379) The U.S. Senate rejects the Armenians' mandate

Christian Scholar Sam Weems, in his "Armenia -- Secrets of a 'Christian' Terrorist State," provided powerful research regarding Congressional discussion as to whether to take on the Armenians' mandate. As you may know, at the end of W.W.I, England and France were spent, and looked to the USA to do their dirty work. They were falling all over themselves to allow a minority of Armenians to rule over a majority of Muslims, but the strong arm of a superpower was needed to enforce this imperialist plan. Preacher's son President Woodrow ("There ain't gonna be no Turkey") Wilson hoped to make this scheme into a reality, but American democracy was a hurdle to . . . overcome.

In the following testimony, one wonders why there aren't smart, fair evaluators among the prejudiced and/or Armenian-driven politicians the world over who vote on meaningless "Armenian Genocide" resolutions. Truly, Senator Reed is an exception. He took the trouble to consider more than one side of the story, and clearly saw General Harbord's pro-Armenian, pro-"Christian" report.

What's more, Senator Reed came upon a brilliant and original reason as to why the "genocide" couldn't have happened. See the section, What of the Armenians?, where the senator compares the Armenians with Americans, were the latter to find themselves at the hands of an exterminating enemy.

Let's begin with a little background:


(Pgs. 306-307:)

The Armenian government, with the help of the Armenian Church, concocted the first "foreign nation" scam in U.S. history. The very ill president was fleeced and deceived by the Armenians. Clearly, he did all he could do to try to help Armenia. Once the U.S. Senate rejected the president’s request for the mandate, the Armenians turned on him.
General James G. Harbord

General James G. Harbord

Before President Wilson requested the mandate he sent Major General James G. Harbord to Turkey and Armenia on a fact-finding mission. General Harbord was named Chief of the American Military Mission. General Harbord wrote in his report dated October 19, 1919:

"For years America has been very keenly alive to the sufferings of the Armenians. America has also given large sums, through its missionary agents in Armenia, through its Red Cross work, and recently in the distribution of food and supplies for the destitute of all races in the Near East."(5)

The general goes on to write about his early Christian knowledge:

In the old family Bible the name Armenia generally appears for a country south of the Caucasus with its center near Mount Ararat, extending across Asia Minor in the general direction of Alexandretta. We know that the power of the Armenian kings extended for a time to the Mediterranean and to Sivas in the West, which was once the seat of the Armenian kings. The map of Armenia, which their delegates would have us consider, is bounded on the north by the Black Sea, Georgia and Azerbaijan, and extends in a south easterly direction to include the cities of Alexandretta and Mersina on the Mediterranean. (6)

The general makes a very pro-Christian, anti-Muslim report. He uses as evidence what he is told by Armenians rather than conducting an American-directed fact-finding mission. However, because he did use Armenian information as fact, his reports make for interesting reading. He states: "The massacres of 1915-16 totaled some 600,000 of whom not less than 500,000 came from within the borders of this new proposed state. Probably an equal number were deported from the same area."(7)

Today, Armenians claim that 1.5 million are massacred, yet the Armenians of 1919 who were lobbying General Harbord claim only 600,000 were massacred. The general says the Armenians claim another 500,000 were deported. These are close to the actual count of some 1 million Armenians being in Anatolia.

How can this be? If there were only 1.1 million living in eastern Anatolia as General Harbord stated, how could the Turks massacre 1.5 of them? Isn’t this yet one more of the many examples of Christian Armenians keeping two sets of books?

From the time the General left Paris on his mission, Armenians told him that "the Turks under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha were making extensive preparations to attack Armenia from across the borders. That Mustafa Kemal Pasha had distributed 60,000 rifles with ammunition and grenades to the Turkish civilian population in the vicinity of Erzurum, and had organized divisions and bands. It was stated that one purpose of this movement was to prevent the return of Armenians to their homes. Although I would not trust Mustafa Kemal Pasha, we saw nothing to confirm this in Paris report."(8)

This is nothing more than yet another tall tale that the Ar­menians would become famous of making up and telling. The actual truth is that it would be the Armenians, who in a few months, would "begin extensive preparations" to attack the Turks. Armenians claimed Georgia was making plans to invade, when in truth, it was Armenia who invaded Georgia in a land-grab attempt. The Armenians licked their wounds and claimed that Azerbaijan was "making extensive preparations" to attack them.



