288) A Synopsis on the Turkish-Armenian Question / A Basic Refresher Summary / Some tidbits of reality

 

 

Nearly a century later after the end of the World War I and the demise of the Ottoman Empire the Turkish-Armenian Question is still very much alive in the political circles. Unfortunately due to the silence of the accused Turkish government and lack of effective response from the Turkish media Armenian thesis has been the only accepted version for this ever controversial issue of the alleged Armenian genocide.

 

Armenians and their supporters are quick to make references to World War I era documents. One thing that is easily overlooked is that Ottoman Empire was against a conspiracy by the Entente since Great Britain, France, Russia, and finally Italy made secret treaties amongst themselves to carve up the empire even well before the end of the Great War. Thus there was much anti-Ottoman propaganda during the war and the documents that are referred by the proponents of the genocide-view are using such biased information.

 

One of the sources frequently referred to is the documents by U.S. Ambassador Morgenthau. The ambassador served in Ottoman Turkey for 26 months until he finished his tour of duty in February 1916. Based on the official governmental documents Morgenthau himself acknowledged that he gathered his information on the Armenian massacres from his Armenian personal secretary Hagop S. Andonian and his Armenian special advisery Arshag K. Schmavonian. His documents, which lack official reports to back his claims, are mainly made up of hearsay information. In addition Morgenthau freely admitted that he allowed Andonian to write his own accounts as he also made his own modifications to the documents. Thus, Morgenthau's documents, which are frequently used, cannot be used as an objective evidence to support the Armenian view of the alleged genocide.

 

Another frequently utilized reference is that of Lord Bryce and British historian Arnold Toynbee. Lord Bryce was British Ambassador to the U.S.. During the Great War he gathered anti-Ottoman and anti-German information. Once again there was no official documentation to support their claim of the alleged genocide. But Lord Bryce utilized letters from missionaries, foreign officers, and from witnesses to support his claim for the alleged orchestrated massacres of Armenians. In his accounts, Lord Bryce utilized a language that showed his bias against the Turks and other Muslims. In addition, his accounts of German massacres of Belgians were never proven. Thus, Lord Bryce's work suffered a credibility issue. It became obvious that such information was intended to smear the Ottoman Empire during a period when there was intense anti-Ottoman propaganda pursued by the European Allies.

 

Furthermore, the supporters of the Armenian thesis of the alleged genocide have also based their viewpoints on the telegrams of Ottoman Interior Minister Talat Pasha allegedly ordering the massacres of Ottoman Armenians. Such telegrams were compiled by Armenian Aram Andonian. But these documents were also proven to be false and therefore could not be relied upon as hard core evidence to implicate the Ottoman government with the alleged Armenian genocide.

 

Once the Ottoman Empire was defeated and was literally dismantled by the ardent Entente powers, the British had full access to the Ottoman government's archives. The British eagerly arrested 140 high-ranking Ottoman officials with hopes to try them for war crimes against British prisoners including Armenian massacres. With all the Ottoman information at their disposal including unsupported documents by Ambassador Morgenthau and the Lord Bryce/Toynbee duo there was no objective evidence to pin down the Ottoman government for any war crime much less an orchestrated massacre against Ottoman Armenians. All the propaganda that was led against the Ottoman Empire during the Great War remained as propaganda without any basis. Thus, the well-known Malta War Crimes Tribunal backfired against the Entente as the British were forced to release the Ottoman representatives without any evidence for the alleged genocide.

 

One thing is certain. During the World War I Ottoman Empire joined Germany and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire against the Entente following an adventurous move by the Young Turk government. This spelled the doom of the empire as the Entente began to partition its vast dominions before the end of the war.

 

Well known contemporary Armenian leaders such as Boghos Nubar Pasha and Armenian Prime Minister Hovannes Katchaznouni have admitted about Armenian contribution to the Russia's efforts against the Ottoman Empire. Armenians utilized the war as an opportunity to declare their independence within Turkish-majority eastern Anatolia. Thus, they joined Ottoman enemy Czarist Russia, which aimed to finish off the Ottoman existence. Since Ottomans saw Armenians as obstacle to their war effort against the invading Russian armies, Ottoman government decided to relocate Ottoman Armenians from the war zone of eastern Anatolia to another domain of the empire through the Syrian Desert.

