror must be a
means and a weapon for protecting the revolutionary organization.
3 Raider regiments organization: military units
kept ready to fight against ... government forces. These regiments can serve as
vanguard regiments during general revolutions.
4 General revolutionary organization: comprises
several regular groups all of which are attached to each other to form a unity and a
harmonious whole, all of which use the same tactics to advance in the same general
and common direction, and all of which are administered and directed by a central
committee.
5 Revolutionary regiments organization.
6 The declaration of a war by any state against
Turkey should be considered as the most opportune time for the general revolution,
for the immediate goal.
The Dashnaktsutiun Revolutionary Party came into
being in 1890 in Tiflis in the Caucasus through the efforts of Christopher Mikaelian
and his friends to unite brigands formed by Armenian nationalists in imitation of
brigands which had been established in the Balkans. Whereas the Hunchaks supported
the idea of an Armenia under the protection of Russia, the Dashnaks - at least
during the first few years - wanted an independent Armenia. Pro-Russian Armenians
did not want this; the independence of the Ottoman Armenia would mean closing the
path to the Mediterranean, to Russia. The Dashnaktsutiun opened branches in Trabzon,
Istanbul and Van and began to be organized throughout Turkey. According to the
organizational statute of the Dashnaktsutiun which held its first meeting in Tiflis
in the Fall of 1892, the areas covered by the activities of the organization were
assigned to two bureaus responsible for the East and the West. The Western Bureau
concentrated especially on propaganda and began to be influential in both public
opinion and among decision makers in Europe by becoming organized first in Paris,
and then in London, Brussels, Berlin, Leipzig, Geneva, Rome and Milan. On the other
hand, the Eastern Bureau was in charge of planning and implementing terrorist and
revolutionary activities in the Ottoman Empire. Thus, in spite of the difference
in purpose, the Dashnaks had also adopted terror as their method of operation, like
the Hunchaks.
It was not by chance that these revolutionary
committees adopted terror as their method of struggle against the Ottomans. It was
almost a conjunctural necessity for a nationalistic movement devoid of objective
elements to adopt the most radical means for achieving its goals. We saw above that the elements constituting Armenian
nationalism were unfounded. The most important point worth repeating is that the
area they sought to 'free' was not one like Bulgaria or Greece, a country defined
and delimited by a relatively unified mass. In areas called real Armenia, Armenians
were living as small islands among Muslims who constituted 87% of the general
population. Even if all Armenians worldwide were to be brought to this area, they
would not be able to constitute a majority in Eastern Anatolia. Thus, starting with
this suspicion, the Armenian revolutionary committees thought terror was necessary
from two perspectives. First, actions of individual terror and mass massacres
would be the most effective way of making the Muslim inhabitants of the so-called
Armenia flee. just as had been the case with emigrations from Rumelia, these Muslims
would be forced to desert their homes if the ottoman State failed to protect their
lives, and those who would refuse to emigrate would be subjected to massacres by the
Armenian revolutionaries so that the area would eventually be left entirely to
Armenians. Secondly, the Armenian revolutionaries knew that they would not be able
to succeed in their cause by themselves; it was impossible to make substantial
changes in the international political system without the intervention and approval
of external powers. The revolutionary committees believed that the powers which
controlled world politics could be attracted to this subject only through
'terrorism.' Thus, if the people in Eastern Anatolia would be provoked enough
through uprisings and if Muslims could be brought to the point of attacking
Armenians, civil war would easily break out in this area. This or that measure that
would then be taken by Ottoman security forces trying to stop the fighting between
the Christian and Muslim subjects would be announced to Western public opinion as I
massacres' by the bureaus of propaganda of the revolutionary committees, and states
would be invited to stop the 'bloodshed.' The Great Powers which would thus be
forced to take an interest in this subject would demand that the Ottoman State
introduce certain regulations in favor of Armenians in order to prevent similar
events from taking place in the future. Each step in reforms would bring Armenians
closer to autonomy. To put it briefly, Western intervention was regarded as
indispensable for the 'Armenianization' of Eastern Anatolia and terrorism was
regarded as the sole key to the door which would usher in that intervention under
existing conditions.
