2314) Mass Grave Discovered in Eastern Turkey by Michael van der Galien

A mass grave has been discovered in the Eastern Turkish city of Bitlis. Researches said that some 20,000 corpses were buried in it. The individuals were Turks, probably killed by Armenian militias and Cossacks. “The bones in the graveyard found in Mutki belong to children, women and the elderly, as well as soldiers.” . .

According to one of the researchers, “Cossacks and local Armenian gangs massacred approximately 20,000 people in the Kavakbaşı village of Mutki” when the Russians invaded Bitlis for the first time in 1915.

He commented: “The violence here will be shown as proof. The Armenians know how to accuse Turkey of genocide with bills, but they either do not know their history or they simply choose to ignore it. Here is proof of who really massacred whom.”

We’ll just let the facts speak for themselves.

January 29, 2008

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Comments »

1
E10ddie
January 29, 2008 @ 10:53 pm CET

Edited by MvdG: nationalist Armenians who declare war on all those who dare disagree with them aren’t welcome here. Especially not when they personally insult the author or anyone else for that matter.

2
MewMillion
January 29, 2008 @ 11:40 pm CET

Two questions:
From the very first preliminary report I heard about this in the Turkish press, the thousands of bodies were all called Turkish. There was never any sort of indication how they knew the bones were Turkish, since obviously on the inside everyone’s the same and don’t have nationalities tattooed on them. I even heard a report some years back about one grave of 8 "Turkic" bodies and one "Armenoid" body. If you want to consider superficial differences like higher cheekbones in Turks maybe you can extrapolate the potential ethnicity- but overall there’s no way to tell- especially in a place as genetically mixed as Anatolia. Maybe a few of the bodies were found with a piece of uniform or a button to tie them to a certain group, however there’s no way a massive grave and one found so recently without time for much study to be declared one full of Turks- let alone killed by Armenians. There’s just to way to determine this stuff nor a reason to believe it without compelling evidence listed as to where they got these conclusions from.
This is not Armenian spin or propaganda- this is purely being rational with the information given. It’s vital to turn a critical eye to claims on all sides, especially ones such as bombastic as this.

Second question:
This is the largest in a line of other graves found in Turkey in the past few years. Very often a common line I hear from the Turkish side is if Armenian Genocide is real then where are the bodies? Excellent question. The Turkish government recognizes at least 300,000 Armenians DID die during the 1915-period, yet every single grave the Turkish government has discovered is almost automatically decreed Turkish (without explaining how they knew this so difinitively). The Turkish government waves this very same "where are the bodies" question as proof the genocide is fake- and yet according to their own account this means about 300,000 bodies did vanish. Why are these mass graves only ever Turkish when all agree many Armenians died as well? Is it impossible to conceive that at least some of these mass graves are Armenians being attributed to Turks. Can you even imagine the Turkish government announcing they found a mass grave of 20,000 Armenians? That’d totally fly in the face of what they’re trying to say. It seems like by default they’d of course say they’re Turks in every grave and so far that’s what they’ve done.

3
Orhan Kelebek
January 29, 2008 @ 11:42 pm CET

I’m sure the bones found belong to massacred Armenians. But leave it to Turkey to call them "Turkish bones" and use it as propaganda to further their lies.
Not long ago, there were bones found in eastern Turkey. The military prevented the press or anyone else from investigating. I guess that looked too suspicious. So, this time they are calling them "Turkish bones".
Keep up the good work Turkey!

4
Michael van der Galien
January 29, 2008 @ 11:46 pm CET

lol: suuuure. Because they’re not allowing other people to check if they so want huh? O wait, those are the Armenians doing that. Ah well.

Anyway, mass graves with Turks have been found all over Turkey. It’s sad, but the Armenian militias were mass murderers. Time to come to terms with your past I’d say.

5
MewMillion
January 29, 2008 @ 11:55 pm CET

" Because they’re not allowing other people to check if they so want huh?"

It’s not even just that, it’s that they’ve never even explained how they knew bones were Turkish. Look at a pile of bones. Can you tell be femur length or finger bone shape if it was a Turk or Armenian? Bitlis was a heavily Armenian populated area and one where very few survived. I’m just asking you to have a discerning eye when considering these accounts- you so easily discount everything Armenians say as automatic lies and yet embrace everything from the Turkish government without proof. At least if they made an attempt to explain how one can tell from a bone it’s a Turk or Armenian- two peoples who often look extremely similar- then ok. But they don’t even try, they merely say 20,000 Turks who were murdered- by Armenians of course- have been found… the genocide is a lie and it was a genocide of Armenians on Turks. If you can tell us why you find this paragraph devoid of information and verifiable fact so trustworthy then ok, but I think it’s quite clear that this does not answer any historical questions but merely opens up some modern day ones.

6
Michael van der Galien
January 29, 2008 @ 11:57 pm CET

Yeah MM: sure. Good point. MAde up. Fake. Etc. I’ll remember to play that game when they find a grave with Armenians.

7
Juan
January 30, 2008 @ 12:54 am CET

Edited by MvdG: we’re not into comparing people to Nazis. It doesn’t work. Aside from that, the mass graves show that it weren’t the Turks who were the Nazis here.

8
Lazlee
January 30, 2008 @ 1:26 am CET

Michael, I’m beginning to think you should leave comments from the mad Ultranationalist Armenians up and expose them for the extremists and racists they are in their very own words.

In answer to the questions above, archeologists are able to identify the religious group with which the victims were associated with because along with the bones are other remnants, such as jewelry, cigarette cases, etc., stamped with Islamic symbols–not something large numbers of Armenians were likely to be carrying.

Before WWI, the Ottoman Muslim population of Bitlis was 30,000. After WWI, it was reduced to 4,000. So, what happened to 26,000 Ottoman muslims?

Pity MM and OK, they don’t even know their own history … and can’t bear to hear the truth. I suppose they don’t even read the writings of their own Armenian Revolutionaries published before the 1930, in which they admit they fought and killed Turks.

Nor have they read the Russian archives in which Russian military officials describe massacres committed by Armenian militias in eastern Anatolia.

Nor do they seem to know that Armenians lost French support for the formation of "greater" Armenia due to the enormity of the atrocities they committed against Ottoman Muslims after the Armistice of Mudros.

Captain Emory Niles and Mr. Arthur Sutherland were Americans ordered by the United States Government (in 1919) to investigate the situation in eastern Anatolia. Their report was to be used as the basis for granting relief aid to the Armenians by the American Committee for Near East Relief. The following is an excerpt from their report:

"In the entire region from Bitlis through Van to Bayezit we were informed that the damage and destruction had been done by the Armenians, who, after the Russians retired, remained in occupation of the country and who, when the Turkish army advanced, destroyed everything belonging to the Musulmans. Moreover, the Armenians are accused of having committed murder, rape arson and horrible atrocities of every description upon the Musulman population. At first we were most incredulous of these stories, but we finally came to believe them, since the testimony was absolutely unanimous and was corroborated by material evidence. For instance, the only quarters left at all intact in the cities of Bitlis and Van are the Armenian quarters, as was evidenced by churches and inscriptions on the houses, while the Musulman quarters were completely destroyed. Villages said to have been Armenian were still standing whereas Musulman villages were completely destroyed" [U.S. 867.00/1005].

For a complete copy of the report, see http://louisville.edu/a-s/history/turks/Niles_and_Sutherland.pdf

9
Babanian
January 30, 2008 @ 1:36 am CET

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitlis_Province

Bitlis is a province of eastern Turkey, located to the west of Lake Van. Kurds form the majority.[1] The capital of the province is the city Bitlis.

A folk etymology explanation of the name Bitlis, is that it is derived from “Bedlis”, the name of the commander who built a castle in the province, by the order of Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia. The history of Bitlis extends back to 2000 BC, and the city contains traces from the Urartian, Armenian, Persian, Roman, and Byzantine periods.

It was known as the Kurdish principality Badlis from the 12th to the 19th century. The region was also the home of the 16th century Kurdish historian, Sherefxan Bedlisi (also: Sharaf al-Din Bitlisi), who was also an appointed prince of the Persian and later Ottoman Empires.

Bitlis had a significant population of ethnic Armenians prior to 1915. During the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1917, Turks and Kurds led by Jevdet Bey Pasha massacred some 15,000 Armenians until Russian troops, who were subsequently viewed as liberators by the survivors, moved into the area.[2]

10
Lazlee
January 30, 2008 @ 2:04 am CET

You cite Wikipedia? An open source in which anyone can write anything and Ultranationalist Armenians are known to babysit pages they’ve authored setting forth their genocide claims and completely avoiding any discussion of massacres committed by Armenian Revolutionaries?

By the way, Niles and Sutherland, those are primary sources. Do you happen to know what a primary source is "oh one who seems to think he’s Jesus"? One could say your chosen moniker seems to expose a tendancy towards megalomania.

11
Ozan
January 30, 2008 @ 2:23 am CET

More Armenian bones found in Turkey and sold to the world as "turkish bones". Also Lazee next time don’t place a url which points to a "historians" writings who is known to have received grants from the government of turkey to push turkish denial.

12
Lazlee
January 30, 2008 @ 8:59 am CET

Ok, Ozan let’s apply the same principle to authors promoting genocide claims. Then what are the Armenians left with? NOTHING.

McCarthy is a well respected scholar of Ottoman history and demographics who is employed by an American university from which he receives his salary.

But, please, I encourage you and your compatriots to keep up and even accelerate the attacks on Professor McCarthy so that he finally has the the ammunition he needs to sue Armenians who attack his professional credentials for slander and libel.

Or perhaps, someone will bomb his house and threaten his life, just as was done to Professor Shaw in Los Angeles. After all, that’s the preferred way for Armenians making genocide claims to deal with academicians who publish scholarly works that disprove Armenian genocide claims, right?

13
Michael van der Galien
January 30, 2008 @ 9:56 am CET

Lazlee: they’re trying the same games again huh? It’s utterly amazing. As if someone actually thinks "yeah, those Turks; they won’t let anyone check, they’re dictators!" Everybody knows that Turkey is quite free, and a secular democracy. Unlike their dear Armenia where ultra nationalists and Christianists still rule.

We’ll just do the same when they say something about Armenians, won’t we Lazlee? "Armenian bodies found." "Nope: those were Turks, and I don’t care what scientists say."

The sad truth is that they’re not even ashamed of themselves.

14
thetruth1001
January 30, 2008 @ 11:52 am CET

Edited by MvdG: not interested in personal attacks.