5. 66th Congress 2nd session Doc. No. 281
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid. p 14
8. Ibid. p 15

U.S. Senate Says 'No' to Armenians


(Pgs. 310-321)


Senator Brandegee pointed out how Mr. Gerard of Armenia was lobbying the State Department and the Senate. The Senator also talked about how the Armenian Church was directly involved in the lobby efforts of the U.S. Senate. The senator said:
James Gerard

Armenophile James Gerard

Mr. President, the Senator from Massachusetts put into the record this morning a statement, addressed to our State Department, and formulated by Mr. Gerard, who was recently ambassador to Germany, setting forth what would be of substantial aid and assistance to the Armenian people, with whom everybody sympathizes in their troubles. There appeared before several members, at least of the Foreign Relations Committee, a delegation visiting the members of the committee, consisting of the bishop or archbishop of Erzurum — I suppose his jurisdiction goes over a large part of Armenia — together with the minister or ambassador or whatever his title may be, from Armenia and a noted and distinguished Armenian who is a college professor in Yale University.

Senator Reed of Missouri was very direct in his observations. He noted that France had accepted a mandate over Syria and England had taken Mesopotamia. "Now we are asked to take charge of the so-called Republic of Armenia. The plain intend­ment of the whole business is that we will do in Armenia exactly what is being done by France and England."

The senator went on to say:

Let us see England had troops in Armenia, and England withdrew them. She said, 'We will take care of Mesopotamia, and no more.' France had troops in Armenia and she withdrew them. She said, 'We will take care of Syria and no more.' England took jurisdiction over Palestine. She did not take a mandate in Persia; she took Persia. Then she went north of the new territory of Armenia as mapped out, and she took Caucasus as is indicated on the map clear up to the sea of Azov. She seized that territory because it embraced the rich oil fields of Batum and Baku. There was left Armenia, a country of mountains and waste places. The question was asked in the British parliament why England had not continued in Armenia? This is what Lloyd-George said on the 29th day of April, speaking to parliament.

The British Prime Minister was quoted as saying that neither Great Britain, France, nor Italy was able to undertake a mandate for Armenia because it would have involved heavy military resources for a great conquest if the Arme­nians were to have anything more than a paper Armenia. (14)

The senator went on to observe: "This country lies 6,000 miles from our shores. The proposed Armenia embraces a large part of what was formerly Turkey. In fact, the Turkish Empire is cut in two and a part of it is denominated by Armenia. To this has been added, toward the east and northeast, another large body of land formerly under Russian control. The whole comprises a strip of land extending from the Mediterranean almost to the Caspian Sea. It lies immediately north of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia. As I have stated, the Turkish Empire is thus cut in two."(15)


JAMES A. REED OF MISSOURI



Sen. James Reed

"The important thing is that he fights. Were there greater gladiators in the Senate in the Golden Age? I presume to doubt it," editorialized "usually cynical journalist" H. L. Mencken (in American Mercury, April, 1929), of Senator James A. Reed. "The reward of such a man is bound to be a sort of ill fame. Frauds hate him, and dullards find him disquieting. In the midst of a democracy based upon false pretenses, his instinct for the harsh and horrible fact is essentially anti-social."

James Alexander Reed, 1861–1944, was a senator from 1911-1929. He adamantly opposed national prohibition and U.S. participation in the League of Nations, and was a 1928 contender for the Democratic presidential nomination

Senator Reed sounds like the rare breed who gives politicians a good name. More of his exploits may be read at pages.prodigy.net/krtq73aa/ownman.htm/.


Hornet's Nest

Senator Reed thereupon shared a part of U.S. Army General Harbord’s report:

We estimate a total of perhaps half a million refugee Arme­nians as available to eventually begin life anew in a region about the size of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

This Trans-Caucasian region is ethnographically one of the most complicated in the world. In all ages it has been one of the great highways for mankind. Here stragglers and racial remnants have lodged during all the centuries that the tides of migration have swept the base of the great Caucasus Range, until today its small area contains five great racial groups, divided into some 40 distinct races. Nine of these have arrived in comparatively recent times, but the remaining 31 are more or less indigenous. There are here 25 purely Caucasian races. This racial diversity is complicated by the fact that with the exception of the fairly compact group of Georgians and one of Tartars these peoples are inextricably commingled throughout the region. Their civilization varies from the mountain savage to individuals of the highest types. Of the 40 district races the most important groups are the Georgians, the Azerbaijanis, Tartars, and the Armenians. (16)

