Sir Mark Sykes

As for the tactics of the revolutionaries, anything more fiendish one could not imagine — the assassination of Moslems in order to bring about the punishment of innocent men, the midnight extortion of money from villages which have just paid their taxes by day, the murder of persons who refuse to contribute to their collection-boxes, are only some of the crimes of which Moslems, Catholics, and Gregorians accuse them with no uncertain voice... the Armenian revolutionaries prefer to plunder their co-religionists to giving battle to their enemies; the anarchists of Constantinople throw bombs with the intention of provoking a massacre of their fellow-countrymen.

If the object of English philanthropists and the roving brigands (who are the active agents of revolution) is to subject the bulk of the Eastern provinces to the tender mercies of an Armenian oligarchy, then I cannot entirely condemn the fanatic outbreaks of the Moslems or the repressive measures of the Turkish government. On the other hand, if the object of the Armenians is to secure equality before the law, and the maintenance of security and peace in the countries partly inhabited by Armenians, then I can only say that their methods are not those calculated to achieve success.

The Caliph’s Last Heritage (London, 1915)

------------

From the same book (pp. 409 and 416-18), Sykes' observations on Armenian young men: (They inspired) "a feeling of distrust, and their bearing is compounded of a peculiar covert insolence and a strange suggestion of suspicion and craft.. .The keynote of town Armenian's character is a profound distrust of his own coreligionists and neighbors."

 "The Armenians will willingly harbor
revolutionaries, arrange for their entertainment and the furthering of their ends. The pride of race brings about many singularities and prompts the Armenians to prey on missionaries, Jesuits, consuls and European traveler with rapacity and ingratitude. The poor Armenians will demand assistance in a loud tone, yet will seldom give thanks for a donation. Abuse of Consular officers and missionaries is only a part of the stock-in-trade of the extra-Armenian press."

"That the Armenians are doomed to be forever unhappy as a nation, seems to me unavoidable, for one-half of their miseries arises not from the stupid, rangy, ill-managed despotism under which they live, but from their own dealings with each other. In a time of famine at Van, Armenian merchants tried to corner the valuable grain; the Armenians Revolutionaries prefer to plunder their coreligionists to giving battle to their enemies; the anarchists of Constantinople threw bombs with the intention of provoking a massacre of their fellow countrymen. The Armenian villagers are divided against themselves; the revolutionary societies are leagued against one another, the priests connive at the murder of a bishop; the church is divided at its very foundation."

"Never were a people so fully prepared for the hand of a tyrant; never were a people so easy to be preyed upon by revolutionary societies; never was there a people so difficult to lead or to reform. That these characteristics are the result of Muslim oppression I do not for one moment believe."

ADDENDUM, 9-07, from the same book:

" …[Armenians] will undertake the most desperate political crimes without the least forethought or preparation; they will bring ruin and disaster on themselves and others without any hesitation; they will sacrifice their own brothers and most valuable citizens to a wayward caprice; they will enter largely into conspiracies with men in whom they repose not the slightest confidence; they will overthrow their own national cause to vent some petty spite on a private individual; they will at the very moment of danger grossly insult and provoke one who might be their protector, but may at any moment become their destroyer; by some stinging aggravation or injury they will alienate the sympathy of a stranger whose assistance they expect; they will suddenly abandon all hope when their plans are nearing fruition; they will betray the very person who might serve their cause; and, finally, they will bully and prey on one another at the very moment that the enemy is at their gates. …

The Armenian revolutionaries prefer to plunder their co-religionists to giving battle to their enemies; the anarchists of Constantinople threw bombs with the intention of provoking a massacre of their fellow-countrymen. The Armenian villages are divided against themselves; the revolutionary societies are leagued against one another; the priests connive at the murder of a bishop; the Church is divided at its very foundations. …

If the object of Armenians is to secure equality before the law, and the establishment of security and peace in the countries partly inhabited by Armenians,* then I can only say that their methods are not those to achieve success."