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The first of the uprisings which led to the second stage of
the Armenian Question in the Ottoman Empire broke out in Erzurum in 1890. This was
followed by the Kumkapi demonstration in Istanbul in the same year, the Kayseri, Yozgat,
Corum and Merzifon events in 1892 and 1893, the 1894 Susan rebellion, the demonstration at
the Sublime Porte and the Zeytun rebellion in 1895, the Van rebellion and the raid on the
Ottoman Bank in 1896, the second Sasun rebellion in 1903, the attempt to assassinate
Sultan Abdijlhamid in 1905, and the 1909 Adana rebellion. It would be good to note certain
points about these rebellions. The first point I would like to emphasize is the number of
Armenians and Muslims who died during these events. Calculating roughly on the basis of
differences in population between the 1890's when the events started and 1915 when
Armenians were relocated on account of the war, it will be observed that only a relatively
- relative to their numbers in the general population - small number of Armenians lost
their lives in this period. Armenians who were killed by revolutionary Armenians are also
included in this estimate. Although it is impossible to give any definite numbers, the
number of Muslims who died in this period should also be taken into account. It is
recorded in some Armenian sources that in Zeytun alone 20,000 Turks were massacred.
Even if these statements were considered to be exaggerated, it becomes clear that there
were as many Muslims who lost their lives as there were Armenians during the Armenian
uprisings. The second point I would like to stress is that Ottoman sources record that the
Patriarchate harbored Armenian revolutionaries during these rebellions. It is especially
noted that it was difficult to differentiate between selected young priests and
revolutionaries. Third, the roles played by British and Rusian consulates should be
emphasized as well. When the Ottoman forces apprehended some revolutionaries, the consuls
appealed to the Sublime Porte and argued that these Armenians were their own citizens, and
that it was their legal right (protected by the capitulations) to be tried at the
consulates and to serve their sentences - if found guilty - at the consulates. Records
also show that these trials by no means contributed to the carrying out of justice, but
that revolutionaries were smuggled out of the country under the protection of the
consulates and were subsequently brought back to the Ottoman State to create new incidents
after having been given new identities.
(Holdwater: the Armenian source
claiming a "massacre" of 20,000 might be the diary of Aghasi, who began the 1895
Zeitun rebellion; he wrote: "From the beginning until the end of the insurrection,
the Turks lost 20,000 men, 13,000 of whom were soldiers, and the rest were bashi-bozuks
[irregulars]. We had lost only 125 men, 60 of whom had died in battle, and 65 of whom were
dastardly killed during the cease-fire." (p. 306] )
( . . . . . .)
VIII. The Activities of the Armenian Organizations
During the First World War
When the First World War broke out, the Armenian
revolutionary committees and the Patriarchate came together to determine the policy they
were going to pursue if the Ottomans entered the war. The meeting was held at the Central
Armenian School in Galata, Istanbul, and some officials of the Patriarchate presided over
it. The United National Armenian Congress, composed of the representatives of the
Dashnaktsutiun, the Hunchak and of the other revolutionary committees decided to recommend
that 'Armenians should remain loyal to the Ottoman Government, do their military service,
and not allow themselves to be influenced by outside forces.' However, the eighth
Dashnaktsutiun Congress which convened in Erzurum and which was attended by
representatives from the Eastern Ottoman provinces and from various places in the world,
took the decision to 'stay in opposition to the Committee of Union and Progress and to
wage a fierce struggle against it.' According to Ottoman intelligence, the following
directions were given to the rural organizations: 'If the Russian army crosses the
border and if the Ottoman forces withdraw, uprisings will be started everywhere with the
available means, the Ottoman army will be left between two fires, its buildings and
administrative places will be bombed and burned down, government forces will be kept busy
inside the country, the Armenian soldiers and officers in the Ottoman army will join the
Russians with their supplies and arms or will desert their units to form revolutionary
bands." It thus becomes clear that the decision in Istanbul was not taken
sincerely but was intended only to assure the government and not to arouse its suspicions.
Plans began to be implemented in Russia. As it had been
announced, revolutionary bands had gone into action to enhance the military power of the
Tsarist forces: Armenian volunteers from all parts of the country were flocking to the
Caucasus to join the Russian army, and to form regiments of vengeance. An Armenian
National Bureau was established in Tiflis under the chairmanship of the mayor A. Khatisian
for the purpose of organizing the volunteers. On the other hand, the Russian authorities
were preparing the Armenians to join possible actions against the Ottomans. The Russian
Governor General of the Caucasus, Count Varontsav-Daskov, provided military training to
the Armenian volunteers. The Etchmiadzin catholicos visited the Tsar in Tiflis and said:
'The only way to liberate the Ottoman Armenians is to separate them definitely from
Turkish rule, to establish an independent Armenia and to place it under the strong
protection of Russia.' The Tsar answered him by saying: 'Venerable father, please tell
your people that a very bright future is awaiting the Armenians.'