15
Rich
January 30, 2008 @ 3:15 pm CET

Edited by MvdG: yup, not gonna allow that either.

16
Babanian
January 30, 2008 @ 4:28 pm CET

Edited by MvdG: yep, we get it. Turks are awful. Now, when you’re going to admit that your ancestors killed hundreds of thousands of innocent TUrks? Didn’t think so.

17
MewMillion
January 30, 2008 @ 5:04 pm CET

Since when was the definition of what (Turks call) a civil war "finding tens of mass graves of Turks but none of Armenians, of whom we acknowledge hundreds of thousands of whom died."
I don’t get it Michael. You decry Armenians for being blind ultra-national hate mongers and yet you have a burden of proof of 0 when it comes to anything a Turk or Turkey says. If they had announced they found a mass grave of 1 million Turks you’d believe it without question because it reinforces what YOU want to hear.

Instead, we have people here speculating that they probably found a button or cigarette pack or koran in the grave and assuming that’s how they even knew these bones were of Turks killed by Armenians (and Cossacks?) as a way of justifying what is nothing more than a random report of no scientific value and totally devoid of details.

You just need to come to terms with the fact that this issue is no longer about history but about today and that there’s obviously nothing Turkey would do to add fuel to the fire against them. That’s why it’s no coincidence that every single mass grave found in the past decade have been Turks killed by Armenians, despite the fact that seeing as Turkey recognizes 300K Armenians died (and your friend McCarthy actually says 600K). Yet you are gung-ho in insisting that every mass grave in Turkey is Turkish. Michael I’d like to know what your opinion is on the possibility of Turkey announcing an Armenian mass grave being found in Turkey one day (extremely unlikely)? The fact that an alleged Turkish mass grave has been found is being used as proof it was an Armenian Genocide of Turks, so what would a mass grave of Armenians mean? Why do you use the absense of such a mass grave ever being found as proof that there was no Armenian Genocide when according to both Turkey and McCarthy’s numbers there should be 300-600K Armenian bodies all over Anatolia and northern Syria?

18
Michael van der Galien
January 30, 2008 @ 5:14 pm CET

Yeah yeah, go on go on. Just to make this clear: I’m not even arguing about this. Spin it all you want (how much is the Armenian government or are Armenian organizations paying you?), I couldn’t care less. The facts are as reported.

19
Babanian
January 30, 2008 @ 5:54 pm CET

13 Michael van der Galien
January 30, 2008 @ 9:56 am CET
“Everybody knows that Turkey is quite free, and a secular democracy.”

A hell for free souls!

20
Hans A.H.C. de Wit
January 30, 2008 @ 7:09 pm CET

Michael, ever heard about Prof. Zurcher? Leiden, Ankara? Turkish language and history? Decorated by the Republic of Turkey for his work about Turkish culture and languages. Do you know that he support the Armenian claim?

21
John Rohan
January 30, 2008 @ 10:13 pm CET

Two things to keep in mind here:

1) The article says that the investigation of the site is not complete yet

2) For such a controversial topic, it would be far more credible if there was some non-Turkish confirmation of the mass grave site, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks this way. At the very least, I don’t have much confidence in the objectivity of an article that relies on the opinion of Törehan Serdar, who is head of the "Association of Victims of World War I Massacres by Armenians", and says "Here is proof of who really massacred whom".

Also to MvdG: It is your website, after all, you can take whatever side you want. But if you will allow some constructive criticism - the Armenian Genocide has been discussed before on this blog (well, your old one). I disagreed with you, but at least I could see you had an open mind on the issue. It’s a very different Michael I read in this thread - someone who now takes Turkey’s version of events at face value and ridicules the Armenians. Is that really where you want to go with this? Also, removing 5 comments out of 20 in this thread looks a little excessive; like you are trying to censor those that disagree with you. Admittedly, I didn’t get a chance to see the original comments, so I’ll take your word for it that they were all extremely offensive, but the impression remains (I am now wondering if you are going to delete this comment too).

22
MewMillion
January 30, 2008 @ 11:06 pm CET

"Yeah yeah, go on go on. Just to make this clear: I’m not even arguing about this. Spin it all you want (how much is the Armenian government or are Armenian organizations paying you?), I couldn’t care less. The facts are as reported."

Forgive me blogmaster but I am utterly confused. What exactly was I spinning? How was I being an irrational nationalist? Basically you’re telling me to take the word of the head of the Association of Victims of World War I Massacres by Armenians on this that he found a pile of bones and that clearly they’re all a bunch of Turks killed by Armenians without any further facts. According to you though the facts are as reported, even though you have no further inside information on this than the rest of us. All things being equal here, all we have is the word of someone who has gone digging with a motive and that is to find the victims of the Turkish Genocide by Armenians. Not surprisingly he found some bones, so to him they’re automatically Turkish victims. At least if they had listed reasons for believing those 20,000 people were Turks or anything regarding the findings (how do they know there are 20,000 bodies if the excavation isn’t even complete- that’d be a huge number of skeletons to catalogue and ascertain) that’d be one thing.

You keep acting like I’m attacking you when I’ve done no such thing. I just want you to tell me without any facts being presented at all, why I should take the word of the clearly motivated (scientific?) Association of Victims of World War I Massacres by Armenians any more than an Association of Victims of World War I Massacres by Turks? Ask yourself if you’d so willingly accept the incomplete findings of an Association of Victims of World War I Massacres by Turks? If you wouldn’t accept that, what is it about a group with the opposite aim that you find so much more compelling regarding a time when you admit there was killing on both sides- making them both possible to a point.

23
P. Connolly
January 30, 2008 @ 11:49 pm CET

I think that the "Edited" posts are not an indication of an intent to stifle constructive criticism. Past experience on this blog and on so many others shows that these Armenian Agitators want only to spam the blog with their lying propaganda and personal attacks. That’s not constructive criticism and it needs to be blocked. I’d be happy to post links to many examples of the tactics they have used on this forum and on so many others as proof.
Above we see someone asking "Why are all these mass graves only Turkish when we all agree that many Armenians died as well?". Lame question. You Armenians Agitators have fabricated this argument that the Turkish Government never intended to relocate the Armenians, that a "secret plan" existed to exterminate them. You have come here to the West persuading your Christian Brethren that you harbor no ill will toward the Moslem Turks, that you only want "the truth" to be known so that future genocides can be prevented. You seduce our politicians with guaranteed deliveries of huge voting blocks because your "truth" needs legislation! But your "historical sources" have more holes than Swiss Cheese! The mass graves of Armenians are missing because your ancestors didn’t die in a genocide. They died during the breakdown of law and order that existed in Eastern Anatolia in 1915 after huge numbers of able-bodied men were moved from Eastern Anatolia to the Western front after the outbreak of WW1 in 1914. It was anarchy! They died of starvation and disease in a fatally flawed attempt to move them. Many Turks died there of starvation and disease at the same time. And yes, some of them were killed by Turks and Kurds. All of these things happen in a condition of Anarchy - when there is a breakdown of law and order. It would be naive to suggest otherwise!
Armenians need to stop denying the deaths of Turks who were killed by Armenians in the years before 1915 when Armenians allied themselves with Holy Russia in a failed rebellion. Armenians need stop blindly following their leaders and independently seek out the true facts of the tragic events of 1915. Many of us have a fundamental human need to know the true facts surrounding the misfortunes of our ancestors. Armenians have a right to know and the Turks of today are willing to help them.

24
MewMillion
January 31, 2008 @ 12:05 am CET

So basically Connolly you are saying that either 300,000 (Turkish gov. figure) or 600,000 dead (this blog’s fav historian McCarthy’s number) does not occur in mass graves? Please tell me what it is about Turkish deaths which result in mass graves and Armenian ones which do not- or at least where those 600,000 skeletons are hiding if not in Anatolian graves. Or what it is about this particular grave of allegedly 20,000 skeletons which is so verifiably Turkish and not Armenian. You even said right there that as a part of anarchy Armenians were slayed. So why is it totally inconceivable that some of these "Turkish" graves being found by ‘research’ groups created for the soul purpose of proving that Turks were slaughtered in huge numbers by Armenians and ‘Cossacks’ (thrown in for good measure?) could actually be Armenians? What is it that’s so ultranationalist about this view- I have yet to see anyone at this blog contend that there were no slaughters of Armenians, so whether Turks were killed or not why are you so convinced that every grave is of Turks? It’s as if you are trying to prove the alternative view of 1915 history through these mass graves- therefore every mass "Turkish" grave that is found is a point for the Turkish thesis and every Armenian grave found is a point for the established history. You’re basically not allowing for any grave found in Turkey to be of Armenians- and sure enough so far none found by the Turkish government have been. The one recently found of alleged Armenians was destroyed before outsiders could investigate. It sure seems like finding or admitting an Armenian mass grave COULD exist would be a point against Turkey so you all rule out the possibility- while at the same time supporting Justin McCarthy who of course said 600,000 Armenians died during this time. So I guess their bones just evaporated while the Turkish ones congregated into huge 20,000-people mass graves so that they could then be found by organizations with politically-motivated agendas and make big headlines at the very moment that the Armenians have a bill in Congress.

25
Babanian
January 31, 2008 @ 2:45 am CET

MM your explanation is impaccable. P. C. has made his purpose in life to put down anything Armenians say and support Turkey’s denials. Here is a site MdG found offensive and deleted in 16

Edited by MvdG: yep, we get it. Turks are awful. Now, when you’re going to admit that your ancestors killed hundreds of thousands of innocent TUrks? Didn’t think so.

Investigator Accuses Turkey of Tampering With Assyrian Mass Grave

26
Lazlee
January 31, 2008 @ 5:28 am CET

"For such a controversial topic, it would be far more credible if there was some non-Turkish confirmation of the mass grave site, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks this way. "

No, you’re not and it’s an excellent idea.

Let’s not forget that the Turkish PM has proposed that a joint Turkish and Armenian historical commissions, together with interested and uninterested third parties investigate the events of WWI.

Armenia has thus far refused to participate. The Dashnak archives, those belonging to Armenian Revolutionaries of WWI who are accused of committing atrocities against Ottoman Muslims (not just against ethnic Turks, but also against Kurds, Circassians, Georgians, Laz, etc. in the region) remain concealed from the public to this day.

England continues to maintain historical archives relating to the events of WWI in eastern Anatolia in secret.

The French still do not discuss the fact that they armed, clothed, trained and inserted the so-called "French" Armenian Legion into Adana after the Armistice of Mudros in the hopes that the area would be cleansed of its majority Muslim population. However, when the Legion became uncontrollable and the atrocities mounted to the point that even the French couldn’t stand it any more, France withdrew its support of the Legion.

