313) WW I, 1st Phase, 2nd Phase, How Many Died?, Was It Genocide?, Perpetrated...Prior To...?, Conclusions by Prof Hasan Ozbekhan, Univ. of Penn

Prof Hasan Ozbekhan, Univ. of Penn.:

 

-World War I, First Phase
-World War I, Second Phase
-How Many Died?
-Was It Genocide?
-Perpetrated...Prior To...?
-Conclusions

 

 

World War I: First Phase

Given that the events that are alluded to took place during WW I, shall take that conflict as the framework of my exposition.

 

1.The Ottoman Empire entered that war on the side of Central Powers. At this point Imperial Russian forces began to invade Eastern Turkey.

 

2.In 1915 this invasion was spearheaded by some 150,000 Armenian volunteers from Turkey and the Transcaucasus who, under the false impression that Russia was going to help them to create an "independent" Armenia, had joined the Russian forces. Since the majority were Ottoman citizens, this act turned them into deserters. At the same time some 40,000 to 60,000 Armenians from Eastern Turkey had formed "guerrilla" bands, and were attacking the Turkish army from the rear, while wreaking havoc throughout the region. Even before the Russo-Armenian forces arrived the guerrillas had captured the city of Van, massacred the entire Muslim population, and razed the Muslim quarters. After this they undertook the softening-up of the area. In this operation thousands of Turks, Kurds and Muslims from Eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus were exterminated. Those who survived tried to escape in the direction of Central Anatolia thus creating a massive refugee problem.

 

3.At this point the Ottoman Government felt that it must act, because: (a) The Turkish army in the East was being attacked by Russo-Armenian forces from the North, and by the Armenian guerrillas from the East and the South; (b) on the other hand many Armenian communities in the war-zone and immediately to the West were peaceful, and appeared uninvolved in what the guerrilas were doing: (c) however, soon news began to come in that the guerrillas depended on some of these communities for food, shelter and recruits: and, (d) the Muslim populations were beginning to react in kind against the Armenians in the East, and the whole region was rapidly becoming the scene of a full-fledged "inter-communal war."

 

4.After some hesitation, the Ottoman Government decided to relocate the Armenian communities of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Anatolia in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, which at that time, were Ottoman provinces.

 

5.This widely criticized decision, was taken reluctantly, although the relocation of populations believed to be hostile was not exceptional. The Russians had done the same thing to the Turks when they conquered Transcaucasia. The minutes of the Ottoman cabinet show that the relocation of the Armenians was not to be punitive; that those moved were allowed to take everything they could carry, and that rent would be paid according to stipulated procedures for any real property that was being vacated.

 

6.The implementation of this decree turned out to be a tragedy because the relocation of a large mass of people proved beyond the logistical capabilities of the dying Ottoman Empire. A large number of Armenian casualties occurred during the relocation--due not only to the intercommunal warfare which had now become widespread, but mainly to disease, harsh weather, exposure, and hunger. However, it should be noted that a great many Turks and other Muslims also died from the same causes, as they sought to escape from the Armenians by following the retreating Ottoman armies of the East.

 

It is during this ordeal that individual crimes were committed against the Armenians. In this connection, however, one detail is always ignored: namely, that Turks and other Muslims were tried at this time in Ottoman Courts and convicted for their crimes. No Armenian was prosecuted despite the fact that great numbers of Turks and other Muslims were massacred during the same events.

 

7.This devastating situation lasted until 1917 when the next act of the tragedy begins.

 

 

 

World War I: Second Phase

1.With the start of the Russian Revolution a strange situation was created in North Eastern Turkey: (a) the Armenians in the area founded the new Armenian Republic out of the old Russian Province of Yerevan; (b) the Russian troops disappeared, and what was left were tzarist Russian officers, Russian Transcaucasian troops (mostly Armenians) and Armenian guerrilla bands.

 

2.The result was that even before the Ottoman army returned to the region, the Armenian forces in Eastern Turkey had begun to retreat in a northerly direction toward what was to become their new homeland. During the retreat they committed "unspeakable" horrors against the Turks, the Kurds and Circasians. "Unspeqakable" is used literally--for it is difficult to believe that anyone wants to tell in great detail about the gouging of eyes, the people buried alive, the burning of mosques full of women, children and old men.

 

3.On their side the Turks of Transcaucasia fled into Anatolia. Thus everybody was again relocated in one way or other. The warfare between Armenians and Turks resumed in 1919-1920 when the Turkish army (no longer the Ottoman, but the Nationalist) re-conquered Eastern Turkish cities and territories still occupied by the armenians, and the present frontiers between Armenia, Russia, and Turkey were eventually established by negotiation.

 

4.However, many Armenians who had been relocated to Syria and Lebanon now formed the Armenian Legion and joined the French forces which had occupied that Ottoman Province after the armistice of 1918. Together with the French they invaded South Eastern Turkey, and the region called Cilicia. Again, a great many horrible things happened, but the campaign was relatively short, because General Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) had by then taken charge in Eastern Turkey, and the French realizing that annexing Cilicia was not going to be easy decided to stop fighting and start negotiating. The Armenian Legion withdrew to Syria destroying everything and killing almost everybody on its way.