As a matter of fact, the Russians had already begun
gathering volunteers from among the Armenians in Iran and Caucasia and arming them. The
first party of one thousand armed volunteers was placed under the command of the
experienced revolutionary Antranik who had commanded the Armenian units in the Bulgarian
army during the Balkan war. While Antranik's unit joined the Russian forces in Northern
Iran, the other three volunteer regiments had begun to march towards the Ottoman border.
General Dro, who was assisted by Armen Garo, a former member of the Ottoman Parliament,
commanded the second regiment and had set out to attack the town of lgdir. This army was
going to constitute later on the backbone of the forces that would invade Van. The third
and fourth regiments, under the command of Hamazaap and Keri respectively, were marching
westward in preparation to invade Kars. The Ottomans were worried in the face of
these developments. They were receiving intelligence to the effect that '… they want to
send armed Armenians to our side to extend the organization of bands in the Ottoman
lands.' Furthermore, the Office of the Governor of Erzurum wrote that the admiration felt
for the Russians 'is beginning to spread among those in our country as well.' It is
recorded in official Ottoman publications that even before the Ottomans entered the war,
British, French and even Italian Consuls, in addition to the Russians were helping the
revolutionary committees to communicate with the outside world and were assisting them
with money, arms, etc.: 'Heads and members of foreign missions served them as excellent
spies on our political and military situation.' The report goes on to say:
While Armenians in foreign countries were being armed
with the money of the Allies and with the help of the Consuls of these countries and were
rushing to the Caucasian and Iranian borders as vengeance regiments, and while Armenian
soldiers in the Ottoman army were deserting their units to join the enemy with their arms,
civilian Armenians began to arm and to start rebellions in every region in order to
utilize their national resources in hastening the victory of the Allies and in pulling
down the Ottoman Government which they believed could live only for a few more days.
As a matter of fact, rebellions broke out one after the
other. The first one took place in Zeytun, and it was followed by similar uprisings in
Kayseri, Bitlis, Erzurum, Mamuret-el-aziz, Diyarbakir, Sivas, Trabzon, Ankara, Van, Izmir,
Adapazari, Hudavendigar, Adana, Halep, Izmir and Canik."' Local rebellions continued
to break out (in Urfa, Karahisar, Findicik and Yozgat) even after the Ottoman Government
took the measures we will discuss below.
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Grand Duke
Nicholas Romanov |
It is obvious that these uprisings caused a lot of
suffering to the local Muslim people and left the Ottoman Government in a very difficult
situation. For example, because of the collaboration in Van in
May 1915 between the Armenian revolutionaries in the city, the regular Russian soldiers
who came from Russia, and the Armenian volunteers, the Turkish army vacated Van entirely.
The Russians took advantage of the uprisings in Eastern Anatolia and began to advance
towards Erzurum in 1915. However, Russia was planning to annex the invaded lands directly
to its territory instead of surrendering them to the Armenians. Russia's real intentions
became clear after Grand Duke Nicholas Romanov became the Governor of Caucasia. In the
early part of 1916, three thousand Armenian volunteers were forcibly discharged,
Antranik's unit was disbanded by force, and the remaining Armenian soldiers were rendered
ineffective in the Russian Caucasian Army. When the Duke assumed his new position, his
first action was to place a severe censorship over the Armenian press in Caucasia and to
bring it firmly under his control. As for Russia's policy concerning the Armenians, the
Duke had no intention of granting autonomy to them, and his intention was shared by
Petrograd. Russian authorities who were aware that Armenians did not constitute even a
quarter of the population even in the Caucasia believed that granting them autonomy would
be a transgression upon the rights of the majority. They also objected to granting
Armenians some privileges in the lands which came under their rule. Russians confessed
that the privileges which had been granted to Armenians when these lands were under
Ottoman rule had not solved the problem, but neither did they accept to make any reforms.