Yes, it would be great if others would go and confirm the findings. They’ve been invited, but refuse to participate. If Armenians and Armenia are so convinced these bones are evidence proving their genocide claims, one would expect them to go running to the region and accepting the Turkish PM’s offer, but they still refuse, prefering to keep the dispute alive. One has to wonder why…

27
Lazlee
January 31, 2008 @ 5:42 am CET

Oh, and John, just in case you doubt that such an invitation was ever issued, go to this site: http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2007/09/27/1/a-conversation-with-the-prime-minister-of-turkey Then, fast forward to the 47th minute of the interview and listen.

28
Lazlee
January 31, 2008 @ 5:57 am CET

"Instead, we have people here speculating that they probably found a button or cigarette pack or koran in the grave and assuming that’s how they even knew these bones were of Turks killed by Armenians (and Cossacks?)"

It’s not speculation MM, I actually took the initiative to search for articles concerning the digs and read about how it was they determined the remains belonged to Ottoman Muslims, and not, say Romans (remians of which have also been found in Anatolia).

Besides the remanants found with the skeletons, there are photographs of villages that were decimated, but whose inhabitants were never found. These bits of information were recorded by the Ottoman and Nationalist forces when they recovered the areas from Armenian forces that were in control of the area.

How do we know the dead weren’t killed by Cossacks? Perhaps you should read about the history of WWI and then you’ll know. It’s wild how everyone, except the Armenian diaspora, knows that after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Russian army distintegrated and Armenian militias were in control of eastern Anatolia. The few Russian military officers that remained in the region, along with some missionaries and other third parties documented the atrocities committed by the Armenian militias.

Did you know that some of the arms used by the Armenian militias may have even been supplied by Armenians in the U.S. that owned munitions factories that supplied the U.S. war effort during WWI? It is known that at least one of those Armenians in the U.S. was sending large sums of money during WWI to a notorious Armenian gun smuggler (who had been caught smuggling guns as early as 1909, who used to parade around cities in eastern Anatolia with a horde of 150 Russian trained Armenians "guards" and who, after he was caught, fled to America with the aid of the British and the French), who also happened to be a priest.

29
Hans A.H.C. de Wit
January 31, 2008 @ 10:49 am CET

Anne Frank foundation is a Dutch one, established in the Netherlands. Anne Frank House gets more than 1 million visitors each year. The Anne Frank House supports the Armenian claim, that genocide happened during 1873-1921.
Anne Frank House foundation is one of the most respected institutions in the Netherlands. Its for me, as a Dutch, living in Turkey weird that the CE of this blog makes statements while his fellow countryman, like Prof. Zurcher, a specialist in this, tells the opposite.

30
Michael van der Galien
January 31, 2008 @ 11:29 am CET

Zurcher changed his views suddenly Hans. You know that, right? He believed it wasn’t genocide and then, suddenly, he changed his views. Why’s that? Ah, pressure.

31
Lazlee
January 31, 2008 @ 2:16 pm CET

Hans, I read your post and am perplexed. What makes the Anne Franke Institute a specialist in the history of WWI?

Every historian that is a recognized expert in WWI tand Ottoman history hat is not Armenian, disputes their genocide claims. It’s a rather long list. Who is Zurcher, what is his expertise in?

Why don’t you address the facts being discussed or the topic of MVDG’s article? the mass grave? artifacts found there? whether there were Armenian militias? whether massacres of Ottoman Muslims occurred during WWI?

Why don’t you discuss the facts? Why change the subject? Has the Anne Frank institute or Professor Zurcher gone to view the mass graves? Have they done any research to dispute there is a mass grave and who the bones belong to?

My guess is, the answer is a resounding NO.

32
Michael van der Galien
January 31, 2008 @ 2:24 pm CET

Zurcher is a Dutch historian and expert. Hans is right that Zurcher now says that it was a genocide, but forgets to mention that Zurcher believed that it wasn’t a genocide and suddenly changed his view, which shocked a lot of people.

Wonder why huh, since he didn’t do any research that showed that his previously held opinion was wrong. Even his students ask him about it, yet he can’t answer it.

Pressure does that, doesn’t it?

Anne Frank Institute: indeed completely irrelevant. It’s rhetoric. Trying to appeal to people’s emotions.

33
Richard
January 31, 2008 @ 4:38 pm CET

MVDG,

What makes you think Eric Zurcher was pressured into changing his opinion? Do you think Bernard Lewis changed his opinion because of Turkish pressure?

Also, what are "Christianists"?

34
Babanian
February 2, 2008 @ 9:58 pm CET

Lezlee 28 It’s wild how everyone, except the Armenian diaspora, knows that after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Russian army distintegrated and Armenian militias were in control of eastern Anatolia.

May be you should check your source. The Turkish army went in after the Russians were in disarray and none of the Armenians had survived.
1/28/1918 - The German General Hans Friedrich von Seeckt, at the time Chief of Staff of the Turkish Army, is instructed to prevent Turkish atrocities against the Armenians of the Caucasus, since the Russian armies had fallen apart in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and the Turks were advancing almost unopposed.
5/2/1915 - Halil Pasha’s forces are defeated by the Russian Army in the Caucasus and in northern Iran, and retreat to Van, Bitlis, and Mush, where they participate in the massacre of the Armenians.
6/23/1915 - Wholesale arrests are made in Bitlis of the scattered remnant Armenians who had escaped the previous series of massacres.
6/25/1915 - The massacre of Armenians of Bitlis is carried out under the direct orders of Mustafa Abdulhalik Renda.
7/27/1915 - Behaeddin Shakir sends a cipher telegram to the governor-general of Adalia Province, Sabur Sami Bey, asking him what steps he was taking at a time, when in Erzerum, Van, Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Sivas, and Trebizond Provinces, not a single Armenian remains because they have all been sent in the direction of Mosul and Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor). Sabur sends a copy of the telegram to Talaat to show that he had received these indirect instructions.
8/2/1915 - Ambassador Henry Morgenthau reports that on this day Talaat indicated that three quarters of the Armenians had already been disposed of, and none were left in Bitlis, Van, and Erzerum.
2/16/1916 - The Russian Army occupies Erzerum. Only a handful of captive Armenian women are found alive in the entire province.
4/15/1916 - The Russian Army occupies Trebizond. With the exception of a few Armenian orphans and widows secretly sheltered by Greeks, no Armenians are found in the city.
Knapp’s volume below, with its extensive descriptions of horrific Young Turk slaughter and savagery in Bitlis shows just what would have happened had Armenians in Van submitted to Young Turk government orders. Knapp, refuting claims that anti-Armenian violence was the responsibility of Kurds, writes that whilst Armenians were indeed driven from ‘their homes by Kurds’ the latter were ‘acting under the orders of the government.’ (p32)

"The Tragedy of Bitlis" by Grace H Knapp, 110pp (Sterndale Classic titles, 2002, England)

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2313) Turkey-Armenia Border, Mental Maps And Incoherent Policies By Nigar Goksel*

Armenians’ pursuit of genocide resolutions from different legislative bodies across the world is contrary to Armenian interests. Only Turkish nationalists and a well-financed handful of individuals within the Armenian diaspora benefit from the resulting negative climate in relations between Turkey and Armenia. The PM's proposal to set up a commission of historians on the question of Turkey's Armenian losses meets an Armenian counterproposal that seeks to include a wider range of bilateral issues, including the matter of the problematically closed border between the . . two neighbours

Turkey closed the border with Armenia in 1993 during the Nagorno-Karabakh war, primarily as a response to Armenia moving forward to occupy regions where only Azeris resided, such as Kelbajar.

In doing so, Turkey attempted to create a situation that would make occupation of these districts unsustainable for Armenia, rendering Armenia more likely to compromise. However, the policy has not yielded its intended results and there is little reason to believe it will in the near future. Quite the contrary, Turkey's closing of the border has been used to fuel a sense of insecurity and resentment among Armenians towards Turkey, has led them to be and feel more reliant on Russia economically and strategically, and has left Turkey with no leverage to influence Armenians. Azeris, however, feel strongly that the closed border is an essential element of the equilibrium today and that an opening of the border would legitimize the occupation and provide economic opportunities for Armenia, tipping the balance in their favor. The consequences of the closed border should be debated openly in Turkey and Azerbaijan alike. In any case, consideration of open borders should not be labeled as disloyal, defeatist or unpatriotic. On the other hand though, as Matt Bryza said in a speech in Yerevan last week, the Turkish state, as a sovereign country, can index its foreign policy to the interests of any country it so wishes. Turkey and Armenia lack clarity in their stances towards each other. Their red lines and positions towards important bilateral issues seem to shift regularly. There have been times when high-level Turkish officials have suggested that official recognition of Turkey's borders is the only prerequisite for the opening of borders. At other times, cessation of genocide recognition attempts in third countries and withdrawal from Azerbaijan's territories have been added as preconditions. Why? Does Turkish foreign policy change from government to government? Do different institutions within the Turkish state have different positions? Is policy populist and reactionary? Or is it that the lack of clarity allows decision makers to use different lines when talking to different actors at different times? On the Armenian side, a statement recognizing Turkey's borders is followed with unwillingness to certify it. If a president of Armenia were to disassociate history from foreign policy and lean towards reason, might the Armenian diaspora declare themselves the legitimate party on this issue and impose otherwise? It is not clear who speaks with authority on behalf of Armenians and what this might entail. Convenient ambiguity about history and borders allows politicians space to maneuver, which provides material that can be stretched in any direction by nationalists and liberals alike. “Various Voices on Turkey-Armenia Relations,” a compilation of interviews, offers a range of views on these and other dimensions of the troubled relationship.

