The Ottoman government oppressed the
Armenian people, subjects of the Ottoman Empire, since the 1400s. When Sultan
Abdul Hamid II (1876-1909) began his reign in 1876 and the empire began its
decline, the repression of Armenians increased. The Committee of Union and
Progress seized control of the Ottoman government and reduced the power of the
sultan following the Young Turk Revolution in July 1908. The Committee of Union
and Progress adopted tactics used by Sultan Hamid II to solve the Armenian
Question. They entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers, on
October 28, 1914, with the intention of providing a guise for their plans to
suppress the Armenians. After their entrance into the war, they implemented a
series of plans that increased with severity during the war, until over a
million Armenians had been massacred and the culture all but destroyed. The
Committee of Union and Progress borrowed tactics from the sultanate’s
persecution of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and eliminated the Armenian
people during World War I to solve the Armenian Question.
The question asked by the Ottoman government, which
pertains to what they should do with the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, is
referred to as the Armenian Question. Peter Balakian in The Burning Tigris pointed out that
originally plans to introduce reforms into the government would help bring
freedoms to the repressed Armenians.[1] The Armenian Question
evolved under Sultan Abdul Hamid II’s reign into a policy of dealing with a
burdensome people. With the rise of the Young Turks, also known as the
Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), plans began to form on how to solve the
Armenian Question and eliminate the Armenians altogether. When the CUP entered
World War I (WWI), plans for harsher persecution and massacre were set into
motion.
A
lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, after he fled Poland during World War II and studied
the persecution of Jews, created the term genocide. Lemkin explained that the
term genocide meant a planned effort to destroy a group of people, which is
accompanied by mass murder.[2] The term, genocide, was
originally applied to the Nazi persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, but
has since been applied to other similar acts which were intended to annihilate
an entire people. The first instance of the twentieth century that the term
genocide is applied, is referred to as the Armenian Genocide. The Armenian
Genocide was the premeditated elimination of the Armenian people from the
Ottoman Empire during WWI.
Armenian
History
The oppression of the Armenians began long before the
genocide took place. The key to understanding how
such events occurred is by researching the history of the Armenian people.
The Armenians were an ancient people that inhabited the eastern mountainous
area of Asia Minor. Ronald G. Suny noted in his book ‘They
Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else’ that the Armenians are one of few
peoples that can trace their history through a collection of documents written
in their own language.[3] That history provides an insight
into these ancient people and the challenges they faced as a nation.
In
301 A.D., the Armenians were the first nation to make Christianity their
religion after the death of Jesus. The Armenians
became Christians and embraced it as an entire nation. Guenter Lewy in his book
The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman reported that the
Armenian Church, also known as the Gregorian Church, developed after the
adoption of the religion and helped to unite the people when faced with
persecution.[4] The Armenians’ history
was full of trials and tribulations as both a religious and ethnic group.
The Armenians were conquered and divided by other groups
throughout history. Ronald G. Suny added that they were oppressed by the
Persians in the 400s and invaded by the Arabs in the 700s, until they once
again claimed independence.[5] In the 1400s, they were conquered
by the Ottoman Turks, while a portion of the Armenian people remained ruled by
the Persians. Occasionally, portions of the Armenians became subjected to new
rulers when changes occurred after territorial conflict.
Over several centuries the Armenian people remained
subjects to the Ottoman Empire. Under Ottoman rule, the oppression of Armenians
started in the mid-1400s. The sultan oppressed them, because of their
inferior status. Suny stated that the sultan had the right to create a society
that allowed and promoted class differences based on religious and ethnic
affiliation.[6]
The Armenian Christians, were non-Muslim subjects of the empire and were
therefore oppressed for being of a different religious and ethnic group.
In the early 1400s, the Ottoman Sultan initiated the millet system, which farther promoted
the differences in class. The millet system
divided the empire by religious affiliations and gave them autonomy to a
certain extent. Suny pointed out that the Armenians became ruled by their own
court of laws and religious leaders, which answered to the Turkish government.[7]
The different ethnic and religious groups maintained their own traditions
within the millet system; they
attended their respective religious functions, and learned to speak and read in
their own languages. The millet system,
however, did not help to provide unity between the different ethnic groups and
indicated the inferiority of the Armenians to the Turks and other Muslim groups.
The Armenians, as second-class citizens under the millet system, were prevented from
obtaining equal rights to that of the Ottoman Turks. United States
Ambassador Henry Morgenthau wrote in Ambassador
Morgenthau’s Story that, “the sultans similarly erected the several
peoples, such as the Greeks and the Armenians, into separate ‘millets,’ [sic] or nations, not because
they desired to promote their independence and welfare, but because they
regarded them as vermin, and therefore disqualified for membership in the
Ottoman state.”[8] The Armenians were looked down on and treated worse
than animals. Lewy confirmed that they were referred to as gavur, or unbelievers, because of their affiliation with
Christianity.[9]
The way that the Turks viewed the Armenians was shared by other non-Turkish
Muslim citizens, such as the Kurds.
Neighboring Kurdish Muslim tribes, also living in the empire,
subjected the Armenians to similar oppression and violence. Suny suggested
that the nomadic Kurdish tribes forced themselves into Armenian villages, by
taking over their homes and stables when they returned to for the winter
season.[10]
During feuds between rival Turkish tribes often murdered Armenians in
retaliation. The Kurds would kill the Christians peasants that lived under
their enemy tribe.[11]
Kurd chieftains also attacked Armenian villages, enslaved the people, and
kidnapped their women.[12]
The Ottoman government and the Kurdish tribesmen taxed the
Armenians, which allowed them to maintain their religious and cultural
freedoms. Suny
claimed that they were forced to pay a cizye,
or poll tax, because they were not providing the obligatory alms that Muslims
were required to give as part of their faith.[13] The
Ottoman government continued to increase the tax rates on Armenians, while the
Turks remained unaffected. The Armenians’ financial obligations tore them in
different directions.
The Kurds acted as a feudal ruler to their Armenian
neighbors and demanded tribute from their underlings. When the Kurds did
not receive their payment, they would often take it out on the Armenians. Lewy
acknowledged that the Kurds would retaliate against the Armenians by killing
them and taking things that they desired as retribution.[14] The Armenians struggled
to meet the demands of both the Ottoman government collectors and the Kurdish
overlords, but managed to survive nonetheless.