What is more, there was no Armenian Question according to the Duke! Consequently, there
could be no question of an Armenian protectorate under the aegis of Russia.' According to
Uras, the Russians intended to make Eastern Anatolia 'an Armenia without Armenians'; they
wanted to colonize this area with Russians and to establish a Kazakhstan there. The
leader of the Dashnaktsutiun, Khatchaznuni corroborated this evaluation by saying:
'Russians did not intend to liberate the Turkish Armenians at any cost, and they never had
any such goal ... We served them willingly, we were misled; in fact, we served their
goals.'
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The Armenians had applied to England (in addition to
Russia) at the beginning of the war. On 12 November 1914, Bogos Nubar Pasha
suggested collaboration to the British authorities in Cairo with the following
words: 'Armenians in Cilicia are ready to enlist as volunteers to support a landing
in Iskenderun, Mersin or Adana. Armenians in mountainous areas can also provide
valuable support; they will rebel against Turks if they are supplied with arms and
ammunition.' Further, the Russian Ambassador in London submitted to England a
request of the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs that 'England and France should
collaborate in sending to Iskenderun the arms and ammunition that Armenians can use
against Turks.' In its response, England was content to say 'If the Russian
Government is certain that Armenian revolutionaries can really be useful to the
Allies, it can also supply these arms to them by the Black Sea.' Similar subsequent
proposals were also rejected." There were two causes which determined England's
negative attitude. First, with the treaty that they had concluded, London had given
Cukurova and its vicinity to France; it was consequently careful about taking any
open action in this area in order not to make its ally suspicious. Second, England
had opened the Dardanelles front against the Ottomans and the strategy of splitting
Ottoman Anatolia into two with a campaign from Iskenderun had not yet won the full
approval of the Ministry of War.
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Boghos
Nubar in 1925 |
Contrary to official statements, England did not
refrain from secretly helping some Armenians. As early as 1905, it had approved the
establishment of the Armenian General Benevolent Union in Egypt under the leadership
of Bogos Nubar Pasha. This society held a
meeting in the summer of 1914 and decided to send six Dashnak revolutionaries who
were among its members to Adana to make preparations for a revolution. These
revolutionaries held meetings with churchgoers in Adana and promised that arms would
be supplied for them from Greece which was under British protection. Cyprus, which
was also under British protection, was another important place of asylum for
Armenian revolutionaries. The British had opened an Armenian school also in Cyprus,
and the intention was to send its graduates to Anatolia to Initiate a revolution. Furthermore,
according to Ottoman records, the Zeytun rebellion and then the disturbances which
broke out in Maras, Urfa and Adana had been created with British protection and
support. The admirals in the nearby British fleet were in regular communication
with Armenians in Adana, Dortyol, Yumurtalik and Iskenderun."' The British had
promised the revolutionaries to launch a landing as soon as the revolution would
start."' As a matter of fact, a detachment of 60 English soldiers came to the
Adana province on 23 January 1915, but it had to go back to the ships because it
encountered armed resistance. Even after the Fourth Army forced the Armenians in
this region to emigrate in the direction of Aleppo and Damascus, the British
established contact with them and used Lawrence of Arabia in an attempt to make them
rebel again.
As has been mentioned above, the French regarded the
Adana and Iskenderun region as their area of influence and felt suspicious about any
movement by the British directed at this region, even if indirectly, through
Armenians. In fact, the French themselves wanted to orient the Armenians. When the
Armenians in Cukurova went into armed conflict with the Ottoman army and were
defeated, they withdrew to Cebel-i Musa (the Musa Mountain) near the Syrian coast.
The French naval forces carried them from there to Port-Said. Applications were made
to England, Italy, Russia and Algeria to accept nearly five thousand Armenians had
to be trained and organized into regular military units before they could be used in
furthering the war goals of the Allies." After this, the manner in which the
Armenian revolutionaries were to be used, was negotiated between Georges Picot and
General Clayton. The establishment of an Armenian Legion in the French forces was
accepted in principle by both governments and Cyprus was being considered to be the
headquarters of this Legion. While these negotiations were still being held, the
commander of the British armed forces in Egypt had already sent to Salonica 'a group
of the Armenians who have been lounging in camps for twelve months so as to not
waste the funds used for feeding and sheltering them!' Finally, France approved on
15 November 1916 the project of establishing the Legion D'Orient and initiated the
necessary preparations. After this Legion, consisting of Armenian revolutionaries,
was put through a tough military training program in a camp 58 kilometers away from
Famagusta, it was sent to the Palestinian Front together with the Allied
forces under General Allenby's command in 1917, it fought in the Caucasus in 1918,
and it invaded Cukurova together with the French forces in 1919.