The AKP government in Turkey came to power in 2002 with the intention of normalizing relations with Armenia. However they may not have been aware of the challenges and counterarguments to achieving this goal. Having used up a good deal of political capital on issues like Cyprus and facing heightened nationalism in Turkey, it is understandably difficult for the government to expend more on Armenia without reciprocity from the Armenian side. Turks often feel singled out by the global community, noting that no one asks for accountability for the purge of Turks form the Balkans during the Balkan Wars or keeps other tragedies on the agenda in the same way, such as colonial massacres that occurred later in the 20th century. The relentless pursuit by the well-endowed Armenian diaspora of the recognition of the massacres of 1915 as genocide is seen to perpetuate the image of the Turk as a barbarian – thus touching a sensitive nerve in the Turkish psyche and hindering the work of progressive Turks to introduce the current realities of Turkey to Europe. Modern Turkish citizens do not feel as though they deserve a reputation that preceded them and that contradicts what they have learned about Turkish tolerance. Turks feel traumatized in their own way, pointing to memories of rebelling communities and Europeans plotting the disintegration of a crumbling Ottoman Empire. This trauma is an integral part of the Turkish psyche today – surfacing in what is often called the “Sevres Syndrome.” Indeed, the sense of victimhood and conviction of being encircled by hostile alliances are common in both Armenia and Turkey. This brings about similar modalities of thought and a shared logic of retaliation. Turks need to understand Armenians still fear Turkey, that this fear is a part of their upbringing and identity, and that it is exacerbated by being a much smaller country that neighbors Turkey today. It is undeniable that Armenians in Eastern Turkey were an important component of the richness of Anatolia and that the tragic incidents that have left none there today cannot be justified and needs to be explored with an open mind. Ultimately, freedom to debate the Armenian tragedy of the early twentieth century needs to be more widespread in Turkey. The stance that maintains that Turkey is not liable for the decisions made at an unclear level of the crumbling chain of command of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 does not reduce the importance of a critical examination of the history of these lands. Turkey should do this for its own sake, because in the long run, a reactive or defensive policy on these issues will wear society down even more. Armenians' pursuit of genocide resolutions from different legislative bodies across the world is contrary to Armenian interests. Only Turkish nationalists and a well-financed handful of individuals within the Armenian diaspora benefit from the resulting negative climate in relations between Turkey and Armenia. The passage of yet another resolution does not help Armenians who want Turkey to acknowledge their grievances in order to attain closure and to move on. Moreover, it hardens the Turkish nationalist position, weakens liberals calling for a critical approach to state rhetoric about history and hampers Turkey's Europeanization.

The suggestion by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that a commission of historians be set up to study the issue is noteworthy. And the decision to upload Ottoman archives to the Internet is commendable. Such initiatives suggest that the insecurity of the past is being replaced by a newfound openness. But it remains unclear how the commission would be composed and what implications its findings would have. Unclear too, are the parameters of the Armenian counterproposal to form an intergovernmental commission that would take up a wider range of bilateral issues, including the border issue; a priority for Armenia.Elections in Armenia are scheduled for Feb. 19. It is important that these elections be free and fair – the international community should place more priority on this issue than they appear to be doing at present. Only a leader with full legitimacy will be able to make the difficult decisions necessary for the solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan and the normalization of relations with Turkey. For borders with Turkey to open, Armenia must recognize the border with Turkey clearly, thus ending the popular (among Armenians) vision of “Greater Armenia.” The notion of nationhood for Armenia is quite different from that of Turkey. This leads the two sides to speak in different languages and suspect each other's intentions. In a sense this leads to an incompatibility in nature that is a challenge to overcome. Throughout the Soviet era, diaspora institutions acted like the legitimate representatives of Armenian nationhood – with political parties and the church. The “homeland” was not entirely accepted to be Armenia proper. And the dissident nationalist movement in Armenia was defined by challenging the borders that the Soviet system imposed (irredentism) and seeking openings to discuss 1915. This worked in the interests of the Soviet leadership because Armenia felt protected from NATO member Turkey by the Soviets and their dissidence did not take the form of desire for independence as was the case among other nations. Diaspora Armenians need to adapt to the realities of the day, letting go of the sense of “ownership” of Armenian nationhood they are accustomed to. By concentrating their energies and resources on strengthening the rule of law and development of the economy and democracy of Armenia they can best contribute to the rich history of the Armenian nation and create an able representative for the Armenian cause. It is common to preach to Turkey not to index its foreign policy to Azerbaijan by putting forth conditions about Armenian withdrawal from Azerbaijan's lands, i.e. Nagorno-Karabakh and the regions in its vicinity. However, Armenians should be the first to understand the solidarity Turks feel towards Azeris. Ultimately, taking “back” Nagorno-Karabakh was articulated in the same breath as taking back “western Armenia” (east Turkey) for decades by Armenians and for them the war against Azerbaijan meant war against “Turks.” Even today, villagers in Armenia who take their animals to the occupied regions around Nagorno-Karabakh in the winter months say they are taking them to “Turkish lands.” Deep in the framework of mental maps, changes are necessary on both sides for normalization to take place and be sustained.

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January 28, 2008
* Nigar Goksel is Editor-in-Chief of Turkish Policy Quarterly and Senior Analyst of the European Stability Initiative (www.esiweb.org). This piece is adapted from her editorial in the recent issue of TPQ.

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2312) A Controversial Genocide by Robert ELLIS*

Presidential candidate Barack Obama has jumped onto the Armenian bandwagon and pledged to recognize the Armenian genocide, should he be elected, and Hillary Clinton has just done the same. No doubt the prospect of wooing a potential one and a half million Armenian votes plays a role in this . . pledge.

Elsewhere, however, politicians are being more cautious. Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller, in a reply to the Foreign Affairs Committee, recently said this was not a matter for government policy but an issue that must be left to historians to decide.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that this historical event continues to have present consequences. Turkey refuses to recognize the forced removal of the Armenians as genocide, and anybody who dares question this understanding risks prosecution or even death. In this context, the prosecution of authors such as Orhan Pamuk and Elif Safak is well known, and one year ago the Turkish-Armenian editor, Hrant Dink, was murdered for the same reason.

Another example is the murder of the Turkish-born academic, Fuat Deniz, who researched the massacre of the Assyrian Christians in Turkey during the First World War. Deniz was a lecturer at Örebro University in Sweden, and although his assailant turned out to be a relative, the murder spread shock waves in academic circles.

In May 2005 the Turkish minister of justice, Cemil Çiçek, accused participants in a conference on the Armenian question held at Bosphorus University in Istanbul of “stabbing the Turkish nation in the back.” The conference was postponed.

The Turkish Penal Code is tailor made for the same purpose. The notorious Article 159, which penalized those who openly insulted and deríded Turkishness and Turkish institutions, was amended in 2005, so that “insult” was replaced by “denigration.” A loophole was added: “Expressions of thought intended to criticize shall not constitute a crime”, but this has had no practical effect.

To placate the European Union yet another cosmetic change is being prepared, but this has already been branded as “deception” and “fascism disguised as liberalism.”

The EU Commission has in its latest report on Turkey mentioned attacks against clergy members and places of worship of non-Muslim communities. Last April three Protestants at a Bible publisher's in Malatya had their throats cut. The Turkish police recently uncovered a plot to murder a clergyman in Antalya, but a teenager in Samsun who threatened to kill a Protestant pastor and to massacre his congregation has been released.

Unfortunately, there has been a rise in xenophobia in Turkey, and this mood has been exacerbated by a popular TV series, “Kurtlar Vadisi” (“Valley of the Wolves”), which glorifies violence committed on behalf of the nation. Another sign of this disturbing development is the group of 20 students from a high school in Kirsehir who sent a Turkish flag painted with their own blood to the Chief of the General Staff to express their patriotism. The youth unemployment rate, at 16.7 percent, is a contributory factor to this growth of nationalism.

But as the Armenian ambassador remarked at a conference on the Armenian genocide held in Copenhagen in May 2005: “Present-day Turks don't share the guilt of the perpetrators unless they identify with them.”

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January 28, 2008
* Robert Ellis is a regular commentator on Turkish affairs in the Danish press. He can be contacted at meltem@get2net.dk.

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2311) Armenian Imposition on Canadian Education

Canada is an amazing democracy, but it is deficient in one major way. It lacks a national Ministry of Education. Its education system is Balkanized with some 11 provincial educational jurisdictions, each having its own standards and curricula. This is partly historical and partly religious, reflecting the power sharing that existed in 1867 when the Canadian Confederation . . was established.

As a result, local activists and ethnic lobbies are sometimes able to impose their own versions of history on the silent majority. That is the principal reason for the fact that now in Toronto, the largest city in Canada, the local school board has fallen into the hands of Armenian lobbies, hell bent on rewriting history through parliaments and the decentralized education systems.

Within each Canadian province, there is a provincial ministry of education and numerous local school boards consisting of elected persons called Trustees. They are accountable to local property taxpayers, called ratepayers, and a few hundred ratepayers can make the difference in who gets elected a trustee.

In recent years, genocide studies have become very popular; especially in predominantly Jewish Canadian areas and many school boards have rightly approved Holocaust modules teaching students the horrors of Nazi Germany. These Jews were innocent, unlike the Ottoman Armenians who committed treason and were relocated out of the war zone.

Now the Armenian nationalists have joined the bandwagon. Using the fake Hitler quote (“who still remembers the Armenian massacres?”) and other documents such as the notorious forged Andonian Telegrams, these Armenian activists have been having a field day at the expense of Turkish/Ottoman history. If not checked, they will have Canadian students learn Turkish history from Armenian eyes.

Worse still, Turkish Canadians will be reduced to second-class citizens. Already Turkish Canadian students are being bullied and harassed even by teachers in schools teaching Armenian modules.

Turkish Canadians outraged

So now the Turkish Canadian community of Toronto is up in arms. They came by the hundreds to a Toronto and District School Board meeting on Jan. 16 to voice their anger. The Trustees were caught unawares. “We never expected so many to show up,” said one official, and the meeting had to be moved to an auditorium in order to accommodate everyone.

What happened in Toronto on Jan. 16 is a repetition of what took place at the Ottawa School Board some 18 years ago. At that time, thanks to the opposition of the Turkish Canadians in our national capital, the Armenian module was rejected.

It is hoped the same thing will happen in Toronto. But unfortunately that would not solve the problem. Turkish Canadians are unable to speak because Canadian news media is so pro-Armenian, it is virtually impossible to have the Turkish version of history heard.

Canada lacks a national education system. Even if the Toronto school board realizes the ethnic mess it got itself into, there is no guarantee that Armenian nationalists will not take their attack on Turkish history to some other school board.

Canadian schools may yet turn into ethnic battlegrounds unless a sane method is discovered to contain “homelandism,” i.e. politicians pandering to ethnic lobbies pursuing nationalist ideologies imported from some homeland overseas, sometimes resorting to terrorism in pursuit of national causes. Opportunistic politicians are ready to ignore these dangers for the sake of a few votes.

The irony is that Canadian school boards are hardly in a position to lecture anyone on how to face history. They can teach students Canadian history, for example, creating a module on a proclamation issued by the Governor in Council dating back to 1756, but still on the books, under which a scalp bounty of 25 or 30 British pounds was payable for every Native Canadian turned in to an official, dead or alive!