----------------

Sir Mark Sykes was recruited by Wellington House to write a fabricated report, attacking the good image of the Turks. he complied with "The Clean-fighting Turk, a Spurious Claim."

From Richard Stoneman's Across the Hellesport, p. 194:
"Herbert's (Aubrey) friend Mark Sykes, (1879-1919) who left University to travel in the Near East, and later became a goverment adviser on Near Eastern policy, made equally (like Audrey Herbert) light of the massacres and even contrived to suggest they were all the Armenians' fault."

Sykes also wrote, before his propagandistic period, Through Five Turkish Provinces, London:Bickers & Son, 1900, as well as a pamphlet called Asiatic Turkey and the New Regime, London: Central Asian Society 1909.

Philippe de Zara

 After having accomplished the minimum of their duty as Ottoman citizens, the Armenians began to encourage the activities of the enemy. Their ambiguous attitude had certainly little to do with loyalty. But which Westerner would have the right to accuse them, when a tradition taught by Europe made the insubordination of the Sultan’s Christian subjects the most sacred of obligations? An insubordination which was often sanctioned by granting autonomy, if not sovereignty. Nevertheless, how can anyone deny that, in the opinion of the Turks, according to the law of all the states, the conduct of the Armenians, facilitating during the war the task of the adversary, can be recognized as anything but a crime of high treason?. . . The committees, divided among themselves for internal issues, were often in agreement to facilitate the advance of Russian armies: they were attempting to obstruct the retreat of Turkish troops, to stop the convoys of provisions, to form bands of francs-tireurs. Mass desertions took place in the Eastern provinces: Armenians thus formed many troops officered by Russian officers. Here and there local revolts occurred. The leaders were setting the examples: two Armenian deputies fled to Russia. A literature of hatred was recalled: ‘Let the Turkish mothers cry. . . . Let’s make the Turk taste a little grief.’ The culpability of Armenians leaves no doubt.

Mustapha Kemal, Dictateur (Paris, 1936), pp. 159-60

 The Turks are not, like their coreligionists, the Arabs, by nature a fanatical people. As a matter of fact, the history of the Ottoman Empire is less marred by religious intolerance and by massacres due to religious hatreds than the history of European states from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. It is well to remember that when the Crusaders were butchering their Moslem prisoners in Palestine, when the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition were in full swing, when Cromwell’s troopers were massacring the Catholics of Ireland, when Protestants in France were being exterminated by order of the French king, when Jews were being subjected to countless persecutions and barbarities in every European country, Moslems, Christians and Jews were dwelling side by side, in perfect amity, in Asia Minor.

The Struggle for Power in Moslem Asia (N.Y., 1925) p. 120

  Felix Valyi

 An important testimony to the toleration of Moslem rule is the fact that persecuted Christian and other sects took refuge in Mohammedan lands, to enjoy there the undisturbed exercise of their several cults. Persecuted Spanish Jews at the end of the fifteenth century took refuge in Turkey in great numbers. The Calvinists of Hungary and Transylvania and the Unitarians of the latter country long preferred to submit to the Turks rather than to fall into the hands of the fanatical House of Habsburg. The Protestants of Silesia in the seventeenth century looked with longing eyes towards Turkey, and would gladly have purchased religious freedom at the price of submission to Moslem rule. The Cossacks, who belonged to the ‘Old Believers’ and were persecuted by the Russian State Church
In 1736, found in Turkey the toleration which their Christian brethren denied them.

Revolutions in Islam (London, 1925) pp. 48-9

  A New York newspaper correspondent's excerpt from the 1895 booklet, The Armenian Troubles and Where The Responsibility Lies

"The Armenian Troubles and Where The Responsibility Lies is the title of a booklet by a correspondent of a New York newspaper, who apparently reproduced in 1895 in pamphlet form, the five letters he had written in and sent from Istanbul. Believing that the whole atmosphere on the Sassoon events of 1894 has been 'polluted with falsehood and exaggerations', he states that the disturbances were ' brought about by the Armenian revolutionary committees'... The author quotes the AP correspondent who says that the Armenian conspirators murdered the Rev. Edward Riggs and two other American missionaries and fastened the blame on the Turks."