When the Russians began to withdraw from the
Caucasus Front following the 1917 Revolution, the Armenian Legion acquired more
importance in the eyes of the British. On the
one hand, it was thought that it was possible for the Ottomans to expand towards
Central Asia through the Caucasus, and, on the other, revolutionary movements had
appeared in the Turkish regions in the Russian Empire. These developments could
permit the realization of Pan-Turanism. This could not only lead to the Ottomans
taking over the oil fields in the Caucasus, but the awakening of Turks could also
serve as an inspiration to the other peoples of Asia and the British Commonwealth of
Nations could consequently be left face to face with several rebellions in the
colonies. England which wanted to stop the advance of the Turks because of these
worries thought of benefiting from the Armenians in doing so. On 24 November 1917,
Sir Mark Sykes underlined as follows the view of his government: 'Just as the Arabic
movement is a response to Turkish Islamism, the Armenian Question is in fact a
measure (of the British) against Turanism. England thus became the chief supporter
of the Armenian movement when the Russians withdrew from the stage. The British
war cabinet applied to Russia on the one hand to send Armenian soldiers to the
Caucasian Front, and, on the other hand, applied to the United States Government to
help send or the same area the Armenian volunteers from that country. In the
meantime, it was re-arming the Armenian volunteer regiments and using them to fight
against Turkish forces. It is interesting to note that England avoided making any
concrete promises to Armenians although it exploited them. Arsianian writes that
the British drew nearer to the Armenians towards the end of the First World War in
an effort to bring the fighting to a close in their favor. According to this author,
the British promises to Armenians were exactly like their promises to Arabs in
Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia; they were made with the purpose of encouraging the
war efforts of the Armenians, to influence neutral states in favor of England, and
to excite the separatist tendencies in ethnic minorities under the rule of these
neutral states so as to make their enemy, the Ottoman Empire, collapse from the
inside.
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A detailed evaluation of the Armenian Question will
be presented in the conclusion of this study. However, it would be useful to present
at this point some of our tentative conclusions. It becomes clear in the light of
the documents discussed above, that in fact the Armenian Question was not a struggle
for self-determination impelled by the need for independence. In reality, it was a
dimension of the 'Eastern Question' which will be defined below as a synthesis of
the bundle of projects the Great Powers had developed with the purpose of making the
Ottoman Empire collapse and disintegrate, by using minorities and separatist
movements, and then partitioning it among themselves. This view should not be
understood to mean that the Armenian movement was entirely devoid of internal
dynamism, or, to put it in another way, that Armenian national' ism - no matter how
empty the elements it was based on may have been -was supported only by certain
Armenian circles. What I want to emphasize at this point is that international
factors were more influential than nationalistic motives in the Armenian
'awakening.' Furthermore, it has become clear that this movement was shaped so as to
serve the imperialist interests of the Great Powers and was oriented by these Powers
against the Ottomans. As is known, most civil wars have broken out when internal
causes and external incitements converged. Deutsch proposes as follows to
differentiate between a 'real revolution' and 'war by proxy': 'If ... there is a
clear quantitative preponderance of domestic motivations, recruitment, and
resources, we may speak of an authentic internal war or revolution. If outside
manpower, motives, money and other resources appear to constitute the main
capabilities committed to the struggle on both sides, then we are inclined to speak
of a 'war by proxy' - an international conflict between two foreign powers…' As
has been discussed above, foreign incitements and interferences were more important
than internal factors in the activities of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. On
account of this, the Armenian Question emerges during peace as the Great Powers used
to interfere with the Ottoman State in a factor which order to weaken it and to
bring it under Western influence. On the other hand, it emerges during war as a
dimension of the goals of the Allies to use Armenians by proxy to make the Ottoman
Empire collapse internally. How serious Armenians were in their demand for
independence will be analyzed in the next chapter. However, in the form presented by
the Great Powers, the Armenian Question was not a promise of 'liberty'; it was based
upon the goals of the Allies to annex some of the Ottoman lands. The activities of
the Armenian revolutionaries in the Ottoman Empire should be evaluated within this
general framework.