Relations
Between Sultan Abdul Hamid II and His Subjects
Sultan Abdul Hamid II became ruler in 1876 after his
brother Murad V resigned as sultan. Lewy asserted that Hamid began his
reign during a period of reforms, when Armenians and other minority groups
attempted to gain equal rights as citizens.[15] Hamid did not sympathize
with the plight of the minorities, or seek to modernize the empire like many of
his fellow Turks. Hamid took measures to regain power as an aristocratic ruler
and in 1878 he suspended the constitution, only two years after it had been
enacted.
Revolutionary parties began to form in response to Hamid’s
repressive rule. In the 1880s, the Armenian nationalists formed parties
that held ideals of equality among citizens and liberation from the Ottoman
government. Peter Balakian in his book The
Burning Tigris believed that the government saw the forming of
these Armenian revolutionary groups as a threat to the empire.[16]
Hamid was paranoid by the perceived threat and became suspicious of everyone.
Two of the predominate
Armenian revolutionary parties that formed were the Hunchaks and Dashnaks.
Dashnak is short for Dashnaktsutyun;
they are also sometimes referred to as the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, and
advocated for Armenian rights and freedom.[17] Hunchak is
short for the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party. The Hunchaks were more active
than the Dashnaks and often participated in the resistances to the
Ottoman military on several occasions.[18] These parties were
involved in a series of attacks on Ottoman buildings and assassination attempts
with the goal of gaining European attention to their desperate situation in the
empire.
Hamid feared for his life and his reign and warned the
revolutionary groups that there would be consequences for their actions. According to The Armenian ‘Genocide’?: Facts & Figures, Hamid sent military forces to put an
end to revolutionary activities.[19] These
military forces, that became known as Hamidians, were made up of Kurdish
tribes.[20] The
Hamidians were sent out on several occasions to stop Armenian revolts, but the
destruction that occurred in their wake was devastating for the Armenians.
Between 1894 and 1897, the Muslim citizens under Hamid’s
leadership massacred Armenians. The first large-scale massacre took place
in the village of Sasun in 1894, after Armenians refused to pay tribute to
their Kurdish overlords.[21] Lewy implied that after
Hamidian forces were sent to deal with the situation and some fighting
occurred, the Armenians surrendered.[22] Despite the surrender,
the Turks attacked and murdered Armenian men, women, and children.
Members of the Hunchak party planned a peaceful protest in
Constantinople during September 30, 1895, which developed into a violent
assault. After a shot was fired, from an undetermined location, a Turkish
mob began to attack the Armenians.[23] Then, the Armenians were
attacked, throughout October 1895, in Trebizond, Bitlis, and Erzurum. [24] On
August 26, 1896, Armenians took over the Ottoman Bank located in
Constantinople, but were unaware of the Muslim mobs waiting to attack. Lewy
argued that the mobs had known about the Armenian plans, because they were
armed and gathered as the event at the bank unfolded.[25] They attacked Armenians,
their homes and businesses. Somewhere between 20,000 and 300,000 people died
during these massacres.[26]
Young
Turks/CUP and Armenian Affairs
The Dashnak and Hunchak parties grew
in response to the increased threat by the Ottoman government, but a new
Turkish organization known as the Young Turks began to rise as well. The
Young Turks grew within the Ottoman Empire and among exiled Turks residing in
foreign countries. Henry Morgenthau admitted that the Young Turks were seeking
to reform the empire.[27] The Young Turks’ ideals
of reformation would become reality, but Sultan Hamid was standing in their
way.
The Young Turks and Armenian revolutionary parties joined
together to work toward reforming the Ottoman Empire and overthrow the sultan. Their
common goal united the two groups and plans for revolution began. Suny reasoned
that the Young Turks were willing to work with the Armenians if they remained
loyal subjects of the empire.[28]
The Armenians hoped that with the rise of a new ruling party reforms would
occur, and they would gain equality as Ottoman citizens.
On July 24, 1908, the Young Turks arranged a coup d’état on the Ottoman government. They managed to reduce Hamid’s aristocratic
power and gain control of the Ottoman government. In addition, they
reinstated the 1876 constitution that had been suspended by Hamid, which became
known as the Second Constitutional Era. Henry Morgenthau observed that, “for
the Young Turks were not a government; they were really an irresponsible party,
a kind of secret society, which, by intrigue, intimidation, and assassination,
had obtained most of the offices of state.”[29] The newly granted
freedoms for the Armenians only lasted a short time.
Through structural changes within the party and
radicalization of their ideals, the Young Turk movement evolved into what was
known as the CUP. The CUP was formed with a different purpose aimed at securing
the future for the empire. Lewy noted that the CUP was divided on what should
be done regarding the Armenian Question.[30] The CUP was faced with
opposition to their power over the Ottoman government before the question was
answered.
The CUP struggled to maintain control over the government.
Many Turks that were loyal to the sultan and others that feared the
modernization of the empire, attempted a countercoup. Bedross Der Matossian
wrote in From Bloodless Revolution to
Bloody Counterrevolution
that Muslim religious leaders led the opposition.[31]
Nationalists attacked the Armenian people in response to the CUP’s
control of the government.
Turkish civilians were angered when the constitution was
reestablished and equal rights were granted to the Armenians. On April 14,
1909, in the city of Adana the first attacks on Armenians took place. Bedross
Der Matossian asserted that Muslims looted and burned Armenian homes and
businesses.[32]
On April 25, 1909, Muslims attacked the Armenians in Adana again, and Armenian
survivors from the first attack, that had been sheltered in churches and
schools, were targeted.[33] Muslims attacked the Armenians for
two more days and ended their assault on April 27, 1909. Approximately 20,000
Armenians had been massacred between the two attacks on the Adana Armenian
Quarter.[34]
The CUP was
able to reestablish itself with a firm grasp on the Ottoman government
following the countercoup and the Adana Massacres. Hamid stepped down as
sultan and his brother, Mehmed V, became the ineffectual stand-in.[35] The CUP rushed to make reparations
following the massacres, but they soon turned their attention back to the
Armenian Question. By the summer 1909, the CUP began to put measures into place
to regulate the activities of the Armenian population.
In August 1909, the Law of Associations was put into
effect. This law was created to ban ethnic groups from meeting. The Law of
Associations did not state which ethnic groups were no longer allowed to meet,
but their primary target was the Armenians. Yusuf Sarinay pointed out in What Happened on April 24, 1915? that it was an attempt
by the Ottoman government to shut down the Armenian revolutionary parties.[36]
The Armenian revolutionary parties continued to meet underground despite the
law.
The Law for the Prevention of Brigandage and Sedition was
created in September 1909. Peter Balakian implied that the law made it
possible for the CUP to form new military groups.[37] In turn, this allowed the
Ottoman government to forcefully stop any suspected revolutionary activities.