 

However, such decision cost the lives of some 300,000 Armenians through the relocation process. The deaths occurred due to lack of protection from the attacks of Kurdish gangs, infectious diseases, and famine. Most historians agree that the total death toll of Armenians during the war was in the vicinity of 700,000 - 800,000 as opposed to 1.5 million as claimed by Armenians and their supporters.

 

Clearly it is not the scope of this synopsis to solve this decades long controversy but it should shed some light into Armenian smear campaign against the current Turkish government, which was not even in existence during these tragic times. But to accept the Armenian claims without objective scrutiny is nothing but injustice not only to the living Turks but most importantly to all the dead of the region from all creeds and nationalities. The current efforts’ aim is to revive the defunct Treaty of Sevres, which was supposed to deliver the eastern half of modern day Turkey to Armenia as a reward for Armenian contribution to the Allied Powers but especially to Russia. To compare the apparent belligerent Armenians' outcome during a war to helpless and unarmed European Jews during the Nazi era is simply preposterous. The Turkish-Armenian Question needs to be solved but in an unbiased environment by credible historians and not by politicians supported by deep-pocketed Armenian lobby.

 

By  Erol Yorulmazoglu, M.D. Member, Advisory Board Turkish Forum

 

 

*******************************

 

A Basic Refresher Summary

 

First contact between Armenians and Turks date back to the early 1100s when nomadic Turkish tribes started showing up in numbers in Anatolia. These tribes begun their immigration from the harsh conditions of the steppes which today are north western China and still home to the Moslem Turkic Uygurs. Armenians at the time were mostly under the prosecution of the decaying Byzantium and/or Persian empires. Decline of the Byzantine increased as the Turks formed the Selcuklu empire which was welcomed by the many of the regions minorities as it brought a new order and a period of tranquility until the Christian Crusades began which in turn became the major cause for the decline of the Selcuklu which bore the full brunt defending the Moslem lands. The Selcuklu was followed by the 600+ year Ottoman empire in which Armenians found a chance like many other ethnic groups to serve in diverse fields in the government as well as live a much more peaceful and protected life.

 

The Osmanli Empire (House of Osman) called the Ottoman Empire due to the mistake of Italian traders hundreds of years ago consisted of a multitude of ethnic and religious groups. The relationship of the majority, Moslems and the other religions were almost at all times favorable compared to their previous experiences under rulers of different religions.

 

The Ottoman Millet system of self governance was the major reason for the empires more then half millenium existence and in many ways are reflected in the current states model of the USA, except that the regions were at times even less loosely regulated. Simply put the none Moslems were exempt from military service and needed to only pay their taxes as determined together by the leader of their sect or social group and the Ottoman court. Non Moslems were later allowed into the military as a result of colonization efforts of the west which caused periods of non stop warfare on many fronts.

 

However during and after the eighteen hundreds the Empire entered a period of decline. It had failed to modernize and very slow to industrialize, nationalism was slowly boiling in Europe. Through a combination of failing to modernize, unsuccessful row of Sultans (Emperors) added with the colonialist moves of the west did not allow the Ottoman to catch up fast enough.

 

To give an idea of the expansionist desires of colonialism, the Ottoman armies fought wars in 1806-12, 1828-29, 1832-33, 1839-40, 1853-56, 1877-78, 1897, 1911-13, 1914-18, 1919-23 at great human and material cost. These dates dont even include internal uprisings. The resulting loss in man power undermined the once superior preparedness of the army, loss of land undermined revenue, the slow but steady seeping of ethnic nationalism coupled with the influx of Moslem refugees running from ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and Central-Caucasia stirred inter communal tensions.

 

The Ottoman Empire at the time was still a large entity but seen as the sick man of Europe with great wealth to be divided upon his death. Depleted military of the Ottomans required that internal forces which normally patrolled and kept law & order in the rural areas were summoned to the battle fronts. This is when the Russian dream for warmer waters (the Bosphorus/Dardanelles) and expansion in caucasia really fired up. In fact most European powers such as UK, France, Italy, Germany, Austria-Hungary were all interested in getting a piece of the Ottoman lands one way or the other. With the original intent of dividing up the Ottoman Empire, the western nations and Russia drew various plans of intervention to speed up the death and burial of the sick man. With the context of protecting the Christian minorities these powers started demanding things of the Ottoman empire which it was not in position to provide for anyone in the empire.