Senator Reed thereafter stated: "Let us for a moment further consider the hornet's nest which we are invited to enter. The country over which we are asked to accept a mandate is surrounded by over 250,000,000 Mohammedans, on every side it is bounded by Mohammedans. It may be interesting to some of the members of the Senate to know that Mohammedanism is gaining proselytes faster probably than is Christianity. Proselytizing for the Mohammedan faith has been going on for a long period of time. Its activities for a decade have been enor­mously multiplied."(17)

Senator Reed voiced great wisdom when he said: “Let those who talk about 'the unspeakable Turk', who treat with contumely the moor; who refer in scan to the Mohammedan religion, remember that it counts as its adherents 250,000,000 of the earth's inhabitants. Will such a people thus united by religion and largely of blood kin forever submit to robbery, to plunder; and to mastery?"


Acts of robbery


What has been perpetrated against them? England concluded she wanted Egypt. She took it at the point of the sword. Was there opposition? We heard but little of it; and yet, sir, in 1915 England had to withdraw enormous forces from points on the front where they were needed in order to put down the rebellions that were started.

But for a moment let me digress from that immediate thought. France, without any more title to the country than the United States had, proceeded by armed force to take possession of immense territories in Algiers. It was an act of robbery, by force major, pure and simple, and England but recently, with the hand of steel, wearing, it is true, the glove of diplomacy, has taken possession of Persia. By the sword she has seized Mesopotamia.

I think we may say that last act is justifiable as a punishment for the war and that there is a title, a war title, a blood title, to that land. France has taken Syria. They call it a mandate, but it is an armed invasion and an armed holding. Again, that title of France, based upon this war may have some kind of justification in our mind. These, however, are only a few of the instances of cold-blooded and deliberate invasion and robbery that have been going on for many years. (18)

Senator Reed continued his speech to the U.S. Senate by discussing the religion of Islam.

I am speaking of the Moslem world as a whole, not of just Turkey. I have already said that this Moslem world is bound together by a religious tie, and I am not dreaming. I am voicing a fear that has been expressed by the statesmen of the world for many years, viz, that these continued wrongs and outrages are the seed from which a bloody crop some will day be harvested.

Returning now to a theme that I started to discuss a moment ago, I challenge attention to the fact that the Moslem world is united, and in the most dangerous way united, that the menace is recent, and that at any time it may become manifested in a tremendous uprising.

That is the hornet's nest into which we are invited. Land after land has been taken by the sword. People after peoples have been brought into subjection, a rule by martial law substantially established the fires of hate have been set burning in the hearts of 250,000,000 people. Revolt after revolt has occurred; revolt after revolt will occur so long as these people cling to their faith, so long as they have the blood of courage in their veins.

Now, sir, the proposition is that there shall be carved out a strip of territory substantially extending from the Caspian to the Black Sea and stretching southward to the Mediterranean. That strip of territory cuts the Moslem world in two. It is proposed that America shall assume the control and management of the country thus created. With all due respect to any critic who splits hairs at phraseology, I say that whoever accepts the mandate must defend the country.

That means, sir, that if the Moslem world shall seek to throw off the thralldom of England, France, or Italy, The soldiers of the United States will form the wall of flesh and blood which will be expected to break the force of the Moslem assault. I pass no reflection upon Gen. Harbord, but whoever reads his report will see that as far as possible he undertook to sustain a mandate in Armenia.

Yet he states there must be 60,000 troops there at the present time. Now, let us see what is likely to happen if we have 60,000 American boys in this worse than a cockpit of the world, in this bloody forum every inch of which is saturated with the gore, which has been poured from the veins of men for 3,000 years. There will be an attack. These peoples are never at peace. I have already shown that the new republics, or so-called republics, are at war at this present hour (19)


What of the Armenians?

Senator Reed and the U.S. Senate were wise in rejecting the Armenian mandate. History has shown the Muslim world did rise up against the conquest of their lands by the English and French. Both England and France paid a bloody price for attempting to occupy Muslim lands and in the end they were forced to retreat and abandon their World War I conquests.

The Armenians made up their claims about how the Turks slaughtered and massacred 1.5 million of their people. Senator Reed, on the floor of the U.S. Senate, questioned how the Armenians could have allowed such a thing to happen. The truth was there were very few Turkish law enforcement officers or soldiers traveling with the properly deported Armenians.

Senator Reed spoke to this question:

What of the Armenians? I belong to that class of men who never attack a race as a race, for I know of no race that has ever attained to any degree of civilization that has not pos­sessed many virtues and that has not produced some men of eminence that they would adorn any other country by their presence and citizenship. But when we speak of this question, we must consider the aggregate, and what of the Armenians in this aggregate?

