1955) Newspaper Articles Blow the Lid Off Armenian Propaganda

The following article from The Washington Herald exposes so many of the lies of Armenian propaganda, it's astounding! This is the kind of article the Vahakn Dadrians, the Peter Balakians, and the Taner Akcams of the world would go out of their way to ignore.

Another article that appears to have come directly from the annals of "Turkish propaganda" — only we know no Turks were behind it — follows, from The Salt Lake Tribune, Dec. 1895.

Emphasis below is Holdwater's. Thanks to Gokalp.

THE ARMENIAN RACE
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Blemishes and Virtues of an Interesting and Mysterious Country.
BY EX-ATTACHE.
The Washington Herald, August 25, 1907

The Rev. Levont Martoogessian was arrested
for the murder of Tavshanjian.

Armenia is just at present in the public eye here in America in connection with the recent murder of H. S. Tavshanjian, perhaps the most prosperous member of the important colony of Armenian merchants in New York. The assassin is one of his countrymen, and it is pretty generally understood that political dissensions and blackmail were the motives of this crime which is merely one of a long series of an almost identical nature which have been perpetrated in recent years in the United States and in various parts of Europe, notably in London, Venice, Paris, and Brussels. But people here are curiously at sea with regard to the political aspirations of the Armenians as to the rival parties into which they are divided, and as to their status. Indeed, save among students, and those identified with the American missions in Asia Minor, so useful through their civilizing influences, only the vaguest ideas prevail as to the whereabouts of Armenia as to whether the Armenians make their home there, and as to their origin. With regard to the latter question it is impossible to blame anybody for ignorance on the subject. For the Armenians themselves are altogether at sea about the beginnings of their race, and whereas some of them claim to be the lineal descendants of the ancient Assyrians, others assert that their nation was founded by Haik, son of Togarmak, who himself was a grandson of Japhet, and a great-grandson therefore of Noah, while there are many, again, who believe the Armenians to constitute one or more of the lost tribes of Israel. Certain it is that they have many points in common with the Jews, whom they resemble in feature, character, and condition. Like them they present the phenomenon of a race dispersed throughout the world, intermingling, but never fusing with other people, possessed of incomparable abilities in everything relating to commerce and finance, immutably attached to their faith, which is based, however, not on the Talmud, but on the Bible, and cherishing shadowy hopes of a national restoration.



Avetis Nazarbekian co-founded the
Hunchaks. The party split into two,
and the "reformed" branch was led by
Arpiar Arpiarian


Before proceeding any farther it may briefly be mentioned that most of the political murders that have been perpetrated in America, and in other countries by Armenians against their co-religionists, have been due to the antagonism existing between the Hentchakiste Secret Society, and that known as the Arpiarist organization. The Hentchakiste Association was formed In 1877 by an Armenian journalist, a certain Avetist Nazarbek, in reality for the purpose of providing himself with a means of livelihood, but ostensibly in order to secure the suppression of Turkish misrule in Armenia, by means of bringing the woes of the latter before the public of Western Europe and America. With this avowed object in view, he founded in London a newspaper entitled the Hentchak, which may be described as the Tocsin or Alarm Bell, and found no difficulty in obtaining generous subscriptions from wealthy Armenian residents in America, in England, in France, Germany, and Italy, describing in lurid colors the terrible cruelties and savage oppression to which those of their countrymen were subjected, who groaned under the cruel rule of the In Turkey. As in the case of all these secret political societies, the Hentchakiste organization attracted a large number of heelers and adventurers, Armenians of the very worst type, who found it more agreeable to draw money as political agents from the treasury of the society, and to live on the subscriptions patriotically offered by their wealthy, industrious, and reputable co-religionists, than to do any actual hard, honest work. The Hentchakiste Society proved such a gold mine to scoundrels of this class that, as was only to be expected, another society of a similar character was founded not long afterward by another Armenian newspaper man, of the name of Arpiar, on analogous lines. Of course, the two societies commenced to fight with one another. The Hentcnakistes accused the Arpianists of being secretly in league with the Turks, and about four years ago an attempt was made to assassinate Arpiar in Venice, where he was very dangerously wounded, presumably by Heatchakistes. This greatly incensed the Arpiarists, who are established in strong numbers at Boston, and the Arpiarist paper there practically called on the heads of their society for revenge.