This also gave the Turks the means to justify their attacks on the Armenian
groups that were deemed a potential threat.
The Ottoman Empire entered two wars between 1912 and 1913 called
the Balkan Wars, in the hopes of regaining lost territory. On August 10, 1913, the Ottoman
government signed the Treaty of Bucharest ending the Second Balkan War. The
problem with that, however, was that instead of regaining lost territory they
lost even more. Lewy confirmed that they lost over thirty-two percent of their
territory.[38]
Their embarrassment over the territorial loss resulted in increased hatred
toward the western Christian nations, which in turn added to their growing
desire to solve the Armenian Question.
When moderate CUP officials seized
control from within, the former Turkish revolutionary group that had been focused
on modernizing the empire ceased to exist. Verdict
(‘Kararname’) of the Turkish Military Tribunal acknowledged that:
A
segment of those who were thought to be working for the national weal
surrendered
themselves to their own personal aspirations, and they followed an entirely wrong
path...They practiced selfishness and thoughtlessly misled the government, outwardly
pretending to be abiding by the law, but actually, through deception…took over their
local provincial administration and finally subordinated the Ministers' Council.[39]
themselves to their own personal aspirations, and they followed an entirely wrong
path...They practiced selfishness and thoughtlessly misled the government, outwardly
pretending to be abiding by the law, but actually, through deception…took over their
local provincial administration and finally subordinated the Ministers' Council.[39]
With the Three Pashas, Talaat
Pasha, Enver Pasha, and Cemal Pasha, in control of the Council of Ministers the
empire continued its decline. The Balkan Wars increased
tensions between European countries, particularly between Russia and the empire,
which grew the CUP’s suspicion for the Ottoman Armenians. The
outlook of the Turks toward Armenians within the empire had become hostile.[40] Thus,
the Three Pashas sought to find a final solution to the Armenian Question.
The CUP Planned to Solve the Armenian
Question
There were three main reasons why the
Turks were weary of the Armenians: they were jealous of their wealth and
education, feared their potential alliance with Russia, and hated them for the
European interference. Raymond Kevorkian in The Armenian Genocide reported that the Turks began to
view the Armenians as a problematic for the empire.[41] The Turks
and other Muslim minorities did not understand how those that they considered
dogs rose to become so influential. The Armenian people continued to progress
despite the oppression.
During the late 1800s, Armenians modeled themselves after
Western civilization. The Armenians began to develop successful business
habits and their business boomed with the help of industrialization. The
article The Assassination of a Race
asserted that, “in education, enterprise, industry and love of home they [the
Armenians] surpass all the other races.”[42]
They sent their children to foreign schools, which provided them with a higher
education. They developed successful trading relationships with foreign
businesses, which improved the economic situation within the empire.[43]
The Turks feared that the success of the Armenians would lead
them to want more power. Though
the Armenian population was a minority in the empire, they were the majority
population in some vilayets, or
provinces, and cities. Adam Jones author of Genocide admitted that, “they
are an ancient people who, by the late nineteenth century, consisted of the
largest non-Muslim population in eastern Anatolia.”[44]
Estimates of the population range as high as two million prior to the
commencement of the genocide.[45]
Russia was the Ottoman Turks long term enemy and a
continuous problem for the empire. The Ottoman government’s distaste for
Russia grew deeper with the territorial losses to Russia following the Balkan
Wars.[46]
In addition to the territorial loss, many Ottoman Armenians became subjects of
the Russian Tsar. This made the Ottoman government question the loyalties of
the Armenians still under Ottoman rule. Some Armenians hoped that Russia would
also rescue them from the oppressive Ottoman government.[47]
Many Armenians, however, had no desire to leave their homes for Russia, or rise
against the Ottoman Empire.[48]
For decades a friendship had existed between the Ottoman
Empire and several Western nations, including: Britain, France, and the United
States. That friendship allowed these nations to establish Christian
churches, missions, and schools within the empire. Western interest in the
welfare of the Armenians increased throughout the 1800s, especially after
reports of massacres began to fill their newspapers. The Turks became
suspicious as the friendship between Armenians and Western nations grew. They
feared that the foreign countries would continue to intervene in the empire’s
affairs.[49]
Therefore, the CUP began to blame the Armenians for the interference by the
Christians.
Fear of an Armenian revolution and the interference of Russia
and other Western nations caused a new form of nationalism to spread amongst
the Ottoman Turks. The
CUP sought to Turkify the empire as their hatred toward Christians increased.
They desired to unite the Muslim citizens with a common Turkish culture, which
came under various names and severities of action based on different ideals.
Suny suggested that the CUP wanted to stabilize and strengthen the empire after
its continuous decline, while also decreasing the Christian threat.[50]
The term that was applied to their ideal was Turkification.
The CUP began initiating plans to Turkify the empire by
first expelling non-Muslim groups from the territory in exchange for Muslim
refugees following the Balkan Wars. Taner Akçam in The Ottoman Documents and the Genocidal Policies of the Committee of
Union and Progress (İttihat ve Terakki) toward the
Armenians in 1915
claimed that the CUP formed agreements with a Greece and Bulgaria to exchange
Ottoman non-Muslims for the foreign Muslims.[51] They
focused on removing the Greek population from the western portion of the
territory and brought non-Turkish Muslims into empire. Their next priority was
to decide on how to solve the Armenian Question.
After many
discussions on how to resolve the Armenian Question, the CUP settled on plans
to deport the Armenians into less inhabited areas farther southeast in the empire.
Their ultimate solution was, however, much more devastating for the
Armenian population. Morgenthau declared that, “the old
conquering Turks had made the Christians their servants, but their parvenu
descendants bettered their instructions, for they determined to exterminate
them wholesale and Turkify the empire by massacring the non-Moslem elements.”[52]
Next, the CUP decided to figure out who would implement their plans.
Within the Central Committee of the CUP was a secret
organization called the Special Organization (SO). The SO had existed prior
to the plans for deportation, but operated without a purpose, until 1913 when
they were given a new task. Hannibal Travis described the SO as consisting of
criminals, Kurdish tribes, and police officers grouped together to create
special military forces.[53]
The secret military forces were often referred to as brigands, chettes,
gendarmes, and irregular forces by various sources and were like the Hamidian
forces used by Hamid. The SO had a new goal at hand, orders had been given to
carry out the deportations and later massacre the Armenian people.[54]
The CUP decided next when the deportations and annihilation of the Armenians
would take place.