To begin with, if he was the right kind of man, speaking broadly, the things that have occurred could never have hap­pened. We are told that Armenians have been slaughtered, entire families put to death, without a hand being raised. We read stories of Turkish soldiers coming to a home, murdering the entire family, including the husband and father, like so many pigs, and that no one was killed save the Armenians. That would not be possible with our race. If a massacre were proclaimed in this country by some dominate race we might be massacred, but our lives would be sold and paid for 10 to 1.

It has happened many times in our history -- little frontier settlements of only a few men and women in the forest have been attacked by overwhelming hordes of savages -- but whoever heard of an American frontiersman laying down his gun while the Indians slit his wife's throat and scalped his children? Always we read the story of windows barred and doors closed and of firing until the last bullet was gone, then of the battle with the clubbed rifle until the defender of the home was stretched stark upon the sward. Then, and not until then, did they get at his wife and babies. (20)

What would Senator Reed have said if he had known the Armenian Church had preached rebellion and taught its flock to arm themselves? The evidence is overwhelming that individual Armenians were indeed heavily armed when World War I began. What Senator Reed says is true — a people of any character would have defended themselves under such conditions. The Ottoman removal caravans were undisputed to have been overwhelmingly Armenian.

The question begs to be asked: Because the Armenians were heavily armed, why did they just stand by and allow their wives and children, parents and grandparents to be slaughtered? The truth is Armenians would not have just stood aside and allowed 1.5 million (or any number for that matter) to be murdered in cold blood with out a fight.

The heartbeat of truth



The Armenians claim to be brave and fearless warriors who played an important role in helping the Allies win World War I (although there is much evidence to the contrary that Armenians did much of anything). If they were such brave and fearless people why didn't they defend themselves from the "terrible Turk" that they hated so much?

Senator Reed has put his finger on the heartbeat of truth. There was no Turkish massacre because there was no attempt of self-defense. The Armenian Church priest who conceived the idea for this tall tale realized his story would sound better if he said "massacre" and "slaughter."

Senator Reed carefully examined all of General Harbord’s report in concluding that he did not believe the Armenian "slaughter" and "massacre" story.

General James Harbord

But I step aside for a moment to call attention to the evidence of the character of this people, and as I do so I challenge your thought to the statement I made a moment ago that General Harbord wrote as favorable report as he could. I find here page after page devoted to the most pathetic accounts of the slaughter of Armenians and the cruelties of the Turks. They are painted not so much with the pen of the military writer, who generally deals in hard, cold facts without ornamentation, but rather they are expressed by the brush of a master artist of diction, who has expressed all of his ability, presented in a single sentence, is a fearful statement; I give it as a picture of the Armenians by the friend of the Armenians. The author has just concluded this graphic depiction of Turkish cruelties, of women ravished, of children starved, of houses burned, of cities plundered, and people dragged into slavery or worse than slavery by the Turks. Then comes this statement:

In the territory untouched by war from which Armenians were deported the ruined villages are undoubtedly due to Turkish deviltry, but where Armenians advanced and retired with the Russians their retaliatory cruelties unquestionably rivaled the Turks in their inhumanity. (21)






Senator Reed calls attention to another statement General Harbord made in his report:

The Armenian is not guiltless of blood himself; his memory is long and reprisals are due, and will doubtless be made if opportunity offers. Racially allied to the wild Aryan Kurd, he is cordially hated by the latter. Kurds appealed to this mission with tears in their eyes to protect them from Armenians who had driven them from their villages, appealing to be allowed to go back to their homes for protection against the rigorous winter now rapidly approaching on the high interior plateau. The Kurds claim that many of their people were massacred under the most cruel circumstances by Armenian irregulars accompanying the Russian Bolshevists when the Russian Army went to pieces after the collapse of the empire.

Similar claim is made by the people of Erzurum, who point to burned buildings in which hundreds of Turks perished, and by the authorities of Hassan-Kala, who give the number of villages destroyed by the Armenians in their great plain as 43. According to British Counsel Stevens, at Batum, these statements were verified by a commission which examined into the allegations and which Armenians had representation. In Baku the massacre of 2,000 Azerbaijanese by Armenians in March, 1918, was followed by the killing of 4,000 Armenians by Azerbaijanese in November of the same year (22)

Proof of the senator’s statements are found in the pages of the personal diary written by Lieutenant Colonel Tverdokhleboff, a Russian who was the provisional Commandant of the Fortresses of Erzurum and Deveboynu, commanding the 2nd Artillery Regiment, Erzurum. The colonel states "the Russian Army of the Caucasus evacuated the stations they had previously occupied towards the middle of December 1917, without having orders from G.H.Q or any of the Army commanders, began their withdrawal." The colonel and other officers remained in Erzurum because they had not received orders to retreat.