That is how the native population was exterminated. Of course, the proclamation has no force or effect today, but astonishingly the Canadian government refuses to rescind it as demanded by the First Nations of the country.
Source: http://www.danielnpaul.com/BritishScalpProclamation-1756.html

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January 28, 2008 Özay MEHMET
* Özay Mehmet, Ph.D, is professor emeritus with the Carleton University, Canada. He can be contacted at Mehmet5010@rogers.com

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2310) Prof Baskin Oran’s Daughter Forced Out Of French Local Polls

Professor Baskin Oran is an advocate of reconciliation between Turks and Armenians. His daughter, however, had to withdraw her candidacy in the French local polls amid pressure from French Armenians.

A Turkish candidate standing in French local elections has been forced to withdraw her candidacy amid pressure from Armenian groups who wanted her to publicly recognize Armenian claims of . . genocide in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.

The candidate, a member of the Greens Party, was the daughter of Professor Baskin Oran, who himself was a candidate for Parliament in Turkey's July 22 elections, Today's Zaman has learned. Professor Oran, a liberal, campaigns in Turkey for reconciliation with Armenians and has passionately called for punishment for those who are behind the January 2007 murder of Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul. Sirma Oran, who has been living in France for a long time, had to withdraw her candidacy for the city council in Villeurbaunne after she had been pressed by Mayor Jean-Paul Bret to visit an Armenian "genocide" monument in Lyon and make a public statement backing the genocide charges.

Bret, a politician from the French Socialist Party, which is cooperating with the Greens in the local elections slated for March, is known to have close ties with the Armenian diaspora in France. He was the chair of the French-Armenian caucus in the French National Assembly during his term as a lawmaker. French news reports said he had forced Oran to make a public statement backing the alleged genocide after an Armenian member of the city council threatened to resign if she is elected.

Under pressure from Bret, Oran met with a group consisting of representatives from local Armenian groups and the politicians from the Socialist and Greens parties in a closed-door meeting and assured them that she believed that an Armenian genocide had happened in eastern Anatolia during the final years of World War I, as Armenians claim. But she later came to the conclusion that she would have to deal with constant problems due to her ethnic identity as a Turk even if she were elected to the Villeurbaunne City Council and thus decided to withdraw her candidacy after she had been forced to make the same statements publicly, sources told Today's Zaman.

Béatrice Vessilier, a representative of the Greens in Villeurbanne, speaking with Today's Zaman, expressed her deep disappointment over the incident. "None of us expected the issue to come to this point. I'm so sorry -- also in regards to the political ethic," Vessilier said. She also emphasized that Oran withdrew her candidacy at her own initiative because she didn't want to be on the political agenda solely related to this issue if elected. "She [Oran] didn't want to be reduced to her ethnic roots as an elected person and to be constantly annoyed because of that," Vessilier added.

Vessilier said that Bret's demand was "not easy to be fulfilled" by Oran, while describing Bret as "extremely engaged concerning the genocide issue."

Richard Llung, Bret's election director, defended Bret's stance, saying that nobody should look for "courtesy" when the issue is politics. "Every politician represents himself, but also represents the society that he belongs to. This treatment … may well be very brutal. However, politics is not a profession that has courtesy in it," Llung said.

Ali Gedikoglu, chairman of the France-based Cojep Platform -- a multicultural youth association established by Turks in France -- said the incident in Villeurbanne was not an exception, as young politicians who are members of the Cojep have been constantly pressured in districts where there is a dominant Armenian population.

The Socialist Party, which had in the past gained huge support from Turks, has gradually lost this support due to these kinds of discriminatory policies, Gedikoglu added. "I'm calling on Armenians to act in a responsible manner. Nonetheless, I'm also calling on the Turkish community who has left our daughter [Oran] alone in this struggle. The indifference of the Turkish community encourages this kind of inappropriate treatment," Gedikoglu said.

Relations between Turkey and France were strained after the French parliament approved a bill criminalizing the denial of the alleged genocide in 2006. The bill, backed by the Socialist Party, drew ire from Ankara, which said relations had sustained a heavy blow with the law. France's 400,000-strong Armenian community constitutes a formidable voter bloc. Former French leaders said that Turkey must accept the alleged genocide to become a member of the EU, while the country's current president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is against Turkish entry under any condition.

Ankara rejects outright the Armenian claims of genocide and calls for joint research of the events of the years of World War I, a proposal that has not been welcomed by Armenia.
29.01.2008 A. Ihsan Aydin, Fatih Yetim Paris, Lyon, Zaman

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2309) Karabakh Facts by Thomas Goltz

Regardless of the overwhelming number of bigoted Westerners who report on "Turkish" matters, including matters regarding other Turkic peoples (or as Christian Scholar Samuel Weems put it — see first link that follows: "Truth would become distorted and truth would not be considered in 'Christian' nations when making political decisions relating to Azerbaijan"), there will always be one or two exceptions who put their prejudices aside, and report fairly and squarely. In the case of Azerbaijan, overrun by Armenian forces, with the assistance and equipment of Big Brother Russia, we can rely on a biased perspective, as with the Minsk Conference, and the hysterics of "good Christians," such as Baroness Cox. But then there is Thomas Goltz, who knows injustice when he sees it, and believes in integrity. (Note how he stresses that he is not, in effect, an agent of the Azeri government, no doubt victimized by Armenin propagandists.)

Note as well that it took Goltz eight months to get the story of eight Azeri POWs who were executed by their Armenian captors, in violation of the Geneva Convention, published in the Washington Post. Armenian propaganda is simply too powerful, and the West is too prejudiced..

While investigating the tragic fate of Karabakh's invasion and occupation, and needing to respond to the usual Armenian propaganda, it's important to know what the real facts are. Naturally, there is propaganda from the Azeri side too. For example, how many were massacred in Khojali? (The "reliable" numbers range from 600 to 1,000, and the truth likely lies smack-dab in between.) How much land did the Armenians occupy? (From my previous investigations, I have settled on 16%, from what I took to be a very reliable source. Goltz sets the record at 15%, and he could be correct.) And how many were refugees? The Turkish and Azeri side usually says "one million," but my previous investigation (and Goltz confirms this) hovers at around 800,000. (There were a couple of hundred thousand Armenian refugees as well, from Azerbaijan.)

Then there are the Armenian tales, some sounding pretty convincing on the surface, and Goltz has addressed a few of them here. One that wasn't convincing, and actually horribly shameful, was the Armenians' claim of the mutilated Khojali victims as having been mutilated by the Azeris themselves, in order to derive sympathy from the Western press. Naturally, those of us who know the history of Armenian mass murder are familiar with the fact that not only did the Armenians murder, but too often they gleefully murdered in the most sadistic of ways. (The more modern example of Armenian mutilation might have had more to do with frightening the rest of the Azeri folk away, rather than the racial hatred that accompanied the mutilation-murders of hundreds of thousands of Ottoman Muslims and Jews, circa the WWI years. In the case of the Azeris, this campaign worked. (Assuming it was a campaign, and not a case of Armenian soldiers going berserk, as Goltz will put forward below, signifying the most rational Armenian explanation.) Just as Armenia herself has been ethnically cleansed of "undesirables," particularly during 1918-20 (the CIA Fact Book tells us today's Armenia is some 98% racial-pure), the Armenians succeeded in driving away the non-Armenians, in these lands the Armenians have criminally appropriated.

Another article by Mr. Goltz follows.

Khojali: A Decade of Useless War Remembered

Azerbaijan International (Magazine) Spring 2002 (10.1)

Khojali: A Decade of Useless War Remembered
by Thomas Goltz

"If the recent history of the Middle East is any indicator, the sweet cream of victory will eventually sour. And the victors of the Nagorno-Karabakh war, alienated from their neighbors, with whom they are condemned to live, may turn out to be the real victims themselves."

The following is an edited transcript of the 10th Year Khojali Massacre Commemoration presentation delivered by writer Thomas Goltz at the London School of Economics on February 26, 2002. This event was organized by the [Azerbaijani] Vatan Society of the United Kingdom. Mr. Goltz delivered a shorter version of these remarks on February 21 at a similar commemoration organized by the Azerbaijan Society of America (ASA) at the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C.

I have been asked, and thus honored, by friends both inside and outside the government of Azerbaijan to help mark the 10th year commemoration of the Massacre at Khojali on February 26th, 1992. I feel humbled to have been asked to do so.


Thomas Goltz also authored Chechnya Diary

I want to preempt any speculation or misunderstanding and from the beginning state that I have not been paid to make this speech. I wish to stress this because I have seen too many references on the Internet and elsewhere about my being some sort of paid lackey of the government of Azerbaijan and/or Big Oil. Thus let us be clear: I am NOT now a lobbyist for Azerbaijan or any oil interests, never have been, nor have I ever received a dime from either the government of Azerbaijan or any oil or other company for any appearances or public presentations on any issue relating to Azerbaijan.

And yet, there is no question that I feel very strongly about Azerbaijan. Perhaps one of the most important reasons for this is my experience of the events surrounding the Khojali Massacre of 10 years ago.

Today, few people outside Azerbaijan and, arguably, Armenia, are really interested in Khojali.

Why should they be? In a decade that subsequently saw the vast ethnic cleansings of Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, East Timor and Chechnya, as well as the slaughterhouse of Rwanda — to name just a few of the killing zones of the pre-September 11 [2001] — World Trade Center bombing "Age of Innocence" — the 800 odd victims of Khojali are "but a drop in the bloody bucket" of ethnic/national and religious insanity that is the birthmark of the so-called post-Communist world.

(Caption from original web page; "Above: The cross-hatched area of the map shows the Azerbaijani territory currently being occupied by Armenia; note that seven of the regions occupied are not even in Karabakh.")

Even within the context of Azerbaijan, the numbers killed and displaced as refugees from Khojali are but a fraction of those eventually killed or displaced in the course of the war over Mountainous [Nagorno] Karabakh. Depending on which, or on whose, abacus you choose to tally, the total number killed is around 30,000. Those displaced because of the war are approximately 1 million, before the cease-fire was established in 1994, which left Armenia occupying some 15 percent of Azerbaijan's territory.

Numbers, numbers.

Everybody, or at least the victim, always tries to push them higher.

I say this because the official percentage of Azerbaijani territory under Armenia occupation is 20 percent. This number sounds good because it can be expressed as "one-fifth," even though it is a provably inaccurate and politicized number.

Wrong.

The Armenians occupy 15 percent, not 20.