 

The plan was to bring chaos to the internal order of the Ottoman Empire, wreck the tranquility which the Ottomans had succeeded in keeping different ethnic groups living side by side peacefully and then intervening and grabbing large pieces of land with the pretense of protecting its minorities. The Russians & the British were the most successful of the colonial powers. The Russians were able to incite the Ottoman Armenians which shared a common religion with the promise of their own country while the British used a combination of bribes and promises of sheikdoms to local Arabs. As a result of the mostly British (but also the rest of the WW1 Allied forces) intervention most of the middle east's borders have been drawn artificially without any real ethnical or national basis hence the high level of conflict in the region today. This is also how the Armenian question came up. Czarist Russia saw that a very trusted Ottoman minority (actually called the "trusted millet") shared common religion (Orthodox) and was directly on the path of its expansion plans. The Russian Armenian relations began in the middle of the seventeenth century when Russia started flexing its expansionist military. In short Armenians were promised a country of their own if they fought on the side of the Russians.

 

The plan was two fold; first Armenian revolutionaries would join the ranks of the Russian forces but the second and more importantly Armenian revolutionaries would cause chaos behind the Ottoman lines. Their action behind the lines would not be limited to military but unprotected Moslem villages causing backlashes at Armenian villages and in return Russia would make claims on the Ottomans. Disrupting already limited supply lines, attacking in transit groups and causing terror behind lines against civilians which would require the Ottomans to divert man power from the front lines to the back for policing reasons caused un imaginable harm to the Ottoman efforts to protect its lands and its citizens.

 

The Ottoman government realized that it could no longer police the complete "back office" while fighting multiple wars and decided to force the migration of Armenians from the regions of which they caused havoc altogether to other parts of the empire where they would be less useful to the Russians. In the long run with the fall of the Czar, Russians left the Armenians in the cold. The civilian Moslem people (Turks, Kurds, Arabs, etc.) whom they had attacked in the meantime came back to haunt them. The atrocities committed by Armenian revolutionaries on Moslem populations of the region and by the advancing Russian forces on the conquered territories created a backlash. The refugees barely having survived Russian/Armenian massacres lashed back at the Armenians which were left alone by the Russians causing mass deportations and refugees on the Armenian side. The Ottoman Empire which had been reduced in size by more then 50% at this time was in no position to police or control regional violence, a civil war was taking place while it still tried fighting full battles on 3 distinct fronts (Balkans, Middle East, Caucasia) at the same time. The Ottoman Empire was the only Axis power left fighting when Germany and Austria-Hungarian empires fell at the end of World War 1.

 

When the Turkish War of Independence was won, peace came with the Lausanne Treaty. Part of the treaty of 1923, established Armenians together with Greeks and Jews as citizens of the new Republic with an official minority status.

 

Today Armenians continue their lives in Turkey in diverse fields mostly concentrated in Istanbul and some other Anatolian towns. As it was in the Ottoman Empire they are free to practice the requirements of their religion and continue to be a integral part of the state as they had been before. Of the latest news on Armenians in Turkey; On 11 October 1998 Sunday, 79 lay delegates were elected in the elections held in Istanbul, Kayseri, Diyarbakir, Iskenderun, Kirikhan and Vakifkoy (Antioch). Later in the week 10 clerical and 79 lay delegates forming the Armenian Church General Assembly elected the new Religious Council and Mesrob Mutafyan as the 84th Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul.

 

Today most problems on the issue are caused by the anti-Turkish-everything fanatic lobbying of the Armenian Diaspora and the occupation of more then 20% of Azerbaijan's (Turkic) land by the Republic of Armenia.

 

 

 

Some tidbits of reality;

 

IN THE 19th CENTURY IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE:
29 Armenians achieved the highest governmental rank of pasha,
22 Armenians became ministers, including Ministers of Foreign Affairs,
33 Armenians were elected to the Parliament,
7 Armenians were appointed as Ambassadors, 11 as Consul Generals,
11 Armenians served in universities as professors.

 

There were 803 Armenian schools employing 2088 teachers with over 80,000 pupils within the Ottoman Empire in 1901-2.

 

BRITISH CONSUL IN ERZURUM, GRAVES replied to the question of New York Herald Reporter Sydney Whitman "If no Armenian revolutionary had come to this country, if they had not stirred Armenian revolution, would these clashes have occurred?" as follows;
"Of course not. I doubt if a single Armenian would have been killed."