"As to the story that Armenian women, who, rather than 'suffer dishonor at the hands of (their) Turkish persecutors', threw themselves in to an abyss until the ravine was filled with corpses, the American correspondent says that 'the horrible narrative is a reproduction, with additions and embellishments to suit the occasion, of an old tale in poetry by Mrs. Hemans years ago, under the title of 'The Suliote Mother'. He writes : 'Provocation and intimidation seem to be the plan of the Armenian revolutionists'."

 

Prof. Turkkaya Ataov, in An Armenian Source (1895) On The Armenian Question, Sistem Ofset, Ankara (1986)

 "As a result of these months touring through the area occupied and devastated by the Russian Army and the Christian army of revenge accompanying them, during the spring and summer of 1916, I have no hesitation in saying that the the Turks would be able to make out as good a case against their enemies as that presented against the Turks. According to the almost universal testimony of the local inhabitants and eyewitnesses, Russians acting on the instigation and advice of Armenians who accompanied them murdered and butchered indiscriminately any Muslim member of the civil population who fell into their hands. A traveler through the Rowanduz and Nell districts would find widespread wholesale evidence of outrageous crimes are committed by Christians on Muslims."

 

Sam Weems, "Armenia — Secrets of a 'Christian' Terrorist  State," 2002, pg. 36; footnote: Borian II, pg. 82

Robert Dunn

ADDENDUM, 10-08: The following has not been perfectly transcribed. For an accurate version, please visit Lt. Dunn's "World Alive" Documents Armenian Atrocities.


'The most of the Muslims slaughtered by the Armenians are inside houses. Come you and look.'  'No, dammit! My stomach isn't—'  We were under those trees by the mosque, in an open space. 'I don't believe you,' I said, but followed to a nail-studded door. The man pushed it ajar, then spurred away, leaving me to check on the corpse. I thought I should, this charge was so constant, so gritted my teeth and went inside.

The place was cool but reeked of sodden ashes, and was dark
at first, for its stone walls had only window slits. Rags strewed the mud floor around an iron tripod over embers that vented their smoke through roof beams black with soot. All looked bare and empty, but in an inner room flies buzzed. As the door swung shut behind me I saw they came from a man's body lying face up, naked but for its grimy turban. He was about fifty years old by what was left of his face - a rifle butt had bashed an eye. The one left slanted, as with Tartars rather than with Kurds. Any uniform once on him was gone, so I'd no proof which he was, and quickly went out, gagging at the mess of his slashed genitals. (p. 361)

'How many Muslim people lived there?'
'Oh, about eight hundred.' He yawned.
'Did you see any Muslim officers?'
'No, sir. I was in at dawn. All were Tartar civilians in mufti.'

The lieutenant dozed off, then I, but in the small hours a voice woke me — Dro's. He stood in the starlight bawling out an officer. Anyone keelhauled so long and furiously I'd never heard. Then abruptly Dro broke into laughter, quick and simple as child's. Both were a cover for his sense of guilt, I thought, or hoped. For somehow, despite my boast of irreligion, Christian Armenian massacring 'infidels' was more horrible than the reverse would have been.

From daybreak on, Armenian villagers poured in from miles around. The Armenian women plundered happily, chattering like ravens as they picked over the carcass of Djul. They hauled out every hovel's chattels, the last scrap of food or cloth, and staggered away, packing pots, saddlebags, looms, even spinning-wheels.