A Resolution to the Armenian Question
During World War I
The CUP needed a way to carry out their plans to solve the
Armenian Question without interference and war was their answer. Tension
grew among the European nations and war was on everyone’s lips. The Ottoman
Empire had already put measures into place in preparation for war and the
realization of their plans. Morgenthau acknowledge that, “by January 1914,
seven months before the Great War began, Germany held its [sic] position in the
Turkish army.”[55]
Germans held a variety of high commanding military positions[56]
and even trained the Turkish soldiers.
On June 28, 1914, the final piece that the CUP needed to
initiate the deportation and elimination of the Armenians was provided when the
Austrian Archduke, Francis Ferdinand, was assassinated. Negotiations
between countries began as they sought alliances prior to the start of WWI.
Suny indicated that the war allowed the CUP to implement their plans of
deportation and massacre, while the European nations were preoccupied
elsewhere.[57]
Therefore, the Ottoman Empire joined Austria-Hungary and Germany to form the
Central Powers and entered the war on October 28, 1914.
The CUP began implementing their first measures while the
European nations were distracted. Communication methods were eliminated within
and outside the empire. The CUP closed the foreign postal service in
October 1914, which was an attempt to prevent news of the Armenian persecution
from reaching the European nations.[58]
Telegraph lines were also monitored by the CUP officials. According to Document
NO: 1901 (97), “Armenians have been reportedly
carrying on external communications in transit, and also passing out information
under coded words and sentences of which the meanings are known only to
themselves, this being a very useful way of communicating on their part.”[59]
Communication between Armenians meant that they informed one another of what
measures the government was implementing throughout the empire.
In August 1914, the Ottoman government called for the
conscription of Ottoman men between the ages of twenty to forty-five. Kévorkian
stated that the Ottoman government no longer allowed the Armenian men to pay an
exemption tax to opt out of military conscription.[60] Their service in the
military, however, did not last long and within a few years their situation
became perilous. The CUP then turned its attention to the remaining Armenians
since the men of fighting age were out of the way.
Measures were put into place to search and seize Armenian
property. First, the CUP sent law enforcement personnel to search and
confiscate any weapons found in the possession of Armenians.[61]
Then, the CUP began requisitioning Armenian property in the name of war.
Morgenthau explained that, “the Turks took all the horses, mules, camels,
sheep, cows, and other beasts that they could lay their hands on; Enver told me
that they had gathered in 150,000 animals.”[62] The
Armenians’ goods had been confiscated from businesses, which meant they were
unable to provide an income for their families. Their livestock and food stocks
had been taken and they began to starve.
The CUP created the Abandoned Property and Liquidation
Commissions in May 1915, to help monitor the abandoned property after the
deportations began. The Turks had promised that the Armenians would receive
their property after they were resettled, but the government had no intention
of following through with that promise. Taner Akçam in Deportation and Massacres in the
Cipher Telegrams of the Interior Ministry in the Prime Ministerial Archive noted that the Armenian
real estate and goods were given to the Muslim refugees that began to settle
across the empire.[63]
The CUP had initiated weapon searches, requisitioning, and distribution of
Armenian goods illegally, until the Abandoned Property Law went into effect on
September 26, 1915. The law forgave the illegal confiscation of Armenian
property and legally allowed it in the future.[64]
At the beginning of WWI, the Ottoman government began surveilling
Armenians across the empire.[65] The surveillance was carried out to
keep tabs on potential revolts against the empire.[66]
Lewy asserted that as of September 1914, orders were sent to local officials to
instruct them to compile lists of revolutionary members and stop any potential
threat.[67]
The lists were later used to perform mass arrests throughout the empire.
Between November 13 and 14, 1915, the Ottoman government,
Sultan Mehmed V, and the Sheikh-ul-Islam proclaimed jihad, or a holy war, against Christians.[68]
While the proclamation was directed toward the Western nations it also provided
the CUP with the means to incite the Muslim population into committing violent
acts against the Armenian population. Morgenthau wrote that, “there have been
meetings at the mosques and other places, at which the declaration has been
read and fiery speeches made.”[69]
The Muslim citizens of the empire saw it as their religious duty to kill
Christians, particularly Armenians.
An indication of measures meted out
against the Armenians can be seen after the Turkish army retreated following
their loss at the Battle of Sarıkamış in January 1915. Suny argued that the CUP officials
blamed the Armenians for their significant military loss since they suspected
that the Russian military had been aided by Ottoman Armenians.[70] A series of measures were put into
place to further suppress the Armenians. These measures included the Increased
Security Precautions directive, falsification of reports of events, arresting
and executing those that resist deportation, and they placed the SO forces
throughout the empire.[71]
On February 25, 1915, Directive 8682, or Increased
Security Precautions, was initiated. This directive allowed the Ottoman
government to remove Armenians from high ranking military positions, and
eventually all Armenian military personnel were stripped of their ranks[72]
and placed into labor battalions. Their job in the battalions was to carry
supplies under harsh terrain and weather conditions. Morgenthau implied that,
“stumbling under the burdens and driven by the whips and bayonets of the Turks,
they were forced to drag their weary bodies into the mountains of the
Caucasus.”[73]
Many of the Armenians that survived the arduous labor were murdered en mass.[74]
Another indication of CUP’s tactics toward the Armenians
occurred between March and April 1915 and is often referred to as the Second
Zeitun Resistance. During the middle of March 1915, news reached Zeitun
that the military was arresting Armenian men and forcing them into labor battalions.[75] Kévorkian mentioned that when
the Turkish military approached Zeitun, the Armenians were prepared to resist
arrests, but religious leaders convinced them to remain peaceful.[76] A small group of
Armenians attempted to resist, but the majority surrendered and were split up.
The men were placed in labor battalions and the rest were deported. The Ottoman
government sought to lay guilt on the Armenians for a revolt that never took
place in order make it appear that their actions were justified.[77]
On April 24, 1915, Armenians
of importance were arrested in Constantinople during what is considered the
beginning of the first wave of the Armenian Genocide. The targeted
groups were Armenian men of significant wealth or position such as: business
men, religious leaders, revolutionary party members, artists, and writers.
Morgenthau discussed that, “the authorities arrested about two hundred
Armenians in Constantinople and sent them into the interior.”[78]
These intellectual men were either sent first by train to Angora, to what is
present day Ankara,[79]
or imprisoned and remained there until after the end of the war.[80]
Armenians began to resist the CUP’s policies to remain alive and in their
homes.