I tell my friends in the government of Azerbaijan that it would behoove them not to get in the habit of exaggeration.

On the other hand, Armenian apologists suggest that because "independent" Karabakh cannot "occupy" itself, the real number of square kilometers under Armenian occupation is less than 10 percent of territorial Azerbaijan.

Ten percent, as opposed to 20.

Let me say right now that this is a ridiculous argument, and one along the lines of a girl admitting to her parents that she is "a little bit pregnant".

Either you are or you are not-pregnant, that is.

And either you are occupying Azerbaijani lands, or you are not. It doesn't make any difference if it's five percent or 50 percent.

And, as for the familiar dodge that it is not Armenia, but an "out-of-control" Karabakh that occupies the Azerbaijani lands, well, one need only look as far as the citizenship of the current President of Armenia to dismiss this argument [Robert Kocharian is from Karabakh, which is officially Azerbaijani territory]. Unless, of course, you want to make the argument that Karabakh not only occupies a good chunk of Azerbaijan, but all of Armenia itself!

That was supposed to be a joke

But back to Khojali and February 26th, 1992.

There has never been a proper reconstruction of what actually happened that night. One might ask if any reconstruction is really possible, given the lack or absence of an Armenian equivalent of Russian human rights crusader Sergei Kovalyov or an organization like Memorial, which has courageously addressed the issue of atrocities for a similar massacre in the Chechen town of Samashki in 1995.

We do not have time to go into this in depth now, but suffice it to say that this book, entitled "By All Available Means", is an effort to get at the facts about the Samashki Massacre and publish them not only for Russian consumption, but for the world's. It is precisely the sort of insider investigation needed to get to the bottom of the Khojali Massacre, and precisely the sort of undertaking that is lacking because the Armenian side does not dare do so.

I repeat.

Does not dare do so.

Still, there are problems with reconstructing violent histories. While I have the greatest respect for Memorial and its efforts to meticulously research and publish its findings, its publication on Samashki is not perfect. There are errors of time and person and place. Without elaborating, suffice it to say that while Memorial accepts that the Russian command used the presence of outlander Chechen fighters from Shamil Basayev's Abkhazia Battalion attacking an armored train and sabotaging repair of tracks as the excuse to encircle and then attack the town, in fact all those fighters were local. I know because I was with them taking pictures. Memorial was not.

They were not nameless Mujaheeds—they were Hussein and Ussam and Seylah and Sultan and Ali.

I hope you get my point: even the most meticulous reconstruction of a violent event runs into problems if you were not there.

And even then, it often becomes problematic. The problems with properly reconstructing events in Khojali are far more complex than those of Samashki in Chechnya.

For starters, there was the initial denial on both the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides that anything untoward had happened at all.

I refer, of course, to the infamous statements of the government in Baku of Ayaz Mutallibov, that everything was "normalno", (Russian for normal) in Karabakh during the period in question, as well as the standard Armenian denials of any and all involvement in the killing—a denial followed by the outrageous suggestion that the massacre was perpetrated by the Azerbaijanis themselves.

Yes! In some circles, the accepted "truth" about Khojali is exactly that.

Self-slaughter.

Although the differences in the order of magnitude are huge, this persistent "self-slaughtering" argument is akin to such grand conspiracy theories as the all-too-popular belief circulating throughout much of the Muslim world that the attacks on the World Trade Center [September 11, 2001] and Pentagon were perpetrated by the Americans themselves in order to create a reason to take up arms against an innocent Osama bin Laden.

If you want to drift into large conspiracy theories that defy logic, you're welcome! But I prefer to stay based in reality.

So, what really happened that night of February 25/26th, 1992, and why? My own findings at the time, coupled with subsequent discussion and research — I would like to note, with leading Armenian academics and others who had contacts on the Armenian side (but with whom I have not had direct contact for reasons of personal safety)—suggest the following. Perhaps motivated by the anniversary of the so-called "Sumgayit pogroms", and certainly in keeping with the pattern of flushing all traces of Azerbaijaniness from Karabakh, Armenian fedayeen units succeeded in surrounding Khojali and issued an ultimatum that included a provision of "safe passage" for the population through a corridor.

But this is where things get murky or fall into bitter dispute. Was there an all-out, armored attack on the town, spearheaded by the 366th Russian motorized infantry brigade, allegedly in Karabakh to secure the peace? Survivors and eyewitnesses ranging from distraught civilians to several Turkmen conscripts that I interviewed in Aghdam after they deserted the 366th insist it was so. The most rational Armenian version of events, recorded by folks I trust and that does not necessarily contradict the blitz story, suggests that either prior to the evacuation, or during the course of it, shots were fired that resulted in the death of certain Armenian commanders. Their units, without a great deal of discipline in the best of times, went berserk — and the slaughter began.

The one version that can be dismissed out of hand is the so-called "self-slaughter" of Azerbaijani citizens by Azerbaijani militia forces, allegedly lurking in ambush in no-man's land in order to discredit the government in Baku and cause a revolution to unseat the Mutallibov regime. This version, so often repeated by the Armenian side to exculpate itself and throw the onus of killing hundreds of civilians by "friendly fire", is always sourced back to Ayaz Mutallibov after he was ousted from power in the Spring of 1992. But now even Mutallibov himself has repudiated this version of events. In a BBC interview last night [February 25, 2002], the last Communist Party boss of Soviet Azerbaijan specifically blamed the Khojali massacre on Moscow's inability to keep the peace, weirdly absolving himself by asking the rhetorical question of whether George W. Bush was responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

I was allowed to publicly comment on Mutallibov's remarks, and so I guess he should in fairness be allowed to publicly comment on mine about his — and I am ready to respond should he chose to do so. Should he want to, my point is simply this: if there is culpability on the Azerbaijani side for failing to protect Khojali, it rests with Ayaz Mutallibov for believing too much in the power of the Center — distant Moscow — to resolve the problem. And from his pre-recorded remarks, I think we are in essential agreement.

It was his incompetence, and not some deep-dark conspiracy hatched by the Popular Front or other forces, that resulted in that night of horror.

But back to Khojali.

Call it a plot, or call it denial of involvement — it ultimately makes no difference. Khojali established the pattern for all future disinformation from the Armenian side throughout the remainder of the Karabakh conflict.

In May, three months later, there would be the conquest of Shusha [the town most closely identified with Karabakh because of its deep Azerbaijani cultural roots]. Once again the attack came, just as it had with Khojali, during a time when high-level peace negotiations were being mediated by Iran. Azerbaijani forces were said to be "attacking" Stepanakert [the administrative center of the Nagorno-Karabakh district, which the Azerbaijanis historically refer to as Khankandi — place of the Khan].

Attacking Stepanakert?

By then, Shusha was an "enclave" within an "enclave", to use all the wrong and politically loaded expressions. And the idea of launching an "attack" at that point in the conflict was, quite frankly, insane.

But the propaganda line stuck — and the Armenian defenders were able to defend themselves very nicely — by conquering Shusha.

Next there was Lachin [a small Azerbaijani town between Karabakh and Armenia], attacked under the guise of assisting local Kurds in "revolt". Strange that the Kurds in question ended up fleeing to Baku, while the "local Kurds" encountered and interviewed by international observers were sent to the region from Yerevan and all seemed to be Yezidi Kurds, meaning that they had come from Armenia itself.

Using the Kurdish issue to confuse the international community was an excellent stratagem and the brainchild of a senior member of Levon Ter-Petrossian's inner circle, who detailed it for me after we had learned to trust each other for the sake of piecing together a complete history. It was clever because it was built upon the familiar cliché that Azerbaijanis are "Turks" and thus hate "Kurds" and vice versa, as is believed to be the case in Turkey by many in the West.

I shall not enter that debate now, but only wish to note that whatever situation pertains between Turks and Kurds in Turkey, it was not, and is not, the situation that pertains to Kurds and all the other ethnic groups in either Soviet or post-Soviet Azerbaijan, where an entirely different ethnic policy has existed for decades. I repeat. Whatever situation exists in Turkey between Turks and Kurds, good or bad, is not what exists in Azerbaijan between Kurds and all the other ethnic groups in the country.

On the most basic level, there are Kurdish newspapers and magazines and associations in Azerbaijan — and have been for years, decades. The idea that Kurds in Azerbaijan would join Armenians in a revolt against Baku is, quite frankly, nonsense—but a nonsense that much of the world apparently was willing to believe when the idea was floated at the time of the fall of Lachin, because the Armenian side was able to capitalize on world (or Western) notions of the clichéd conflict of Turk versus Kurd and Kurd versus Turk.

"Well done," I want to say — but my heart won't let me compliment the successful propagandists and destroyers of homes to that impersonal degree.

Similar to Lachin was Kalbajar, where the twin stratagem of announcing a spirited Armenian "defense" of an alleged Azerbaijani "attack" was coupled with the theme of "Kurds in revolt" with splendid results.

A confused international community blinked, Armenian forces gained a few extra days and a new flood of Azerbaijani civilians — many of them Azerbaijani Kurds, if you want to identify them as such — were flushed from their homes in an act of gratuitous ethnic cleansing and territorial aggrandizement on the Armenian side.

The Armenian side?

Oh, no, excuse me!

Merely the feisty Karabakh self-defense forces, acting out of the control of Yerevan!

And that pattern continued because it was so successful: Gubadli, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Zangilan and then, what seems the most absurd, Aghdam.

I remember it all too well.

In the internal chaos and confusion of that long, nasty summer of 1993, with Surat Husseinov marching on Baku from Ganja, and thus cutting off Aghdam from all support from Baku, the Armenian side once again announced "a major Azerbaijani offensive" coming from besieged Aghdam, and they succeeded in "defending" themselves accordingly, meaning, of course, the conquest and total destruction of Aghdam and the ethnic cleansing of another large chunk of Azerbaijan.

It was clever. It was effective. From a military standpoint, I guess, I have nothing but praise for the Armenian side for having pulled it off.

Bravo!

If my sarcasm did not read, then let me elaborate on another case of victory and denial, namely, the tragic case of the so-called "Azeri Eight".

It was a story that took me eight months to get published in the Washington Post because no one wanted to know about it. No one wanted to believe a familiar pattern about all aspects of the war in Karabakh, thanks to the effective Armenian propaganda.

Eight months. Thirty days for every victim. Eight.