'Thank you for a lot, Dro,' I said to him back in camp. 'But now I
must leave.' We shook hands, the captain said 'A bientot, mon camarade.' And for hours the old Molokan scout and I plodded north across parching plains. Like Lot's wife I looked back once to see smoke bathing all, doubtless in a sack of other Moslem villages by the Armenian Army up to the line of snow that was Iran.' (p. 363)

At morning tea, Dro and his officers spread out a map of this whole high region called the Karabakh. Deep in tactics, Armenians spoke Russian, but I got their contempt for Allied 'neutral' zones and their distrust of promises made by tribal chiefs. A campaign shaped; more raids on Moslem villages. (p. 354)

"It will be three hours to take," Dro told me. We'd close in on
three sides. "The men on foot will not shoot, but use only the bayonets," Merrimanov said, jabbing a rifle in dumbshow.
"That is for morale," Dro put in. "We must keep the Moslems in
terror." "Soldiers or civilians?" I asked. "There is no difference," said Dro. "All are armed, in uniform or not."
"But the women and children?"
"Will fly with the others as best they may." (p. 358)


The ridges circled a wide expanse, its floors still. Hundreds of feet down, the fog held, solid as cotton flock. 'Djul lies under that,' said Dro, pointing. 'Our men also attack Muslims from the other sides.'

Then, 'Whee-ee!' — his whistle lined up all at the rock edge.
Bayonets clicked upon carbines. Over plunged Archo, his black haunches rippling; then followed the staff, the horde - nose to tail, bellies taking the spur. Armenia in action seemed more like a pageant than war, even though I heard our Utica brass roar.

As I watched from the height, it took ages for Djul to show clear. A tsing of machine-gun fire took over from the thumping batteries; cattle lowed, dogs barked, invisible, while I ate a hunk of cheese and drank from a snow puddle. Mist at last folded upward as men shouted, at first heard faintly. Then came a shrill wailing.

Now among the cloud-streaks rose darker wisps — smoke. Red glimmered about house walls of stone or wattle, into dry weeds on roofs. A mosque stood in clump of trees, thick and green. Through crooked alleys on fire, horsemen were galloping after figures both mounted and on foot.

'Tartarski!' shouted the Armenian gunner by me. Others pantomimed them in escape over the rocks, while one twisted a bronze shell-nose, loaded, and yanked breech-cord, firing again and again. Shots wasted, I thought, when by afternoon I looked in vain for fallen branch or Muslim body. But these shots and the white bursts of shrapnel in the gullies drowned the women's cries.

At length all shooting petered out. I got on my horse and rode down toward Djul. It burned still but little flame showed now. The way was steep and tough, through dense scrub. Finally on flatter ground I came out suddenly, through alders, on smoldering houses. Across trampled wheat my brothers-in-arms were leading off animals, several calves and a lamb. (p. 360)

Armenian corpses came next, the first a pretty Muslim child with straight black hair, large eyes. She looked about twelve years old. She lay in some stubble where meal lay scattered from the sack she'd been toting. The bayonet had gone through her back, I judged, for blood around was scant. Between the breasts one clot, too small for a bullet wound, crusted her homespun dress.

The next was a Muslim boy of ten or less, in rawhide jacket and
knee-pants. He lay face down in the path by several huts. One arm reached out to the pewter bowl he'd carried, now upset upon its dough. Steel had jabbed just below his neck, into the spine.

There were Muslim grownups, too, I saw as I led the sorrel around. Djul was empty of the living till I looked up to see beside me Dro's German-speaking colonel. He said all Muslims who had not escaped were dead. (p. 361)

More stories of Armenian murdering Muslims when the czarist troops fled north. My Armenian hosts told me of their duty here: to keep tabs on brigands, Muslim troop shifts, hidden arms, spies — Christian, Red or Tartar — coming in from Transcaucasus. Then they spoke of the hell that would break loose if Versailles were to put, as threatened, the Muslim vilayets of Turkey under the control of Erevan.