 

 

 

How Many Died?

1.The Concurrent Resolution states that 1.5 million Armenians died between 1915 and 1923 at the hands of the Turks. This figure needs to be questioned because: (a) it seems grossly exaggerated; (b) it constitutes the basis of other claim which has come to be wrongly called "Armenian genocide."

 

2.How did the Armenians determine that 1.5 million of their race were killed? At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 the head of their delegation set figure of Armenian losses at 300,000. Then, in the twenties and thirties, after the publication of the "Andonian forgeries", this figure crept up to 800,000, and following World War II it oscillated between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000. By 1989, 1.5 million seems to have become the officially sanctioned number. It is the reliability of this figure that needs to be questioned--first, by reviewing population statistics.

 

3.However difficult it may be to establish correct population statistics for an area in war time, especially when there were so many refugees--and so many who never returned to their homes--it is possible to arrive at some valid approximations by examing the available demographic studies. Such studies were made both by the French and the English before World War I began. the Ottoman census of 1914 was also completed before the Empire entered the war. Thanks to these studies we have the following figures which give an idea of the size of the Ottoman Armenian population:

The French Yellow Book1,555,000
Encyclopedia Britannica1,500,000
Cotenson (French demographer)1,400,000
Lynch (English demographer)1,345,000
Annual Register (London) 1,056,000

As can be seen the statistical variance between the highest and the lowest figures is small, namely 499,000 (1,555,000 - 1,056,000 = 499,000). If we take the median (499,000 : 2 = 249,500) and add it to the lowest estimate, we get 1,305,500 for the size of the Armenian population. (249,500 + 1,056,000 = 1,305,500). This is almost identical with the Ottoman census,* and with the figure that the American historian Stanford Shaw arrived at--1,294,000--in 1976. Thus because of the smallness of the variance between these estimates calculated by neutral, sometimes anti-Turkish, scholars we can feel justified in saying that there were about 1,305,000 (in rounded figures) Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1914. This permits us to draw a first conclusion: given that one cannot kill more people than exist, the Armenians' favorite estimate of 1.5 million "genocided" does not make sense.

 

4.But now, let us try to figure how many Armenians might actually have died in the inter-communal war? The figures given at the time are as follows:

 

Talat Pasha, the supposed perpetrator of the alleged genocide, in his 1918 report to the last Congress of the Union and Progress Party (generally known as the Young Turk Party) estimated 300,000

 

Monsignor Touchet, at the CEuvre d'Orient Congress in 1916 - 500,000 Toynbee in 1918 - 600,000

 

Boghos Nubar, head of the Armenian Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 - 300,000

 

We must start by admitting that these estimates are mostly guesswork, for there was no way of obtaining correct figures during, or so soon after, the war. In order to arrive at a more dependable figure we need to make some calculations.

 

5.At the Paris Peace Conference Boghos Nubar and his Armenian Delegation claimed that 280,000 of his people remained in the Ottoman Empire, while 700,000 emigrated. If these figures are correct, then we must conclude that out of a population of 1,305,000 Armenians, 325,000 died during the inter-communal war. (1,305,000-280,000 - 700,000 = 325,000).

 

6.But this low figure is not supported by recent findings which indicate that no more than 80,000 Armenians (not 280,000) had remained in Turkey right after the war. This raises a question which is: Why did the Armenians claim that so many of their people stayed on in a country they had come to hate? One answer might be that 280,000 was simply a bad guess. Another possible answer is that the frontiers of North Eastern Turkey had not been finally determined in 1919, when the figure 280,000 was given, and many Armenians who soon thereafter went to what became the Armenian Soviet Republic were included in the figure. A third answer is that Armenians tended to inflate the numbers of their people remaining in Anatolia, because this gave them a better claim to a part of it during the peace negotiations.

 

7.Whatever the reason for the initial claim, we must change our earlier calculation and base it on the 80,000 figure. And if we say 80,000 remained and 700,000 emigrated we would have to conclude that between 500,000 to 600,000 might have died during the events of 1915-1923. (1,305,000 - 80,000 - 700,000 = 525,000.) Thus it was not 325,000 Armenians who lost their lives, but 525,000, or, taking into account possible errors in estimation, 600,000. Although in terms of human lives this is considerably more tragic than earlier determinations, the recent Turkish Governments have accepted the estimate. But even this figure is still very far from the 1.5 million victims that the Armenians, and the Concurrent Resolution claim.

 

8.The Turkish-Muslim* losses during the same period are more difficult to calculate, in the sense that the Ottoman Empire having lost World War I nobody on the winning side was very interested in trying to determine the casualties it had sustained. Consequently, we have to proceed by way of a comparison of the general census taken in Anatolia in 1914, and the other general census that the Turkish Republic completed in 1923-24-- that is after the Treaty of Lausanne had settled the frontiers of the new nation state. These censuses show that the Turkish-Muslim population diminished by 2.5 million between 1914 and 1923--not counting "military" losses of the Ottoman armies, for which quite good data exist. And, given that during World War I there were no hostilities in Anatolia, except in the Eastern part of it where the inter-communal conflict between Ottomans and Armenians took place, we must conclude that most of the Turkish-Muslim loss of life occurred during that conflict.