What is more, the activities of the Armenian
revolutionaries seem to have been efforts aimed at eradicating a race (the Turks) or
aimed at carrying out a one-sided feud, instead of being a struggle for liberation.
From the outset, the efforts of the Armenian revolutionaries within the Ottoman
borders took the form of terrorist and destructive actions aimed at mass murder,
cruelty and genocide, so that no other interpretation of them is possible.
Armenian activities started during the reign of Abdulhamid II as individual acts of
terror, and then developed into assassinations and surprise attacks. The element of
brute force in these activities increased steadily, culminating in mass rebellions
and widespread fighting during the First World War. Furthermore, when the Ottoman
army withdrew from Eastern Anatolia after the 1915 Sarikamis defeat, Armenian
revolutionaries initiated a series of cruelties in this area. Although the Russians
occupied Eastern Anatolia as an enemy, nevertheless they were constrained by the
rules of war. However, when they returned to their country in 1917 after the
Revolution, Armenian revolutionaries were unchecked in this area for about a year
until the Ottoman forces returned to Erzurum in 1918. During this period,
Armenian revolutionaries executed massacres on the local people which is recorded in
historical documents. For example, let us look at a report dated 21 March 1918
which the Commander of the Third Army submitted when he entered Erzurum and
Erzincan: 'They were completely and systematically destroyed and burned down by
Armenians, even the trees were cut down, and they are like a building entirely
consumed by fire in every sense of the word.' As for the people who had been living
in Erzurum and Erzincan:
Those who were capable of fighting were taken away
at the very beginning with the excuse of forced labor in road construction, they
were taken in the direction of Sarikamis and annihilated. When the Russian army
withdrew, a part of the remaining people was destroyed in Armenian massacres and
cruelties: they were thrown into wells, they were locked in houses and burned down,
they were killed with bayonets and swords, in places selected as butchering spots,
their bellies were torn open, their lungs were pulled out, and girls and women were
hanged by their hair after being subjected to every conceivable abominable act. A
very small part of the people who were spared these abominations far worse than the
cruelty of the inquisition resembled living dead and were suffering from temporary
insanity because of the dire poverty they had lived in and because of the frightful
experiences they had been subjected to. Including women and children, such persons
discovered so far do not exceed one thousand five hundred in Erzincan and thirty
thousand in Erzurum. All the fields in Erzincan and Erzurum are untitled, everything
that the people had has been taken away from them, and we found them in a destitute
situation. At the present time, the people are subsisting on some food they
obtained, impelled by starvation, from Russian storages left behind after their
occupation of this area.
Foreign observers who witnessed the events, including
Russian Officers who did not desert their lines, submitted detailed reports proving
the genocide to Ottoman commanders who received them as prisoners of war. What is
most important is that they stated in their reports 'the massacres did not happen by
chance but were planned.' At the end of the war, the German author Dr. Weiss, his
Austrian colleague Dr. Stein and his Turkish colleague Mr. Ahmet Vefik visited
Trabzon, Kars, Erzurum and Batum between April 17th and May 20th 1918 to record the
cruelties. Their writings not only show the scope of Armenian activities, but also
reveal their goal and true nature.
(Holdwater: excerpts from the Turkish writer mentioned in the above paragraph
may be found near the bottom of the Armin
Wegner page; the spelling of the name here is Ahmet Refik. What I would
love to read are the writings of the two others.)
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| Conclusion |
On the Tools of Foreign Politics
( . . . . )
The Truth About the Armenian Events that Occurred in the
Ottoman Empire and in the Republic of Turkey
The Armenian revolutionary committees realized that the
Armenian Question was buried in history with the Eastern Military Campaign and the
Lausanne Peace Negotiations. Consequently, they henceforth carried on their struggle with
assassinations of a political nature. As early as 1919, when the 'Second Congress of
Western Armenians,' blessed and opened by Catholicos George 5th, convened in Yerevan
between the February 6 and 13, the People's Tribunal which was established condemned to
death in absentia, the officials of Constitutional Turkey, Talat Pasha, Cemal Pasha and
Said Halim Pasha, as well as other officials such as Dr. Nazim, Bahattin Sakir, and Cemal
Azmi Bey. Teams of assassins were formed and were given the duty of assassinating these
individuals wherever they were to be found. On 15 June 1921, the Turkish intelligence
service learned that an Armenian revolutionary committee with its headquarters in
Switzerland and branches in Paris and Istanbul was established with the purpose of
assassinating Turkish leaders. In the terrorists' list of leaders to be assassinated were
those individuals whose deaths had been decided at the Armenian Congress, those leaders of
the Committee of Union and Progress, and some administrative and military officials,
including Mustafa Kemal Pasha.