The Russian colonel states that after the Russian troops left, an Armenian Revolutionary committee was set up in Erzurum. He writes in his diary: "Towards the middle of January 1918, some Armenians of the infantry detachment murdered a Turkish notable of Erzurum in his dwelling and looted the house.

"This was the beginning of horrors committed by Armenians on Turks. The Russian notes that "in those days the Armenians were perpetrating indescribably cruel murders among the poor Turkish inhabitants of the neighborhood of Erzindjan; the Turks were unarmed and without any means of self-defense." See a completed diary account (23) Senator Reed was exactly right to conclude that the Armenians did not have clean hands and were guilty of committing terrible crimes against the Turks. The Armenians never brought a single criminal charge nor objected to these acts of terror in any way.

On this point Senator Reed said:

so that it is a case of eastern barbarism on both sides, each of them responding to the hate of centuries, each of them pursuing the same methods and tactics. Over this cesspool of criminality, of cruelty, of villainy, of race hatred the United States is asked to assume control, and to do it because the countries that have, speaking broadly, stolen the lands of these people all over the world decline to take control because it is expensive. As usual — and I am going to use the slang expression, as much as it may be out of place in the Senate — Uncle Sam is to hold the sack. As I have said, when once they are drawn in, when once a single American soldier has shed his blood then America must stand back of the issue. (24)



This is exactly what happened in Vietnam. Once American soldiers were killed, the United States was honor bound to make a total commitment to the war. Had the United States made such a commitment to Armenia in 1920 — Armenia would have become the first Vietnam of the twentieth century. The U.S. Senate used good judgment in not placing American boys in harm’s way just to give a gaggle of ungrateful Armenians lands belonging to Muslims. Both the English and the French learned this lesson the hard way; countless numbers of their young men died before the Muslim world forced them out of the lands they occupied. Had Americans been in Armenia they would have experienced the same results.

There were several reasons the U.S. Senate rejected the Armenians' mandate. Armenia was the cesspool of Europe, the cost was too much, and the United States could never leave this part of the world because of the situation. There were also the needs of the American people as explained by Senator Reed. Senator Reed also spoke of the great needs of Americans. He questioned the wisdom of spending three-quarters of a billion dollars or more, committing some 72,000 American troops more than 6,000 miles from home.

The senator said, "We are asked to enter upon this mandate while the gravest tasks at home remain unfulfilled. Eleven per cent of our people are unable to read and write; our school teachers paid wages that frequently are not equivalent of the hire of the ordinary servant girl. Our school children are insufficiently supplied with textbooks. All this in a land the government of which rests upon the intelligence of the governed.

Here are unexampled resources not yet developed -- rivers to be harnessed, swamp lands to be reclaimed, desert stretches to be irrigated, wonderful natural resources not yet employed. Here are 20,000,000 acres of overflowed land in the Mississippi Valley alone as rich as is the soil of the treasured valley of the Nile, and yet when we came to the rivers and harbors appropriation we cut it to a meager 12,000,000 dollars upon the claim that the money could not be spared. The entire sum would, in my opinion, not support an army of sixty thousand men in Armenia for one month's time. Here are our people driving over dirt roads, hauling produce to market over country lanes, wast­ing time and energies that are of incalculable account, because we have not asked, like the foolish crusaders of medieval times, to go into other lands to waste our energies, playing cat's-paw for the designing rulers of the great nations of Europe.

"But, while we do all this, there are not only ignorant people in our country but there are unfortunate people. There is not a city of this land where little children are not crowded together in hovels, where women are not working in sweat-shops, where mothers are not looking through eyes blinded with tears at the pinched faces of the weans they love. There is not a place in all this land but contains some brain pinched by the vise of circum­stances, of some child or youth denied development because there is not money enough to go around."(25)

Senator Robinson of Arkansas commented that "for years generous citizens of the United States have contributed enormous sums to charitable funds designed to relieve oppression. It is the consensus of opinion of those who have investigated con­ditions in Armenia that such relief is only temporary in character and is in no sense adequate to the demands of the situation."(26)

The question readily comes to mind: Now that the United States is making an average of annual 100-million-dollar payments in foreign aid more than eighty years after Senator Robinson made this statement, would the Senator consider that -- 100 million dollars per year as of 2002 enough temporary funding for the tiny place called Armenia? When will all this unlimited giving by Americans to Armenians end? There is no end in sight based on the logic of the U.S. Congress.