News spread about the massacres of Armenians in the cities and
villages throughout the vilayet of
Van. The SO’s
irregular forces instigated the Armenians within the city of Van with the hope
of inciting an Armenian revolt to justify their impending actions. Grace Knapp
narrated in The American Mission at Van
that, “the [Armenian] revolutionists conducted themselves with remarkable
restraint and prudence; controlled their hot-headed youth; patrolled the
streets to prevent skirmishes.”[81]
Turkish forces converged on the city, neighboring Armenians sought refuge in
its walls, and the Armenian citizens of Van prepared to defend themselves.
From
April 19, 1917 through May 17, 1915, Turkish soldiers laid siege on the two
isolated groups of Armenians within the city. This event became known as the
Defense of Van, as Armenians held out against the well-prepared irregular
forces. The Armenians were unprepared with limited supplies and ammunition.[82]
The Armenians, however, sent word of their situation to
the Russian military. On May 17, 1915, as the Russian army advanced toward
Van the Turks began to flee the city.[83]
Grace Knapp noted that, “on…the 19th May, the Russians and Russo-Armenian
volunteers came into the city.”[84]
Russian forces followed soon after, but by that point most of the Turkish
military, officials, and citizens had been vacated.
While deportations were implemented soon after WWI began,
they were primarily focused on other non-Muslim groups such as the Greeks and
Assyrians. Taner Akçam mentioned that orders were sent down the chain of command
beginning with the SO to the irregular forces by coded messages with details on
their orders.[85] The deportation of Armenians began
as early as April 1915, but increased in July 1915 when the Tehcir law was enacted. The purpose of
the Tehcir law was to justify the
eviction and deportations of the Armenians.[86]
Orders were
issued by the CUP at varying times on when the Armenians needed to be ready to
deport for their designated resettlement locations. Some were given days to
prepare, while others were given no notice. The deportations began at varying
degrees of severity. Morgenthau provided a description of the harshest cases:
Women were taken from the washtubs, children were snatched out of bed…the
children were taken from the schoolroom…the men were forced to abandon
their ploughs in the fields and their cattle on the mountain side. Even women who had
just given birth to children would be forced to leave their beds and join the panic-
stricken throng, their sleeping babies in their arms.[87]
children were taken from the schoolroom…the men were forced to abandon
their ploughs in the fields and their cattle on the mountain side. Even women who had
just given birth to children would be forced to leave their beds and join the panic-
stricken throng, their sleeping babies in their arms.[87]
The
hostilities that the Armenians faced during the journey to their new location
also varied depending on how long they were able to bribe the irregular forces,
that escorted them, for protection.[88] Women and children were
occasionally offered a way out of the deportation; but that required them to
convert to Islam and marry into Turkish families, or children were adopted into
Muslim families.[89] Most of the deportees were
defenseless women, children, the disabled, and elderly. In some cases,
Armenians were able to take a cart with their belongings. Some left with
nothing more than the clothes on their backs and were forced to walk hundreds
of miles. Others were packed into cattle cars and transported by railroad.
The
deportees that were forced to travel by road faced numerous abuses along the
way. Morgenthau explained that, “a great majority would
never reach their destination and that those who did would either die of thirst
and starvation, or be murdered by the wild Mohammedan desert tribes.”[90]
Food, water, and shelter were rarely provided for the deportees. In many cases,
the Armenians had to sell their remaining belongings to acquire something to
eat or drink. In some situations, the Armenians were forced to walk without
stopping and requests to rest or obtain a drink from a water source was denied.[91]
Thousands died from starvation, thirst, exposure, or were killed when they were
unable to continue traveling.
In many cases, Armenians were murdered by their escorts,
the irregular forces and other Muslim groups, throughout their journey. Morgenthau
detailed that, “detachments of gendarmes [law enforcement] would go ahead,
notifying the Kurdish tribes that their victims were approaching, and Turkish
peasants were also informed that their long-waited opportunity had arrived.[92]
Kurdish tribesmen raped women, but
some women when they saw the Kurds approaching refused to allow that to be
their fate. Morgenthau indicated that, “the women themselves
would save their honor [sic] by jumping into the river, their children in their
arms.”[93] Many young women and children were
also kidnapped or sold into slavery.[94] Many of the remaining Armenians
were beaten or massacred.[95]
The survivors continued farther down
the deportation route where more atrocities awaited them. The resettlement
locations that they had been promised were uninhabitable.
Morgenthau illustrated that the area, “was once the scene of a flourishing
civilization, for the last five centuries it has suffered the blight that
becomes the lot of any country that is subjected to the Turkish rule; and it is
now a dreary, desolate waste, without cities and towns or life of any kind,
populated only by a few.”[96]
By October 1915, over a million Armenians had been evicted from their homes and
deported to resettlement locations in the Syrian Desert.[97]
Armenians from a few villages along the eastern coast of
the Mediterranean Sea fled to the mountain, Musa Dagh, when Turkish forces
began to deport Armenians from the surrounding villages. The Armenians had
enough notice, which allowed them to gather some supplies and weapons. Dikran
Andreasian narrated in Jibal Mousa,
“we found that we had a hundred and twenty modern rifles and shot-guns, with
perhaps three times that number of old flint-locks and horse pistols.”[98]
In the mountain they formed their defense as irregular forces approached.[99]
The
first attack by the Turkish forces took place on July 20, 1915. Several more skirmishes took place between the Turkish
forces and the Armenian defense over a period of forty days. Dikran
Andreasian asserted that, “they [the Turks] had sent word through many Muslim
[sic] villages, calling the people to arms. Army rifles and plentiful
ammunition were handed out from the Antioch arsenal, until the mob of four
thousand Muslims [sic] thirsting for massacre became a formidable foe.”[100]
The skirmishes continued, until the Turks had the Armenians surrounded and they
planned to wait them out. The Armenians, however, were able to send word to
foreign officials for help.[101]
French ships arrived at a nearby port to evacuate the Armenians[102]
to the safety of Port Said, Egypt in September 1915.
Many deportees traveled through the crossroads city of
Aleppo on their way to their resettlement location.[103]
Many of the weary Armenians sought the aid of foreign missionaries and clergy
in Aleppo when they passed through. Transit camps formed around Aleppo, where
many of the sick and dying remained. The conditions in the transit camps were
unsanitary, which increased the spread of infectious disease throughout the
population. Armenians continued to die of starvation, disease, and exposure;
there were too many to care for, despite the efforts of the foreign
missionaries and other groups. Lewy added that the diseases were causing
upwards of a couple hundred deaths every day in the overcrowded city and transit
camps.[104]
Turkish officials knew that something needed to be done about the situation,
especially since the diseases were also being transmitted to the Muslim
population.