The eight that I'm referring to were Azerbaijani commandos taken prisoner during the last phases of the Karabakh conflict in 1993-1994. They were captured in Kalbajar — poor souls — and then transferred to a Yerevan prison. One might well ask why Yerevan, if Armenia was allegedly not involved in this war. But no matter. In Yerevan, they became wards of the International Red Cross, with all the rights of visitations, food packages, letters from home and such that are associated with official POW status [Prisoners of War] afforded by the Geneva Conventions.

Things went along all right for a month or two, but then the Red Cross became lax about the Eight and skipped their regular visitation date. When they attempted to see the Azerbaijani soldiers a month later, there was a problem. The prisoners were not accessible. The Red Cross became worried and began pursuing the issue. The Armenians finally admitted that all the eight prisoners had died.

But how did it happen? At first the Armenian side said the men had been killed when they tried to escape — in other words, they were shot down on the run, as it were. But the forensic evidence did not jive with such a theory. The bodies were examined by a doctor from Physicians For Human Rights, a group normally and ironically associated with the Baroness Cox herself, who is well known for her Armenian sympathies.

The doctor, Derrick Ponder, determined that in three instances, the muzzle of the gun had been resting on the skull when the trigger was pulled. In three other instances, the muzzle blast was so close that the effect was virtually the same — in other words, a point blank execution. The remaining two of the Azeri Eight met a slightly different fate, forensically speaking: one was killed by a rifle blast to the chest at point blank range, and the remaining prisoner had his throat slashed — allegedly by himself.

Dr. Ponder brought the bodies to Baku as part of a humanitarian exchange. Word at the time was that the Armenians had gutted the bodies and sold the livers and hearts for transplantation purposes — a story widely believed in Baku. Dr. Ponder contradicted this theory, stating flatly and scientifically that organs removed from dead bodies were useless.

The more important story seemed lost on the sensation-driven journalists present in the room at the time. The Azeri Eight, said Doctor Ponder, had been executed in "the clearest breach of the Geneva Conventions I have ever seen."

Then, after eight months, I got my story about the Azeri Eight published in the Washington Post. Eight Months.

And then the Armenians changed their story: instead of the Azeri Eight being killed during an attempt to escape, now they had killed themselves. Suicide. The forensic expert from Physicians For Human Rights insisted that this, while theoretically possible, was highly improbable given the evidence at hand. The men had been executed in prison, in one of the most obvious violations of the Geneva Conventions perpetrated by the Armenian side. But still the Armenian side got away with it — because they had managed to coax a[n] "improbable" from Dr. Ponder instead of an "impossible". And the world thus remained silent.

Who among you remembers the Azeri Eight today as examples of violations of the Geneva Conventions about executing — EXECUTING — POWS in Geneva's care? Who, who?

Another victory for appropriate public relations by Armenia, you might say — your ignorance, that is.

But what are the ultimate gains for Armenians? A sense of revenge fulfilled?

Did they gain a new self-image of the conquering Armenian, as opposed to the historic victim?

If the recent history of the Middle East is any indicator, the sweet cream of victory will eventually sour. And the victors of the Nagorno-Karabakh war, alienated from their neighbors, with whom they are condemned to live, may turn out to be the real victims themselves.

So what is to be done? There has been a cease-fire since May 1994. There have been the interminable discussions of the Minsk Group [the 12 Member Committee of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)]. There have been repeated private meetings between Presidents Heydar Aliyev and Robert Kocharian.

I am not privy to all the details but think it is safe to say that the peace negotiations always stumble over the question of the final status of Karabakh, as well as the status of the occupied territories outside the formal borders of the Autonomous District of Mountainous [Nagorno] Karabakh in Soviet times.

Thus my painful question for my Azerbaijani friends. Is there no price to be paid for incompetence in that horrible thing called war? No price for choosing or tolerating the wrong leadership or allies? And if there is no price to be paid, and the situation is supposed to revert to some ideal status-quo-ante and a sort of universal "right of return", what is that status-quo-ante, the ideal "Year Zero"?

Is it 1993, before the capture of the eastern provinces [outside of Nagorno Karabakh] and Kalbajar? Is Year Zero the year of 1992, before the capture of Shusha and Lachin? Or is it 1991, before Khojali?

How about 1990, before Chaykent and Operation Ring and the, shall we call it, "ethnic adjustments" of Jeranboy/Shaumiyan?

Or before January 1990, meaning that the Armenians living in Baku would get to return to their homes?

What about 1988, before Sumgayit and the expulsion of the Azerbaijanis from Zangazur?

Why not make Year Zero that era before the massacres of 1918, 1915 or maybe even 1905?

Why not 1828 and the Treaty of Turkmanchai [which divided Azerbaijan between Russia and Iran into Northern and Southern regions], when Yerevan was still an Azerbaijani or at least a Muslim settlement?

Do you get my point?

When and where is Year Zero?

Which date must the two sides return to in order to resolve this problem?

I have no answer to this thorny question, but I know it must be asked. And having asked it, I now would like to return to Khojali, leaving the larger, rhetorical and historical questions aside, and to focus for a moment on the victims of that ghastly night of February 25-26th, 1992.

The following is a selection of the chapter in my book on the early days of post-Soviet Azerbaijan, and entitled, simply, "Khojali".

After that I will be ready to answer your questions.

The following is another valuable article by Thomas Goltz; he has a few others in Azer.com, such as "Khojali: Eyewitness Account From the Following Day (1992)," "Khojali: 13 Years Later: Remember, But Be Sure to Preserve Your Souls," and "Khojali: How to Spell 'X-O-J-A-L-I'?"
Facts About Khojali

Spring 2005 (13.1)

Facts About Khojali
by Thomas Goltz

The year 1988 is generally accepted as the beginning of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Karabakh. The fighting eventually petered out to a bitter "no war"/"no peace" ceasefire in May 1994. Virtually everything since then has been disputed between the two sides — the numbers of those killed or wounded, the number of those forced to flee their homes (and the reasons why), and even the amount of Azerbaijani territory currently under Armenian occupation.

A recent report by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) urged Armenia to cease its occupation. Armenia responded by denying that it was occupying any Azerbaijani land at all, insisting that local Karabakh Defense Forces were responsible and that Yerevan had no control over them.

Khojali (which has numerous spellings including Khojaly, Xocali, Hojali, Hodjali, etc.) had an official population of about 10,000 in 1992. It was the first major Azerbaijani settlement overrun by Armenian forces in Mountainous Karabakh (Nagorno Karabakh) on February 25-26, 1992. Then followed the towns of Shusha and Lachin, which are outside the administrative borders of the Mountainous Karabakh Autonomous District (often referred to as "NK" in the literature), and then other "valley" Karabakh "rayons", or districts in Azerbaijan proper: Zangilan, Gubadli, Fuzuli, Aghdam and Kalbajar. Altogether, these territories represent some 15 percent of the territory of Azerbaijan.

The official percentage number cited by the authorities in Baku is 20 percent, which is a number that was rounded higher for political reasons and, thus, is disputed by Armenians, who claim that they are "only" occupying some 9 percent of Azerbaijani territory because they exclude "NK" from the total.

Those "valley" Karabakh territories were effectively "ethnically cleansed" of some 800,000 Azerbaijani residents during the course of the war. Recent satellite photography of many towns and settlements in the occupied territories reveal substantial building of new structures in and among the burnt shells of the ruins of war. Such activities are in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions which define what an occupying force may do. The suggestion is that the Armenian authorities are moving in settlers to create a "fait accompli" human rights issue if, and when, an international settlement is ever imposed.

For further reading, see "Azerbaijan Diary" (M.E. Sharpe 1998/99) by Thomas Goltz, or the more recent and Karabakh — specific "Black Garden" by Tom de Waal, New York University Press, 2003

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© Holdwater
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www.tallarmeniantale.com/karabakh.htm

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2308) Conditions of the W.W.I Russo-Turkish Front

The following book excerpt from "Russia After the Revolution," Charles Ezra Beury, 1918, pp. 47-57, provides some interesting details as to what both sides had to contend with.

Beury was an American eyewitness whose sympathies clearly did not belong with the Turks, "inhuman" as they were, in his biased opinion. He actually thought there were only one thousand Armenians in Van fighting 10,000 Turks, when even Henry Morgenthau was aware the Armenians numbered 10,000-25,000. (In an honest internal report; in his book, Morgenthau offered the figure of 1,500.)

Regardless, Beury has some interesting notes, as when he encountered a "pathetic" Turkish deserter, who was actually an Ottoman-Greek.

Dr. Charles Ezra Beury

Dr. Charles Ezra Beury, born 1879, graduated from Princeton University in 1903, and went on to earn a law degree from Harvard in 1906. Before beginning his legal career, he devoted himself to travel. He would go on to become the president of Temple University in 1926. A biography of the man from
Philadelphia: A Story of Progress (1941) tells us:

"During the World War he served as director of the Victory Loan of North Philadelphia and made trips to Russia for the Near East Relief and the American Red Cross in 1917, 1918, and 1919, winning high commendation for the work he accomplished in behalf of these organizations." Beury became a trustee of the Near East Relief.

From the "Overland to the Front in Turkey" Chapter:

The Governor of the Province of Van, Turkey, thoughtfully sent a mounted military escort to protect us through the Kurdestan mountains on our long journey to the provincial capital city of the same name. As we drove up through the valleys and over the passes and plateaus, with our mounted guard conspicuously armed outflanking and galloping wildly ahead of us to inspect the safety of each mountain pass, we remarked how much it must be like crossing the prairies in '49. It was surely a picturesque cavalcade. The velvet-colored mountain scenery was beautiful as we made our way up along the valley of the Khotur River, constantly climbing. The changes of temperature were extreme — ice in the morning, heat as of a tropic sun at midday. It took me back to a winter in India years ago. At the Kurdish village of Khotur on the border between Persia and Turkey, we spent a night in a little hut named by Dr. Ellis the "Hut of a Million Fleas" because of our almost unbroken vigils in combating these little pests. It was just off a sheep's cove, containing hundreds of sheep, goats, and cows, and from eight at night until four in the morning, we silently struggled in an effort to go to sleep, but were finally compelled to surround ourselves with a dike of insect powder before a few hours' rest was possible.

The Kurds are a wild, illiterate mountain people, only one in thousands being able to read. They live largely by plundering, are Moslems, and have always taken advantage of disturbances and political unrest to reap their harvests. The Armenian massacres have been their especial opportunity. Now they are suffering in turn, for the Russian Army in its sweep westward into Turkey had hunted them down, destroying their villages and taking vengeance for past marauding. The land largely lay fallow because of the unsafe conditions of the country, and it was noted how the few farmers whom we did pass were conspicuously well-armed.