A conversation with Rawlinson (see above entry):

. . . Next I was drinking Scotch with British `I' officers in Erzurum, in what had been an American mission school for girls. Now it housed Colonel Toby Rawlinson from Donsterville's hush-hush army. They put me up and I heard, in Oxford English, more stories of Armenians murdering Turks when the czarist troops fled north. My hosts told me of their duty here: to keep tab on brigands, Turkish troop shifts, hidden arms, spies — Christian, Red or Tartar — coming in from Transcaucasus. Then they spoke of the hell that would break loose if Versailles were to put, as threatened, the six `Armenian' vilayets of Turkey under the control of Erevan.

`We sit on the edge of a volcano, Dunn,' said Rawlinson.

`So you want us to take a mandate over it all,' I said, `as buffer to your Iraq.'

`America'd never be so mad. I've been in America. Your people are too damned level-headed.'

`If the President's behind it-

`An Armenia without Armenians! Turks under Christian rule?' His lips smacked in irony under the droopy red moustache. `That's bloodshed — just Smyrna over again on a bigger scale. If you touch that business you're bigger fools than I've ever taken you for.'  (p. 358)

 

World Alive, A Personal Story, Crown Publishers, Inc., New York (1956).

U.S. Naval officer Lieutenant Robert Steed Dunn was the Intelligence officer of Rear Admiral Mark L. Bristol, the American High Commissioner in the region and also a de facto American Ambassador in Turkey. Between 1919-1921, Lieutenant Dunn travelled extensively with Dro and his army in the region, and both made several contacts with the Russian Bolsheviks, the Turkish and the Armenian National forces.

Of interest: Prof. Heath Lowry's "Richard G. Hovannisian on Lieutenant Robert Steed Dunn."

Alexandre Millerand

 

I am surprised that London should possess information which no one here is aware of and is unable to document. As a result, it has been impossible until now to determine exactly that Armenians have been massacred in any area. There is much talk about it but no one was able to give me certain and exact information. In particular the Armenian losses in Marash appear to be absolutely false. Apparently, the Armenians took part in the struggle of our troops in this city and had casualties like all the fighters. A serious study of the figures shows that these Armenian casualties do not exceed 1000.

 Archives des Affaires Etrangeres de France, Vol 9, Folio 3; Millerand was the Minister of War of his nation until 1915, becoming President in 1920.

 A.L. Macfie

P.183: And in the Eastern provinces, in Kars, Ardahan and Batum, recently evacuated by the Russians, Armenian bands committed to the creation of a greater Armenia were advancing, taking revenge on the Turks for the massacres of Armenians they had perpetrated in the First World War.

P.24: Normally 3 years followed by 6 years in the active army reserve and 9 years in the reserve. Some 25 years. (Referring to the military duty expected of Ottomans.)

P.132: The humiliation inflicted on the Ottoman Third Army at Sarikamish, combined with the expectations of further Russian advances and fears regarding Armenian treachery, led in 1915 to one of the greatest tragedies of the First World War, the deportation and massacre of more than a half million Armenian inhabitants of the eastern provinces. The precise motivation of the Ottoman government in ordering the deportations and instigating the massacres to which they gave rise remains in doubt; but this much is clear. In the early months of the war Armenian groups belonging to Dashnaksutiun and Henchak, based in Tiflis and other towns in the area, organized Armenian volunteer units which it was hoped would assist the Russians in their conquest of the eastern provinces and liberate the Armenian inhabitants of the area. At the same time Armenians living in Zeytun, a town in southeastern Anatolia, who had refused to be conscripted into the Ottoman army, organized corps of volunteers designed to disrupt Ottoman lines of communication, while Armenians living abroad approached the Entente Powers, with offers to raise a force of some 20 000 men, capable, if properly armed and equipped by the Entente Powers, of instigating an insurrection in Cilicia and securing control of Iskenderun, a strategic port on the Syrian coast. Then in April 1915 the Armenian inhabitants of Van rose in revolt, with the result that Ottoman forces stationed in the area, convinced that they were facing a widespread Armenian uprising, began an indiscriminate massacre of Armenians; and in May, following a second Armenian uprising in Zeytun, the Porte passed a series of deportation laws authorizing the removal of the Armenian population from the strategic areas and their resettlement in the Euphrates valley and other areas to the south of the province of Diarbekir. In the ensuing implementation of the deportation laws, carried by Ottoman gendermarie units, convicts released from the prison for the purpose, Kurdish tribesmen and according to some accounts, units belonging to the special organization, robbery, rape and murder occurred on an extensive scale.