As far as we know, Armenian revolutionaries twice dared to
plot against Ataturk's life after the Turkish Republic was established. In the first
attempt, Manok Manokian, a member of the Armenian revolutionary committee in Greece, set
out in April 1925 from Salonica to go to Istanbul. His two coconspirators followed the
Iskenderun and Adana route and were supposed to meet him in Ankara. However, the Turkish
security forces caught Manokian on time and he was executed on 5 May 1925. Two years
later, terrorist Mercan Altunian and half a dozen co-conspirators were surrounded by the
Turkish security forces on September 14th at the Yildiz Nightclub before they could reach
Ataturk in Dolmabahce. In the fighting that broke out, two of the terrorists were killed,
and two policemen also lost their lives. According to the British Ambassador in Turkey at
that time, Moscow which was getting more and more concerned about the fact that Turkey was
establishing closer ties with the West had organized this plot behind the screen.
In reality, the Turkish authorities had been receiving for
some time intelligence reports from various sources that Armenians were preparing to carry
out terrorist attacks. A piece of news received from Beirut on 31 January 1920 stated that
the Armenian revolutionaries had opened an orphanage in that city where they were bringing
up young children with the idea of vengeance against Turks and that they were being
conditioned to attempt to take back Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia in the future. The
period between 1923 and 1974 was thus the incubation period for the Armenian terrorist
actions during which intense propaganda was used to bring up Armenian youths with a hatred
for the Turkish people. In the meantime, the 1920's also witnessed successful and
unsuccessful attempts of political terrorism. What is striking is that although Armenians
seemed to be behind these plots against Turkish statesmen, some of the Great Powers
incited, encouraged and supported these actions.
Let us now dwell upon the killing of Talat Pasha because it
was the first act of this kind. Following the occupation of Istanbul by the Allied Powers,
the British exerted pressure on the Sublime Porte and brought to trial the Turkish leaders
who had held positions of responsibility between 1914 and 1918, for having committed,
among other charges, an 'Armenian Massacre', the ones who were caught were put under
arrest at the Bekiraga division and subsequently exiled to Malta. The Pashas who had held
the highest positions in the administration and whose names were at the top of the
execution lists of the Armenian assassination teams could be condemned in absentia because
they had gone abroad. However, the British were determined not to leave them alone. The
British had intelligence reports indicating that they had gone to Germany, and the British
High Commissioner pressured Damad Ferit Pasha and the Sublime Porte to demand from Germany
to return to Turkey Talat Pasha, Enver Pasha, Cemil Pasha, Said Halim Pasha, Dr. Nazim,
Bahattin Sakir and Cemal Azmi. As a result of efforts pursued personally by (Sir) Andrew
Ryan, a former Dragoman and now a member of the British intelligence service, Germany
responded to Turkey stating that it was willing to be helpful if official papers could be
produced showing these persons had been found guilty, and added that the presence of these
persons in Germany could not as yet be ascertained.
England was not pleased with this response, and embarked
upon hunting down the Unionists with its own methods. The British intelligence services
finally identified Talat Pasha in Stockholm where he had gone for a few days. The British
intelligence first planned to apprehend him in Berlin where he was planning to return, but
then changed its mind because it feared the complications this would create in Germany.
Another view in the British intelligence was that Talat Pasha should be apprehended by the
British navy in the sea while returning from Scandinavia by ship. At the end, it was
decided to let him return to Berlin, find out what this famous Unionists was trying to
accomplish with his activities abroad, and to establish direct contact with him before
giving the final verdict. Nine days before Talat Pasha's assassination, Aubrev Herbert, a
British intelligence agent had a short meeting with him in a park in a small German town.
