(TREASON AND REBELLION) Tall Armenian Tale: The Other Side of the Falsified Genocide

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What happens when the minority of any country rebels?

This is a highly important question, relating to the "Armenian Genocide." Accordingly, first visitors to TAT are directed to the "Scenario" page, which you can spot at the navigation bar at left.

This is so important, deceptive Armenian propaganda bends over backwards to present the Armenian Myth of Innocence. All of a sudden, after centuries of being the Loyal Nation, without provocation, the Armenians were earmarked for an extermination program. And this "genocide" had to take place just when the ailing and resource-challenged Ottoman Empire was besieged by superior world powers on all fronts.

The fact that the Armenians rebelled (another example, and another) is a matter of historical record. That won't stop deceptive pro-Armenian propagandists from insisting otherwise, even in this day and age. They still think they're living in 1916, when Arnold Toynbee wrote in his "Treatment" paper that there was no Armenian revolt. (Unfortunately, when it comes to this "genocide," things haven't changed that much since 1916.)

One of the times I got into this area was with my analysis of Peter Balakian's "The Burning Tigris." There I wrote:

"A 1959 statement by the press attaché of the Turkish embassy in Washington pointed out what the Turks did to the Armenians was ‘what might have been the American response, had the German-Americans of Minnesota and Wisconsin revolted on behalf of Hitler during World War II'." Had such an event transpired, the American people and government would have been so outraged to find their fellow Americans massacring their relatives and betraying their country, I wonder if there would have been many German-Americans left alive for a “deportation.

Let's explore this possibility a little further, when the shoe is on the other foot... starting with the matter of German-Americans in WWI.

Ambassador Morgenthau gives an idea of what happens to Americans committing high treason in the United States:

"But I am told," said Von Jagow, "that there will be an insurrection of German-Americans if your country makes war on us."

"Dismiss any such idea from your mind," I replied. The first one who attempts it will be punished so promptly and so drastically that such a movement will not go far. And I think that the loyal German-Americans themselves will be the first to administer such punishment."

"Ambassador Morgenthau's Story," 1918, page 40.

An Armenian Oral Historian Sheds Light:
"We Armenians have to admit our guilt. We wanted to have our independence. The Armenian political committees did a lot of political uprising. Of course, Turks would not allow these. We have to admit it. If we today did something like they did, here in the United States, the United States Government would shove us into the Pacific Ocean."
Donald E. Miller, Lorna Tourya Miller. Armenian Survivors: A Typological Analysis of Victim Response. Oral History Review 10 '1982': pp. 63-64.

Thanks to Fatma S.

(Thanks to Reader Conan for the Morgenthau section, and the one below.)

International Law: Armenians would be designated as "outlaws," and (under U.S. Law) as "PUBLIC ENEMIES."

Guerrilla Warfare in Armenia

JUNE 18, 1915

Guerrilla Warfare in Armenia.

To the Editor of THE NEW YORK TIMES.

It is a settled rule of international law that protection is never afforded to private individuals who participate in war and to uninformed predatory guerilla bands. "These are regarded as outlaws, and may be punished by a belligerent as robbers and murderers." (Halleck's Int. Law and Laws of War, 386.) That the Armenians at Hosrova have violated the laws of war by waging private war against the Turkish invading army is admitted in the statements made by Elizabeth Macara, and published in THE NEW YORK TIMES: "When the Kurds (in the present war they constitute part of the armed forces of Turkey and are led by Turkish officers) burst the village gates," said Miss Macara, "we took rifles and mounted to the roof. I fired eighty shots. The Kurds were forced to withdraw outside the village wall. There I killed four more, one of whom was the chief. The battle lasted three hours. And all this was done after the Russians had evacuated the piece.

As to how they would be treated by the American Army under similar circumstances I refer to the "Instructions for the Government of the Armies of the United States in the Field," No.100, Sec.82, April 24, 1863, which says: "Men or squads of men who commit hostilities without being part and portion of the organized hostile army, and without sharing continuously in the war, are public enemies, and therefore, if captured, are not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war, but shall be treated similarly as highway robbers or pirates." (Moore, Digest Int. Law, Vol. VII. Pp. 174.)

A. S. Columbia University.
New York, June 8, 1915.

Holdwater: The emphasis above is mine. It's not for nothing that the Armenian rebels have been referred to as "bandits."

Naturally, the biased New York Times editors "erred" in their headline for the letter, above. The correct title needed to read, "Guerilla Warfare in the Ottoman Empire." There was no "Armenia" in 1915. Thus, when the letter writer used the phrase, "the invading Turkish Army," he was negating his whole point. One does not "invade" one's own territory.

The New York Times article referred to was from April 26, 1915, entitled "Kurds Massacre More Armenians" (the emphasis was on the so-called "self defense" of Van); the name of the "Armenian girl" was spelled incorrectly. As a point of interest, here is the relevant section from the earlier article:

Not all the Christians lacked the courage or means for self-defense. At the desolated Catholic mission at Hosrova, where forty-eight victims of the massacre were buried, Elizabeth Marcara, an Armenian girl, told how she and young David Ishmu battled with the Kurds. Her story later was amply confirmed.

"When the Kurds burst the village gates," said Miss Marcara, "we took rifles and mounted to the roof. I fired eighty shots. The Kurds were forced to withdraw outside the village wall. There I killed two and David two. Later we killed four more, one of whom was the Chief. The Kurds abandoned their plunder, and carried off their dead.

"The battle lasted three hours. The death of their Chief caused the Kurds to flee. We came from the roof and recovered the things the Kurds had left behind them. Reinforced, I fled with my relatives, We saw the Kurds engaged in the pillage of Hafgvan and fired on them, but they escaped with their valuables.

"Near sundown, we were attacked by fifteen Kurds, of whom I killed one. After the Russian defeated the Kurds and Turks near Khol a soldier told the Persian Governor about me, and chieftainship of a regiment of Turks and if I would continue to fight with the Russians."

And they say Armenian women were "defenseless"! (Other examples.)