Few of the Armenian columns arrived at their destination; and
even those that did were frequently exposed to further starvation and massacre. Turkish historians argue that the deportations instituted in 1915, in the midst of the Gallipoli campaign, which threatened the very survival of the empire were the inevitable consequence of Armenian treachery and rebellion. As for the unfortunate consequence of the policy of deportation, entirely unplanned and unintended, those were merely the outcome of the sickness and exhaustion suffered by the deportees on their long marches, of the attacks launched by marauding gangs of Kurds and other irresponsible elements, beyond government control, and the poverty and deprivation suffered by all inhabitants of the area, Turk as well as Armenian, in that period. Documentary evidence would appear to support the Turkish view.

"The End of the Ottoman Empire 1908-1923", Longman
Ltd., 1998 (Thanks to Sukru S. Aya)

Erik J. Zurcher

P.119-120-121: This military fiasco left Eastern Anatolia open to a Russian advance which duly materialized when the weather improved. It also marked the beginning of the suppression of the Ottoman Armenians, still a controversial issue 75 years later. The Armenian community formed an important part of the population of the eastern Anatolian provinces, although in no province did they constitute a majority or even plurality. Estimates of the total number of Armenians in the empire vary, but a number of around 1.500.000, some 10% of the population of Ottoman Anatolia, is probably a reasonable estimate. After the troubles of 1896, the situation in the east had normalized to some extent, but relations between the local Armenians and Muslims, especially the Kurds,
remained tense and there were frequent clashes. In May 1913, a
representative of Dashnakzutioun had demanded the establishment of a foreign gendarmerie to protect the Armenians in Eastern Anatolia. The CUP government had approached the British about this matter and the latter had discussed it with the French and the establishment of two inspectorates with far-reaching powers in eastern Anatolia and a Norwegian and a
Dutch inspector were appointed in May. The outbreak of war prevented the scheme from being put into operation. At the outbreak of the war, Armenian nationalists saw in a Russian victory their chance to achieve the establishment of an Armenian state in Eastern Anatolia. Russian propaganda encouraged these aspirations. A few thousand Armenians joined the Russian army; there were Armenian desertions from the Ottoman army and guerrilla activity behind the Ottoman lines. Confronted with this situation, the Ottoman cabinet, on the initiative of the Interior
Minister, Talat Pasha decided to relocate the entire population of the war zone to Zor in the heart of the Syrian desert. This relocation (tehcir) was carried through 1915-16 and it resulted in the death of enormous numbers of Armenians. So much is undisputed historical fact. The controversies rage on three points. The first is the military necessity of the operation. Turkish historians and their supporters point the treasonable activities of many Armenians during the war and to difficulty of knowing which Armenians would remain loyal and which would side with Russians. The other side —  correctly —  pointed out that the deportations were not limited to the war zone but took place all over the empire. In western Anatolia and Istanbul deportation of whole communities were exceptional, but members of the Armenian elite were persecuted. The second controversy is over numbers: Turkish historians have put the number of deaths as low as 200.000 while the Armenians have sometimes claimed
ten times as many. The third and most important controversy concerns intent, and whether genocide was committed. The Turkish side and its supporters claim the situation in eastern Anatolia was one of the inter-communal warfare, in which Armenian bands (supported by the Russian army) and Kurdish tribes (supported by Turkish gendarmes) struggled for control. They also recognize that the Armenians sent to Syria were  subjected to vicious attacks by the local Muslim population (especially Kurds) but they attribute this to lack of control on the part of the Ottoman government rather than to its policies. They point out that the official records of the Ottoman government do not, as far as is known, contain any documents which demonstrate government involvement in the killings. The Armenian side has tried to demonstrate this involvement but some of the documents it has produced (the so-called Andonian
papers) have been shown to be forgeries. Many of the British and American publications on this issue from the time of the First World War which purport to prove government involvement also bear a heavy stamp of wartime propaganda. On the other hand, the same cannot be said of wartime German sources who also report government involvement.