14. Congressional Record, 1920 p. 7889.
15. Ibid. p. 7896.
16. Ibid. p. 7896.
17. Ibid. p. 7897.
18. Ibid. p. 7897.
19. Ibid. p. 7897.
20. Ibid. p. 7898.
21. Ibid. p. 7898.
22. Ibid. p. 7899.
23. Exhibit # 2
24. Congressional Record, 1920 p. 7891.
25. Ibid. p. 7891.
26. Ibid. p. 7891.

A Few Observations


While General Harbord deserves credit for acknowledging some crimes of the Armenians, it is most unimpressive that he decided to have downplay the crimes of the Armenians. He saw the truth when he met Ataturk ("Harbord was bid farewell in the same sincere and proud manner that he was greeted by the people who had nothing to hide. While shaking General Karabekir's hand he loudly said; 'I saw the truth on location'.") The factors at play here must have been a combination of the Armenians who overwhelmingly had his ear, his deep Christianity, and the fact that his boss, President Wilson, had an agenda. It wasn't that the Armenians' "retaliatory cruelties unquestionably rivaled the Turks in their inhumanity." Frequently, the Armenians conceived of and committed the beastliest acts, and they didn't need further imagination to accuse the Turks of performing the same, when they whispered into the ear of those such as Harbord. The inhuman acts the Turks have been accused of almost always boil down to hearsay. As usual, the Armenians were behind the first shot, and any cruelties of the Turks were the ones that were retaliatory... the general had the order — and the degree of inhumanity — wrong.

As far as Senator Reed's thought-provoking argument regarding why there could not have been a genocide, I'd like to cite Leon Sumerlian's "I Ask You, Ladies and Gentleman," to examine further. As a nine-year-old boy, Sumerlian was an "eyewitness" to a "deportation," where he reports terrible acts that had been committed against the Armenians. After the Armenians of Trebizond get the order to move out in a week's time, the village leaders discuss their options. Sumerlian's father, a conservative who was not into the fanatical Dashnak mentality, convincingly states there wouldn't be much to be done:

"What we should do is to escape to the mountains, as many of us as possible, and fight our way to the Russian lines." This proposal thrilled me. Oh, boy, how I would fight! "Don’t talk nonsense. It will be sheer suicide. Fight with what? Can we muster up fifteen rifles?"

This is a plausible conversation. We are talking about civilians against the armed might of an army.

However, the fact is, many Ottoman-Armenian men did do exactly as what was suggested, and many who had been drafted into the army also deserted to the enemy, with their weapons. Every town had caches of arms in preparation for the glorious revolt that the author of the above book was not going to touch upon (assuming he learned of the real history years afterwards; his intention was to focus on "extermination" efforts), and there was access to a lot more than "fifteen rifles." There were thousands of Armenian fighters within Ottoman lines, acting as a fifth column, likely comprising the bulk of the 50,000 "volunteers" Boghos Nubar reported. This was a formidable force, and a significant military threat — particularly in a life or death struggle where every Ottoman was desperately needed at multiple fronts.

Surmelian reports that the villagers first believed they would be peacefully resettled, but as the day of the march draws near (in his chapter entitled the "Highway of Death"), they became savvy — unlike most Jews of the Holocaust — that they would all be murdered.

Consider: while the civilian men of the village might not have proven effective (but they were still men, men who came to believe their wives and children would be killed off... and some had contact with the revolutionary committees), where were these thousands of fighters? Thousands of fighters who would have made mincemeat of the handful of (sometimes newly recruited, and poor-quality) gendarmes guarding the caravans?

If you were a man, had access to weaponry via carefully prepared secret storehouses, and came to believe your women and children were to be exterminated, would you have taken it lying down?

Those who don't want to go down the territory that Armenian men were not real men then must arrive at only one other possibility: The Armenians who were transported were not planned to be systematically murdered. History has borne this out; the majority of Armenians went on to survive, and those who died mostly did so under the causes of famine and disease... the same factors that targeted all Ottomans, including the nearly 3 million Turks and Muslims.

© Holdwater
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