During the second wave of the genocide, the
officials deliberated on how to rid Aleppo of the diseased and dying Armenians.
They
deported the Armenians settled among surrounding Muslim villages first and then
focused on the disease infested camps. Aram Andonian in The Memoirs of Naim Bey reported that, “the orders given for putting barbarities into execution
should be kept as secret as possible—so that many people might not know what
was going on, and the crime might be committed in silence, without being noised
abroad.[105]
The officials planned to drive the remaining Armenians to designated
resettlement locations, better known as transit camps.
The Turkish officials forced
the Armenians from Aleppo farther south to the major transit camps of
Der-el-Zor, Ras-ul-Ain, and others located in the Syrian Desert. The goal of the CUP was to eliminate as many Armenians as
possible in a short period of time. Arman Andonian wrote that, “instructions
were given from Aleppo to try and keep the deportees hungry and thirsty on the
way, so as to diminish their numbers as much as possible.”[106]
Many Armenians died along the route after leaving Aleppo, but many more
perished after reaching their destination.
Many Armenians found themselves in the largest transit
camp of Der-el-Zor sometime between the summer of 1915 through 1916 after
marching countless miles. When the first convoys began arriving in the camp
conditions were tolerable, until more deportees arrived and the situation
became dire. Schwester L. Mohring in Der-El-Zor
explained that the food shortage became a serious problem when the rations
were no longer distributed.[107]
There was no sanitation or nearby water source, and with those conditions the
diseases continued to spread throughout the camps.
During the
Spring of 1916, the top CUP officials sent orders to begin liquidating the
Armenians residing in the transit camps.[108]
At times the Armenians were taken away from the camps and massacred in groups,
but one Turkish official came up with another elimination process. The Turks
led the Armenians farther into the desert and left for dead with no food or
water, far from the eyes of other Armenian groups. Tens of thousands of
Armenians died in Der-el-Zor by the end of 1916.
Ras-ul-Ain was another of the largest transit camps. Many of
Ras-ul-Ain’s deportees arrived by railroad. The first groups of Armenians began arriving in July
1915.[109]
Ras-ul-Ain had many of the similarities to that of Der-el-Zor and other
surrounding transit camps: starvation, lack of sanitary conditions, lack of
shelter, and disease. Andonian emphasized that, “there was no more room for Armenians in Res-ul-Ain; that
five or six hundred were dying every day, and that there was neither time to
bury the dead nor to send the living further south.”[110]
Their solution to eliminate the Armenian people, was similar to the one reached
in Der-el-Zor.
Turkish
officials at Ras-ul-Ain began to clear out the Armenians in March 1916. Enver
Pasha sent his brother-in-law Djevdet Bey who was known for his brutal
massacres, to Ras-ul-Ain to take care of the situation.[111]
Some of the Armenians were marched farther south to Der-el-Zor due to
overcrowding, but many faced mass execution just outside of the Ras-ul-Ain
camp. Suny noted that the Kurdish guards took the Armenians into the desert in
groups and massacred them.[112] By the end of 1916, much
of the Armenian population in the empire had been eliminated and the CUP
focused less on deporting and more on eliminating the Armenians still residing
in villages across the empire. The Armenian Question had been resolved.
The
End of the Armenian Genocide and War
The end of WWI brought an end to the
Armenian Genocide, but not the end to the Armenian persecution. The top CUP officials known as the
Three Pashas had fled after their surrender to the Allies on October 30, 1918. The
CUP’s control over the government had ended and a new government formed in
November 1918. The new government accused the CUP of crimes and court-martials began
to prosecute the accused. Guenter Lewy wrote in Revisiting the Armenian Genocide that, “the charges included
subversion of the constitution, wartime profiteering, and the massacres of both
Greeks and Armenians.”[113]
Many of the top CUP officials were found guilty, and imprisoned or sentenced to
death, though most of their sentences were never carried out.[114]
Though the CUP had dissolved it attempted to reforme
itself under a new party called the Renewal Party. This led to the rise of
a new Turkish leader, Mustafa Kemal, and the foundation of the Republic of
Turkey.[115]
Things became more heated between the Turkish nationalists when the Allied
nations began to assert their role in Turkish territory as nationalism among
Ottoman Turks grew. Lewy confirmed that by October 17, 1920, the progress of
the court-martials was halted and all but forgotten.[116]
The new Kemalist government released the criminals from prison after they were
acquitted of charges. Under Mustafa Kemal’s leadership, attacks on the
Armenians continued for a couple years.
The British government had a sense that the court-martials
were going to fail. On May 28, 1919, before the court-martials had ended,
the British transferred many of the Turkish prisoners to the island of Malta.[117]
After the Turkish government ceased the court-martials and released the
criminals, British officials attempted to gather evidence to hold their own
trials. Lewy noted that they had difficulty in obtaining evidence, because
almost all documentation from the Turkish court-martials was missing and all
other documentation had been destroyed. The trials were at a standstill.[118]
The British continued to hold the Turkish prisoners, until
Kemalist soldiers captured British soldiers on March 16, 1920. The British
government arranged an exchange with the Turks to save the British hostages.[119]
The remaining Turkish criminals were set free and held unaccountable for their
actions. Between 1920 and 1922, the Dashnaks implemented a form vigilante
justice,[120]
called Operation Nemesis, aimed at assassinating CUP official. Talaat Pasha and
Ahmet Cemal Pasha were among those that were assassinated. Today, the Turkish
government continues to deny or excuse their involvement in the deaths of
countless Armenians.
Summary
The Turkish government argued that what took place was not the
result of a premeditated genocide against the Armenian population in the
Ottoman Empire. In many
cases, the Turks argued that they did not deport the Armenians, because the
destination of the resettlement locations was in the Syrian Desert which was
part of Ottoman territory.[121] They argued that the deportations were done
to remove the Armenians to new locations, not to camps that were intended to be
their final resting place.[122] The Turkish government argued that this was
done to put an end to the potential threat of an Armenian revolution[123] and to keep them safely away from the war
zones.[124] In addition, the Turks claimed that many
Armenians died of natural causes that was out of their control.
Despite the arguments that the Turks continue to make for
their position, evidence indicates their guilt. The
steps taken by the CUP suggest that plans were initiated, prior to WWI, to
prepare for the deportations and elimination of Armenians. Akçam argued that,
“this population policy was implemented categorically differently toward the
Armenians than toward other ethno-religious groups within the empire, a
difference that can be characterized as genocidal intent.”[125]
Through a
systematic process the Ottoman government oppressed, persecuted, and massacred
Armenians to solve the Armenian Question.