"TURKEY a Modern History" I.B. Tauris
Publishers, London, 1993 (Thanks to Sukru S. Aya)


Holdwater: I received an indication that Prof. Zurcher was gaga over Vahakn Dadrian's objection to Guenter Lewy, believing in the correctness of Dadrian on major issues. I wrote a lengthy letter to the Dutch professor regarding how he could possibly feel that way, in light of Dadrian's unethical twists and turns. He replied in a short note asking about my scholarly qualifications. (I suppose he meant if I lacked a Ph.D, I was not qualified to raise questions.)

Prof. Zurcher even referred to propagandist Taner Akcam's work as "state of the art in this field, because he combines the result of Dadrian’s work with original research in the German archives," in an essay entitled, "Ottoman labour battalions in World War I."

I have not read Dr. Zurcher's book ("used as a reference manual at universities in the US, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Turkey... translated into Turkish, Greek, Hebrew and Dutch," as quoted from the article below), but according to a book excerpt from the Internet, Prof. Zurcher's genocide stance was spelled out: "[T]his author at least is of the opinion that there was a centrally controlled policy of extermination, instigated by the CUP [i.e., the top leadership]." (Another Dutch genocide advocate, Arend jan Boekestijn, wrote an essay on the subject, and supported the statement, "The fact remains that some high level Turks used the deportations as a smoke screen to solve the Armenian question once and for all," with a footnote from Zurcher's book [pp 116-7]).

"Erik-Jan-Zürcher has been professor of Turkish languages and cultures at the University of Leiden since 1997," as a page on his university's site tells us. Entitled "Turkish distinction for Erik-Jan Zürcher" (21 June 2005), we further learn:

"Professor Erik-Jan Zürcher has received the Medal of High Distinction from the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for his work in contesting misconceptions and prejudices about Turkey, which played a role in bringing closer the accession of Turkey to the European Union.

Prof. dr. Erik-Jan Zürcher, professor of Turkish languages and cultures, was awarded the Medal of High Distinction by the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 6th June. The award was presented to him at the Turkish Embassy in The Hague by Ambassador Tacem Ildem.

Zürcher received this distinction in recognition of his academic research and his publications in the field of Turkish history, and in particular for his work in the past two years in contesting misconceptions and prejudices about Turkey, which has brought closer the accession of Turkey to the European Union. The accompanying commendation from the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdullah Gül, also specifically mentioned this motivation.

The Medal of High Distinction is an honour which is rarely awarded.

In his speech of thanks, Zürcher expressed his pleasure at receiving this award, particularly in view of the critical stance which he has in the past at times taken on such sensitive issues as the Armenian question and human rights in Turkey..."


A reminder that another favorite tactic of Armenian propaganda is to point to Turkish government awards given to Western contra-genocide scholars as "proof" that the scholars are "agents of the Turkish government." Hopefully, the above will blast the lid off that particular prevarication.