This meeting corroborated earlier intelligence to the effect that Talat Pasha was seeking
support from Muslim countries to help Mustafa Kemal's movement, that he was organizing
abroad a serious opposition movement against the Allied Powers, and that he was soon
intending to take refuge in Ankara. What is more, Talat Pasha also dared to make the
threat that he was going to incite the Pan-Turanist and Pan-Islamist movements against
England, unless she signed a peace treaty favorable for Turkey. This courageous action of
Talat Pasha made the British very anxious. Their intelligence service established contact
with its counterpart in the Soviet Union to evaluate the situation. Talat Pasha's plans
made the Russian officials as anxious as the British. The two intelligence services
collaborated and signed among them the 'death warrant of Talat Pasha. Information
concerning his physical description and his whereabouts was forwarded to their men in
Germany. However, it was decided that Armenian revolutionaries carry out the verdict. As a
matter of fact, Talat Pasha was assassinated with a single bullet on 5 March 1921 as he
came out of his house in Hardenbergstrasse, Charlottenburg, Berlin, by an Armenian
revolutionary from Erzurum named Soghomon Tehlirian. Seven weeks later, the event was
distorted in court, and the trial was transformed into a forum for accusing the Turks on
account of the Armenian Question. At the conclusion of the trial, the Turks were
pronounced guilty because of the false telegrams attributed to Talat Pasha and the false
witnesses who testified. Because of the opinion initiated at this trial, where the
Turkish side was not represented, the Armenian assassinations which have continued until
our day, have been enjoying a political atmosphere which has helped to justify the crimes
and to let the murderers go free. As a matter of fact, Said Halim Pasha was killed in
Rome on 6 December 1921, Bahattin Sakir in Berlin on 17 April 1922, and Cemal Pasha in
Tiflis on 21 July 1922, in assassinations similar to Talat Pasha's; and the same chain of
murders has been directed at the Turkish diplomats since 1973.
When these attacks against her representatives broke out,
Turkey failed to grasp immediately the meaning, goals and nature of this Armenian
phenomenon and consequently remained silent for several years. Finally, the argument that
the Armenian Question may be connected with inter-state terrorism began to be propounded
in recent years. It thus follows that Turkey is faced with a band of Armenians which
have been brought to the point of being capable of all kinds of destructive actions by the
use of one-sided propaganda, which identifies its Armenianism with enmity for the Turks,
and whose actions enjoy the approval of large masses of Armenians. These militant
groups are not the supporters of any one political ideology either. It is because of this,
that the task of explaining the nature of the Armenian Question in history falls to the
lot of Turkish intellectuals. The essential point that must be clarified by taking into
account historical realities, is that the Armenian Question was never a national struggle
for independence based on a promise for such independence. As has been demonstrated in the
previous chapters, the Armenian events were not an expression of the nationalism of a
group, of or its struggle for self-determination; they constituted a direct war controlled
by the Great Powers and aimed at making the Ottoman Empire collapse from within. Knowing
clearly the truth behind isolated acts of terrorism without getting muddled by any
theoretical considerations would be useful even today. Secondly, it must be admitted that
various states may be behind the Armenian events that occurred in the past and happening
today, and that these states are supporting the militant Armenians as well. Both the
consideration of some historical truths and the theories of 'Psychological War' that we
referred to in the chapter on 'Theoretical Approach' have made it clear that states do
employ, in addition to the classical methods available, strategies which are combinations
of propaganda and destructive activities to further their interests in foreign politics.
The geo-strategic situation of Turkey and her economic potential have always attracted the
interest of many states, friendly and hostile alike. Furthermore, history is full of
examples of states which attempted to solve their internal problems by exporting them to
other states, or which attempted to divert the attention of their public opinions from
problems inside the country to abroad. Whatever the reason might be, states which want to
control Turkey's foreign policy or which think that the implementation of certain policies
by Ankara conflicts with their own goals will always attempt to keep alive problems such
as the Armenian Question which have become part of history in order to leave the Turkish
Governments in a difficult situation in world politics and to also take advantage of such
matters to obtain what they want from Turkey. History has demonstrated that no element was
ever exploited in such a planned, programmed and conscious manner as the Armenians. It
thus follows that we have to take into account the foreign policies of states aimed at
Turkey and consider the Armenian Question from the viewpoint of the inter-state political
system in order to be able to make some sense of it. Unless this is done, it is impossible
to explain why the Armenian file was opened in the past or today.
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