The Turks’ argument does not stand up against the
evidence, particularly to those who witnessed the events unfold from an outside
perspective. For example, according to the article, The Depopulation of Armenia, “these outrages cannot be excused on the
ground of military necessity, for the regions devastated are in some cases
beyond the reach of any possible Russian invasion and the Armenians have not
manifested any disposition to revolt except where, as at Van, they have been
driven to it in self-defense.”[126] Many
foreign diplomats and newspapers argued on behalf of the Armenians after they
witnessed and received numerous reports of the violence implemented against the
Armenians.
In addition,
documented evidence supports Turkish guilt during the events. Akçam
reported that telegrams provided orders from Talaat Pasha to remove the bodies
of Armenians from roadways.[127] This indicated first that the CUP
was aware of rate that the Armenians were dying during the deportations.
Secondly, it proved that they wanted to hide the bodies from the roadways where
travelers could not see them. Lastly, it also proved that top CUP officials
were handing orders down to the irregular forces responsible for the
destruction.
Many factors
worked together to create conditions that produced the Turkification ideals
needed by the CUP to committee the act of genocide. The decline of the Ottoman Empire,
the instability of Hamid, revolution by the Young Turks, and the countercoup
created a breeding ground for the Turkification mentality to spread. The empire’s
historical conflict with Russia and distaste for the Western interference all
combine to create a sense of urgency for the CUP to find a solution for the
Armenian Question. The CUP had their ideal conditions met with the start of WWI
so that they could to carry out the annihilation of a vast number of Armenians
without interference.[128]
The Armenian
Genocide was premeditated and planned prior to start of WWI. It is evident
that the CUP formed some of their first steps toward answering the Armenian
Question by looking back at Hamid’s tactics.[129] The creation of the SO’s irregular
forces was modeled after the Hamidian forces.[130] Inciting the Muslim civilians against
the Armenians was also one of Hamid’s tactics, which was used during the
countercoup and later utilized by the CUP. The CUP officials took what Hamid
began and evolved it into something much more violent and devastating.
The
severity of methods used throughout the Armenian Genocide varied, but the
results were the same, the Armenians died at the hands of the Turks. The Turks
systematically implemented their plans of persecution and murder to solve the
Armenian Question. Prior to WWI, the CUP introduced their measures to repress
the activities of Armenian revolutionary parties and Armenian citizens. Adam
Jones indicated that, “the opening phase of the assault consisted of a
gendercide against Armenian males.”[131] The CUP focused on the remaining
Armenian citizens with the male threat out of the way, the weapons searches and
acquisitions began in Armenian villages.[132]
When the
deportations began, most of the Armenian population was unable to put up a
fight. Throughout the deportations the Armenians faced countless abuses by
the Ottoman population and irregular force. Jones commented that, “in thousands
of cases, children and women were kidnapped and seized by villagers; the women
were kept as servants and sex-slaves, the children converted to Islam and
raised as ‘Turks.’”[133] Along the deportation routes
Armenians were starved, exposed, beaten, and massacred. For some, the only way
out was suicide, while others trudged on to their desert destination.
The
Armenians were faced with almost certain death after arriving in Aleppo or
after being forced to travel onward to the transit camps such as Der-el-Zor and
Ras-ul-Ain. The camps lacked food, water, and appropriate sanitary
conditions. Then, during the second phase of the genocide, orders were issued
to eliminate the remaining Armenians residing in the camps en masse.[134] Countless Armenians were murdered in
the transit camps by the end of WWI. After much review it is evident that the
annihilation of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire was premeditated,
organized, and carried out to the fullest extent possible.
Through
the adoption of Sultan Abdul Hamid II’s tactics against the Armenians, the
Committee of Union and Progress took things even further. During the Committee
of Union and Progress’ control of the Ottoman government, the Armenians faced
unjustified atrocities. The Committee of Union and Progress sought to Turkify
the empire and eliminate the Armenian culture and people within the Ottoman
Empire. While the Turks had attempted to hide their deeds, evidence provides
information on what the Armenians faced during the genocide and the role the
Committee of Union and Progress’ officials had to play in those crimes. Though
the Committee of Union and Progress attempted to eliminate the entire Armenian
people, during WWI, as a solution to the Armenian Question, Armenians have
survived scattered across the world.
[1] Peter Balakian, The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide
and America's Response. (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), Kindle, pt. 1, chap. 1.
[2] Raphael Lemkin, quoted in Adam Jones, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction,
2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2011), 10.
[3] Ronald G. Suny, ‘They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere
Else’: A History of the Armenian Genocide (Human Rights and Crimes Against
Humanity) (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), Kindle, chap. 2.
[4] Guenter
Lewy, The
Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide (Salt Lake
City: University of Utah Press, 2005), 3.
[8] Henry Morgenthau, “Chapter 22: The Turk Reverts to the
Ancestral Type,” in Ambassador
Morgenthau’s Story (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1918),
http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/comment/morgenthau/Morgen22.htm
[12] Lewy, The Armenian Massacres, 4.
[18] Ibid., 12.
[19] N.A., “The
Armenian ‘Genocide’?: Facts & Figures,” (Ankara: Center for Strategic
Research, 2007), 9, accessed November 16, 2017. http://www.mfa.gov.tr/data/DISPOLITIKA/ErmeniIddialari/ArmenianGenocideFactsandFiguresRevised.pdf
[20] Hannibal Travis, “‘Native Christians Massacred’: The Ottoman Genocide of the
Assyrians during World War I,” Genocide
Studies and Prevention: An International Journal 3, no. 8 (December 2006): 329, accessed
November 16, 2017,
http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1233&context=gsp
[21]
Balakian, The Burning Tigris, pt. 1, chap. 5.
[27] Henry Morgenthau, “Chapter 1: A German Superman at
Constantinople,” in Ambassador
Morgenthau’s Story (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1918),
http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/comment/morgenthau/Morgen01.htm
[29] Morgenthau, “Chapter 1: A German.”
[31] Bedross Der
Matossian, “From Bloodless Revolution to Bloody Counterrevolution: The Adana
Massacres of 1909,” Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal 6, no. 2 (2011): 153, accessed November 16, 2017,
http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1070&context=gsp
[33] Ibid., 163.