Luigi Villari

 

With the annexation of Georgia in 1800 Russia further increased the number of her Armenian subjects. Wherever she advanced into Mohammedan countries she found the Armenians friendly and helpful, for they regarded her as their deliverer. Nay, the very generals commanding the Russian invading armies were often Armenians, such as Lazareff and Loris Melikoff. It is indeed safe to say that but for the Armenians, Russia would never have conquered the Caucasus. (P. 146)

We find them as bankers, merchants, shopkeepers, manufacturers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers, and officials all over the Caucasus, and even in European Russia. The Baku oil industry is largely due to Armenian enterprise ; at Tiflis, the ancient capital of Georgia, the Armenians form over a third of the population, have practically all the business of the town in their hands, own most of the house property, and constitute 80 per cent, of the town council. Even in the Russian army Armenians occupied high positions; the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian forces in the Asiatic campaign of 1877 was General Loris Melikoff, an Armenian from Lori, and one of his ablest lieutenants was General Ter-Gukassoff, also an Armenian. The same Loris Melikoff afterwards became chief Minister to Alexander II... (pp. 147-48)

When we come to the question of character, we find yet further causes of hatred. The outward characteristics of the Armenian are not attractive. “He produces,” according to an Armenian writer, “ anything but a pleasing impression on those with whom he comes in social contact. He is reserved, brusque, rude; his egotism and amour propre are excessive; and he is often arrogant to the verge of insult. Though undeniably honourable in all business relations and careful of the rights of others, he is often cruel and merciless in maintaining his own rights. An excellent husband and father, and passionately attached to his home, his conduct towards strangers is often selfish and arrogant. He is cautious and suspicious, and though capable of deep feeling, is averse from any show of emotion. He is wholly lacking in the great talent of making himself agreeable in social intercourse. ... He is not so much devoid of delicacy of feeling, as boorish and unsociable. In general he shows a want of genuine kind-heartedness, and of that habit of mind which is disposed to treat all men as friends.” Of course this is not true of the whole people, and in any case applies chiefly to the urban classes; in my own experience I have met many Armenians whose manners and habits were those of men and women of the world, and among whom, apart from their kindness and hospitality to me, I felt myself in the company of polished Europeans. The hospitality of the Armenians is very great, although seldom accompanied by courtly manners. The result is that they are usually unpopular; and to their real defects others are added by their enemies, which find easy credence among those who cannot get over their unconciliating behaviour. The Armenians also enjoy a reputation for sharp and not always straight business methods, and they are accused of being usurers. (pp. 161-63)

"Fire and Sword in the Caucasus," 1906

Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett

 

A widespread Armenian revolutionary conspiracy was therefore organized and subsidised in Russia, and even patronised by the Russian Ambassador at Constantinople. The aims of this most barbarous and wicked plot were made public some time before its denoument.

A very shrewd and able correspondent of Reuter's Agency, who travelled throughout the Armenian districts of Asia Minor, wrote in March 1894:—The plan of the Armenian revolutionists was to provoke by the atrocities upon Mussulmans such cruelty, atrocity, outrage, butchery that Christian humanity would rise in wrath. It will be the helpless women and children who will suffer most. The revolutionary leaders know that it will be so; in fact, they count upon it as the chief factor in their success.

The same correspondent wrote the remarkable prediction that the 'chief attack will be made in the city of Constantinople itself, and that the brunt of the fighting will be borne by the Armenian residents therein.'

These prophecies, written in March 1894, were literally fulfilled in Sassun in July and August, 1894, and in Constantinople on September 30th, 1895.

Before any real atrocities to any appreciable extent had taken place cannot be explained merely on the ground of journalistic anxiety to satisfy an unwholesome popular craving. It was the result of a carefully planned and organised propaganda, whose agents were in some cases mercenary, in others innnocent through willing victims of deceit. All of the stories and many of the telegrams originally came form the same persons and locality, and from the same organization, viz., from a group of ingenious Armenian conspirators who were mostly inside the Russian frontier, between Karoungan and Tiflis. Some of these conspirators were on Turkish territory in and around Erzeroum itself.


Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, M.P., The Battlefields of Thessaly: With Personal Experiences in Turkey and Greece, pp. 30-33 (1897). (The author was also behind the pamphlet, Armenian "Atrocity" Agitation, Its Genesis, Method, Truth and Consequences, London, February 1895. Thanks to Kemal, for the book excerpt.)