 

9.This amounts to saying that in the course of the events which darken the period under review Armenians lost between 525,000 to 600,000 people, and the Turks and other Muslims in Eastern Anatolia lost, say between 2 and 2.5 million.

 

*The official Ottoman census for 1914 estimates the Armenian population in the Empire to be 1,295,000. I have not introduced it in the above list, so as not to be accused of bias.

 

*The Ottoman Empire being multi-ethnic the expression "Turkish-Muslim" should be understood to include Turks, Kurds, and Transcaucasian peoples holding Ottoman citizenship.

 

 

Was It Genocide?

1.The word "genocide" which was coined by Professor R. Lemkin in 1944 seems to be carelessly used these days. But what does it mean? Its definition, accepted by most countries is found in the UN Convention on the subject. There are three salient points the convention singles out: (a) a government's intention to exterminate a specific race, or group, that lives under its jurisdiction; (b) the existence of a policy embodying that intention; (c) operational orders by that government to carry out the policy.

 

2.In terms of these points, the facts noted above do not describe a "genocide" given that there is no evidence of any kind that suggests, even implicitly, an intention to exterminate the Armenian race living in the Ottoman Empire: nor is there evidence of any policy formulated, or of orders issued to that end. The absence of intention, of policy, and of orders is corroborated by many foreign sources, as well as by the minutes of the Ottoman cabinet which are open to study for anyone who wishes to do so. Moreover, it would be strange indeed to go on arguing that those who were supposedly doing the "genociding", managed to lose considerably more people than the "genocided."

 

3.What happened then? What happened is that some Ottoman-Armenians tried to find an historical identity for their race and, benefiting from the growing weakness of the Ottoman Government, sought to realize this dream by force, with the help of the Russians--this, at a time when Russia and the Ottoman Empire were at war. The conjuncture of these circumstances, plus the fact that this attempt was undertaken in a region where other, non-Armenian communities were living, led to an "inter-communal war" unusual intensity. In that war everybody suffered more than humans should.

 

 

Perpetrated....Prior To....?

1.The resolution mentions"... the genocide perpetrated by the governments of the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, prior to the establishments of the Republic of Turkey." This is a peculiar statement, intended no doubt to avoid political and other reactions from the Turkish nation and their government--a friend, supporter, and ally of the United States. However, the statement does not respect the intention because it is merely a play on words, in the sense that the "Republic of Turkey" was indeed formally established in 1923, but was a continuation, or extension, of the institutions that ruled Turkey from 1919 on.

 

2.After the armistice that put an end to World War I in 1918, the Ottoman government had no authority over anything. The Empire no longer existed as a sovereign state. Istanbul and its surrounds were occupied by the Allies, the ports of North-Western Anatolia by the British, Southern Anatolia by the Italians, South-Eastern Anatolia by the French and the Armenian Legion, Western Anatolia by the Greeks whose armies began eventually to advance toward Ankara (the present capital), North Eastern Anatolia by the Armenians.

 

3.It was in the spring and summer of 1919 that General Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who had been sent to Anatolia to disarm the Eastern Ottoman army in accordance with the dictates of the Armistice, decided instead to mobilize the country and wage war against all the occupiers. As part of the organization of the war, the Grand Nation Assembly was elected which represented the sole governing authority in Turkey. As such it collected taxes, recruited soldiers, dispensed justice--in sum, it did everything that governments are supposed to do. In other words there was no discontinuity-- not even a real institutional discontinuity--between it and the republic that was eventually founded.

 

4.Thus between 1919 and 1923 all the events that the Concurrent Resolution refers to, involved the Grand National Assembly. It follows that speaking of Ottoman governments"...prior to the establishment of the Turkish Republic" is a piece of casuistry (in the pejorative sense of the word). The phrase assumes that today's Turks have no memory, no emotional ties to the horrors their grandparents, fathers and mothers went through. It also ignores that the passage of the Concurrent Resolution will have deep traumatic effects in Turkey as well as on Turkish Americans throughout the United States.

 

 

 

Conclusions

The facts reported above mean:

 

1.That in the years 1915-1918 an "inter-communal war" occurred in the Ottoman Empire.

 

2.that from 1919 to 1923 this war continued, being directed on the Turkish side by the Grand National Assembly under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

 

3.that in the war the Armenians lost around 600,000 people, while Turks and other Muslims lost between 2 and 2.5 million people

 

4.that bloody and horrible as that event was it cannot be referred to as a "genocide" under any accepted definition of the word;

 

5.that because there was no "Armenian genocide," the passing of H. Con. Resolution No.47, will not only grievously hurt and humiliate families of Turkish-Americans and their children, but

 

6.by turning what today is still an Armenian myth into a legislated pseudo-fact, will also create gratuitous tensions between the United States and the Republic of Turkey.