[36] Yusuf Sarinay, “What Happened on April 24, 1915?: The
Circular of April 24, 1915, and the Arrests of Armenian Committee Members in
Istanbul,” International Journal of
Turkish Studies 14, no. 1 & 2 (2008): 84, accessed November 16, 2017,
http://www.mfa.gov.tr/data/DISPOLITIKA/ErmeniIddialari/yusuf-sarinay-what-happened-in-april-24_-1915_-the-circular-of-april-24_-1915_-and-the-arrest-of-armenian-committee-members.pdf
[39] Ottoman Empire, “Verdict
(‘Kararname’) of the Turkish Military Tribunal,” July 5, 1919, trans. Haigazn
K. Kazarian, Armenian Nationalist Institute, accessed November 16, 2017,
http://www.armenian-genocide.org/Affirmation.237/current_category.50/affirmation_detail.html
[40] Raymond Kévorkian, The
Armenian Genocide: A Complete History (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2011),
Kindle, pt. 3, chap. 1.
[42] “The
Assassination of a Race: The Hopes and the Threatened Fate of the Armenians,” Independent, October 18, 1915, Armenian
National Institute, accessed November 16, 2017,
http://www.genocide-museum.am/eng/media.php
[43] Morgenthau,
“Chapter 22: The Turk.”
[45] “The Assassination.”
[51] Taner Akçam,
“The Ottoman Documents and the Genocidal Policies of the Committee of Union and
Progress (İttihat ve Terakki) toward the
Armenians in 1915,” Genocide Studies and
Prevention: An International Journal 2, no. 5 (2006): 133, accessed
November 16, 2017,
http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1243&context=gsp
[52] Morgenthau,
“Chapter 22: The Turk.”
[55] Henry Morgenthau, “Chapter 3: ‘The Personal Representative
of the Kaiser’---Wangenheim Opposes the Sale of American Warships to Greece,”
in Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1918),
http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/comment/morgenthau/Morgen03.htm
[56] Ibid.
[58] Henry
Morgenthau, “Chapter 25: Talaat Tells Why he ‘Deports’ the Armenians,” in Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story (Garden
City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1918), http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/comment/morgenthau/Morgen25.htm
[59] [Ismail
Abdullah?], “Document NO: 1901 (97),” in Documents
on Ottoman-Armenians. University of Louisville, accessed November 16, 2017.
http://louisville.edu/a-s/history/turks/Documents2.pdf
[61] Henry
Morgenthau, “Chapter 23: The ‘Revolution’ at Van,” in Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page
& Company, 1918),
http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/comment/morgenthau/Morgen23.htm
[62] Henry
Morgenthau, “Chapter 4: Germany Mobilizes the Turkish Army,” in Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story (Garden
City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1918),
http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/comment/morgenthau/Morgen04.htm
[63] Taner Akçam, “Deportation and Massacres in the Cipher Telegrams of the
Interior Ministry in the Prime Ministerial Archive (Başbakanlık Arşivi),” Genocide Studies and Prevention: An
International Journal 6, no. 2, article 6 (2006): 313, accessed November 16,
2017, http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1232&context=gsp
[69] Henry Morgenthau, “Chapter 14: Wagenheim and the Bethlehem
Steel Company---A Holy War that was Made in Germany,” in Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page
& Company, 1918),
http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/comment/morgenthau/Morgen14.htm
[73] Henry
Morgenthau, “Chapter 24: The Murder of a Nation,” in Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page
& Company, 1918),
http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/comment/morgenthau/Morgen24.htm
[74] Morgenthau, “Chapter 24: The
Murder.”
[75]
Kévorkian, The
Armenian Genocide, pt. 3, chap. 8.
[77] Ibid., pt. 4,
chap. 19.
[78] Morgenthau, “Chapter 25: Talaat
Tells.”
[81] Grace Knapp, “The
American Mission at Van: Narrative Printed Privately in the United States by
Miss Grace Highley Knapp (1915),” in The
Treatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915-1916 (New York: G. P.
Putnam’s Sons, 1916), 33,
https://ia802608.us.archive.org/18/items/treatmentofarmen001963mbp/treatmentofarmen001963mbp.pdf
[82] Knapp, “The
American Mission,” 38.
[84] Knapp, “The
American Mission,” 41.
[87] Morgenthau, “Chapter 24: The
Murder.”
[88] Ibid.
[89] Ibid.
[90] Ibid.
[91] Ibid.
[92] Ibid.
[93] Ibid.
[94] Ibid.
[95] Ibid.
[96] Ibid.
[97] Ibid.
[98] Ibid., 515.
[99] Dikran Andreasian, “Jibal Mousa:
The Defense of the Mountain and the Rescue of its Defenders by the French
Fleet; Narrative of an Eye-Witness, The Rev. Dikran Andreasian, Pastor of the Armenian
Protestant Church at Zeitoun,” In The
Treatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915-1916 (New York: G. P.
Putnam’s Sons, 1916), 514-515,
https://ia802608.us.archive.org/18/items/treatmentofarmen001963mbp/treatmentofarmen001963mbp.pdf
[100] Ibid., 516.
[101] Ibid., 518.
[102] Ibid., 520.
[105] Aram Andonian, The Memoirs of Naim Bey: Turkish Official
Documents Relating to the Deportations and Massacres of Armenians (London:
Hodder and Stoughton, 1920), 16, accessed November 16, 2017, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101006532152;view=1up;seq=9
[106] Ibid., 87.
[107] Schwester L.
Mohring, “Der-El-Zor: Letter, Dated 12th July, 1915, From Schwester
L. Mohring, A German Missionary, Describing Her Journey From Baghdad to the
Pass of Amanus; Published in the German Journal ‘Sonnenaufgang,’ September, 1915,”
in The Treatment of the Armenians in the
Ottoman Empire 1915-1916 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916), 566,
https://ia802608.us.archive.org/18/items/treatmentofarmen001963mbp/treatmentofarmen001963mbp.pdf
[110] Andonian, The Memoirs, 19.
[111] Ibid., 24.
[113] Guenter Lewy,
“Revisiting the Armenian Genocide,” Middle
East Quarterly 12, no. 4 (Fall 2005): 3-12, accessed November 16, 2017,
http://www.meforum.org/748/revisiting-the-armenian-genocide
[116] Lewy, “Revisiting
the Armenian Genocide,” 3-12.
[122] Morgenthau, “Chapter 24: The
Murder.”
[124] “The Depopulation of Armenia,” Independent, September 27, 1915,
Fundamental Armenology, accessed November 16, 2017,
http://www.fundamentalarmenology.am/datas/pdfs/48.pdf
[132] Morgenthau,
“Chapter 24: The Murder.”
[134] Suny, ‘They Can Live,’
chap.
9.
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