Reaching Van, we were the guests of the hospital of the Zuyuz Gardoff. This is one of the nationwide volunteer organizations akin to our Red Cross, which has, in a measure, supplied the deficiencies of the old Government in caring for the wounded soldiers, providing the little comforts and conveniences which make soldier-life endurable. The doctors and nurses were hospitality itself, and on the night before we left arranged for an Armenian dinner in our honor as American Commissioners. There were speeches in English, Armenian, Turkish, Russian, and Esperanto. The speech in Esperanto was delivered by a Russian soldier who immediately acted as his own interpreter as no other person in the audience could understand Esperanto, thus illustrating the curious kinks of the Russian mind.

The city of Van, which is situated on a high plateau fifty-two hundred feet above sea-level, stands out pre-eminently in the record of the present Armenian massacres. Here a thousand volunteer Armenian militiamen held off ten thousand Turkish troops for a period of twenty-eight days, protecting the city and the Armenian residents from massacre until the arrival of the rescuing Russian Army. It was the only place in which the Armenians had made a determined resistance against the inhuman Turks. But to a certain extent their resistance was in vain, for five months later the Russians, without proper reason, unexpectedly retreated and the populace found it necessary to follow, taking with them only what they could conveniently carry or transport in their limited number of carts and wagons. Since the Russians upon their arrival had not spared the Turkish property in the city of Van, one could readily imagine what the Mohammedans did to the Christian possessions upon the recapture of the city. The premises of the American Mission, comprising schools, homes, a hospital and an orphanage, were a maze of wrecked buildings. The church alone stood practically intact and was being used by the Russian soldiers as their own. Mosques everywhere had been desecrated. Wealthy Pasha homes and palaces were only blank walls of brick. A city of fifty thousand inhabitants, wealthy, beautiful, and prosperous, was in ruins.

We had previously talked to many Armenians who had fought through this siege, and it was saddening to learn that after the splendid resistance in the early months of the massacres, seventy thousand Christians, fleeing to Russian territory, perished of starvation and disease. Subsequently the Russian forces returned to Van, followed in their wake by thousands of refugees, but hardly had they been re-established on their own land, through the splendid aid of the Armenian Relief Committee, when another retreat followed a threatened retirement by the Russians, and the work of reconstruction was dissipated. And yet we found that in the Fall of 1917 many of the people had again come back, probably only to go through still another disastrous exodus unless the Armenian soldiers could hold off the Turks when the Russians left this front.

General Seileekoff, divisional commander of the Russian forces, planned and arranged for our journey to and along the front in Turkey, and detailed as our escort a splendid, English speaking officer, a graduate of Moscow University. We crossed Lake Van practically as deck passengers, the boat, armed fore and aft, being within range of the Turkish guns during part of the sixteen-hour journey to Garmooch on the western shore.

FAMOUS ROCK AND CASTLE, VAN, TURKEY

Here our host was that famous officer of the Russian Army, General Nazarbekoff, who a year and a half before, in the dead of winter, had taken his army down through the mountains of Kurdestan to the plain of Moosh and captured Bitlis, to the wonderment of military critics both in Europe and America. He told us the story of that expedition, and said that as they crossed the frozen streams troopers on their horses frequently broke through, and their comrades could see their dead bodies coming out in the rapids below. Their lines of communication were severed, but they kept pressing on over the snow and ice-covered passes until they established the outposts which made possible the further advance of the British Mesopotamian Army. Undoubtedly the army would now be beyond Bitlis and in close co-operation with the British General Marshal, if the Revolution had not destroyed the fighting spirit of these forces. This strong man was a pathetic figure, for military discipline was so far lost among the Russian troops that many of the simplest commands were not obeyed, and he was neither able to retire nor resign. General Nazarbekoff, for his wonderful feat, had been decorated by the French Government. He was very proud of the medal and said he had hoped some day to go to Paris and wear it on his breast, but since the Russian Army had failed, he did not feel that he would any longer be welcomed.

RUINS AT VAN, TURKEY

In several places we visited the Turkish front and found the soldiers storing wood and preparing for the bitter cold of winter. For the most part they lived in dugouts made of dirt, stone, and brush. Some of these were almost totally underground and had the double advantage of warmth in winter and coolness in summer. The Caucasus Army has employed the Mongolian huts or tents extensively, bringing them from Turkestan. A round frame base of wood with conical top is covered with heavy decorated felt instead of canvas. General Wachnadze, of the Sixth Caucasian Regiment, a Georgian prince, was especially courteous to us. With his staff he took us to the front so that we could clearly see the Turkish soldiers across the line. We also enjoyed a holiday excursion as his guests, going to the top of Mount Nimrod, an extinct volcano containing the largest volcanic lake in the world, its diameter being about three miles.

The soldiers along this front were holding on tenaciously, not because of the Turkish attacks, for the Turks were apparently in a very bad way for want of food, judging from the great numbers of deserters who came over daily, but because of the scarcity of food supplies and the fear that it would be necessary to fall back on their lines of communication. In the past many soldiers had been caught in a cul de sac along this front and had died of starvation, and we found that most regiments were suffering from limited rations. The morale of this army was probably better than that of any other in Russia, but it was distinctly undermined by the lack of transportation and the consequent food shortage. This front was, on an average, at least a week's journey from the nearest rail-head. Nature and the pacific attitude of the Russian troops, not Turkish resistance, blocked the way to a successful offensive.

When we asked the Russians at the front why they did not shoot, they said, "What's the use? If we fire, the Turks simply fire back; someone is likely to be hurt and nothing is gained." Class distinction between officers and men had broken down. We noted that when private soldiers came in they merely joined the group in free, democratic conversation. The soldiers' committees passed on any action and no important movement was possible without their consent.

Warfare on this front was not the modern trench warfare of France, but the old-fashioned kind, in which details and divisions of troops held passes and high roads and strategic points. There were trenches, of course, but the equipment and housing arrangement of the soldiers were all of a mobile nature, so that they might be moved at any time from one position to another.

I have spoken of the Turkish deserters. One particularly pathetic deserter from the Turkish army was a Greek from Smyrna. He said that during the first two years of the war he had twice paid the cost of exemption from the Turkish army, but that in spite of his payments, they had unjustly forced him into the service.

In our days of journeying from the Turkish front, even better opportunities than we had heretofore experienced were afforded us for measuring the devastation of this region. Over a war-zone six hundred miles long from Trebizond, Turkey, to Ramadan, Persia, and from one hundred to three hundred miles wide, the advancing and retreating armies — Christian and Moslem — had beaten back and forth, laying waste practically every village, town, and city. Four times we crossed, transversely and longitudinally, major portions of this area, and can report thousands of square miles of the oldest known portions of the world's surface denuded of every inhabitant except those engaged in military service. We have seen literally hundreds of towns destroyed and lifeless. It was worse than Belgium or France, for the people had all been killed or driven absolutely away. Over this whole district farms were lying fallow during a period of unprecedented world famine. No foodstuffs were being raised in this most fertile region, nor any cattle. The surviving inhabitants were crowded into seemingly safe territory outside the war devastated zone and had become the uninvited and unwelcome guests of the native peoples.

Part of this trip was made in Red Cross carts and army wagons. The Red Cross carts nominally have springs, but it would be hard to conceive of anything more uncomfortable. Even sitting on the seat, we found the jarring of these two-wheeled vehicles a severe trial. What must it have been for the wounded men who were forced to endure it for days, lying flat in the body of the cart! In fact, ordinary army wagons or fergons without any springs, which we later traveled and slept in, did not seem much worse. We found Mongolian coolies working on the railroads that were being built to the front, just as thousands of them are working behind the British and French lines in France — on the railroads and in the fields. The Russians had built hundreds of miles of auto road which were nearly completed, but they had finished no part of it so that it could be used. Part of this high-road skirted the banks of the famous Euphrates, which here runs west by south before making a semi-circle into the Mesopotamian plain.

LOOKING ACROSS NO MAN'S LAND — TURKISH FRONT

At Kara Kalissa we again reached the railroad and were immediately taken to the Commandant, a fine forward-looking Cossack. We had tea and dinner as his guests and learned much at first-hand concerning the esprit de corps of these world-renowned fighting men. There are twelve divisions of Cossacks which hold their land by right of military tenure. The land is worked on a community basis and most of the Cossacks are comfortably well-to-do. It has been one of their principles to keep out of politics though supporting the ruling government, and previous to the Revolution, they were always loyal to the Czars. In consequence they were greatly feared by the people because of their ruthless, iron allegiance to the Crown. But with the coming of the Revolution their loyalty shifted to the people's side. The long-flowing coat, heretofore characteristic of the Cossacks, has been dispensed with except among certain classes, such as the Caucasian Cossack with his Circassian costume, and most of these men now fight on foot, whereas before this war they were practically all mounted. Modern trench warfare has brought this change about.

The return trip which almost encircled the base of Mount Ararat, disclosing its every side, again demonstrated the contrasting degrees of comfort which we experienced. From the rough-going army wagon we changed to a private car provided by General Nazarbekoff at the rail-head, and for thirty hours our party of five enjoyed a period of real luxury. This was quickly interrupted, however, at the junction station of Shactacti, where, through a miscalculation — a most common occurrence in Russia — we found it necessary, after midnight, to seek a place on the Tiflis train. In going through the train to the compartment where I knew Mr. McDowell to be, I found him with fourteen Persian and Syrian companions in a four-berth compartment, and despite the overcrowding approaching congestion, they hospitably asked us to join them! This condition had to be endured not for a few hours but for a journey covering three nights and days on a composite train of coaches, military and freight cars.

At Tiflis, after gladly saying good-bye to some but not all of our unwelcome parasitic friends through the medium of hot sulphur baths, and reluctantly parting from a number of the rare real companions who had made our journey pleasant and , never to be forgotten, Mr. McDowell and I started on a five-day trip by rail back to Petrograd. We again called on our friend Monsieur George to secure us a compartment, and instead of a berth each — the berths are narrow and run across the car — Mr. McDowell and I had to double up in the lower berth, my feet beside his head and vice versa, a young woman with her child occupying the upper berth of the compartment. This situation, which would be rather startling in America, is very common in Russia. where travelers are constantly being forced into embarrassing positions by a widespread disregard for the sexes which is part and parcel of unmoral Russia.

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© Holdwater
The source site of this article gets revised often, as better information comes along. For the most up-to-date version, links and the related photos, the reader may consider reviewing the direct link as follows:
www.tallarmeniantale.com/russo-turk-front.htm

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