Indeed their opponents claim that they advocated the killing of the principal leaders of the Hentchakistes, and this was followed by the shooting of the editor of Young Armenia, an anti-Arpiarist paper in Boston, and in a murderous attack near Lausanne, in Switzerland, upon M. Nazarbek, the journalist founder of the Hentchakiste Society. Shortly afterward, another Hentchakiste leader of the name of Sagatiel Sagouni, was shot and killed at his home at Nunhead, one of the suburbs of London, and it is alleged that a number of other murders and attempted homicides here as well as in Europe during the last three or four years have been due to the blood feuds between these two rival societies. Of late the more unscrupulous elements of these organizations have received an additional incentive to crime through the withdrawal of the rich and respectable Armenian merchants abroad. The latter having become alive to the fact that all the money which they had so generously subscribed toward the relief of the sufferings of their co-religionists in Turkey was being merely utilized to maintain in relative idleness a couple of bands of adventurers and desperadoes, who brought both the name and the cause of Armenia into disrepute, declined to continue their contributions, and closed their purses. This led the evil element of the Hentchakiste and Arpiarist societies to endeavor to extort by means of blackmail and terrorism the funds which they had previously had no difficulty in obtaining on the plea of patriotic charity, and there is no doubt that there will be many more crimes such as the assassination of Mr. Tavshanjian, the wealthy New York carpet dealer, the other day, unless these societies either purge themselves of the evil element in question, or else are broken up by the authorities as organizations the very membership of which constitutes an offense against the laws of the land.

Sometimes the stories of atrocities were entirely bogus, while in other instances the outrages were deliberately provoked by the members of the society for the purpose of loosening purse strings.

It must thoroughly be understood that there is hardly a reputable well-to-do Armenian who would not welcome the disappearance of these societies as now constituted. For he has ended by regarding them as responsible not only for the increasing evil odor of the cause of Armenia Abroad, but also for the prosecution to which his co-religionists have been subjected at stated epochs in Turkey. Whenever the treasury of these two secret societies ran low, the sympathy of the rich Armenians abroad was excited by stories of massacres and outrages by Turks upon the Armenians in the Ottoman empire. Sometimes the stories of atrocities were entirely bogus, while in other instances the outrages were deliberately provoked by the members of the society for the purpose of loosening purse strings. This view has expressed by foreign consular officials, by students, and writers on the Armenian problem, such as H. F. D. Lynch, in his standard work, “Armenia,” and by many eminent Armenians, and I have before me an interview published in the Moscow press, and reprinted in the Official Gazette of Tiflis, in which of the most influential members of the Armenian community at Constantinople, while staying at Moscow, asserts that most of the stories of so-called Armenian outrages were “manufactured out of the whole cloth,” and that in the relatively few instances where massacres had actually taken place, they had been deliberately provoked by unscrupulous agitators of his own race. Mr. Lynch, in “Armenia” expresses the firm conviction, based on careful investigation on the spot, that the massacres of 1895 were not the outcome of a spontaneous rising of the Moslems against the Christians, but provoked from without by Armenian revolutionaries. Of course, the Armenians are not popular in Turkey. Like the Jews, they are too successful in every business they undertake not to excite the jealousy of their Moslem neighbors. And then, too, following as they do the professions of bankers, money lenders, traders, and loan-mongers, they have most of their less thrifty Moslem neighbors and fellow citizens in their debt. But they are extremely well treated, unless there is some deliberate act of provocation, as, for instance, on the occasion of the Armenian outrages at Constantinople some ten years ago, which originated in a disorderly and riotous Armenian demonstration at the sublime porte, leading to a sanguinary conflict between the Armenian rioters and the troops sent to restore order, whereupon the turbulent Softas or Moslem students took a hand in the game. But the trouble would never have taken place had it not been deliberately provoked by the demonstration at the sublime porte, carefully organized by the revolutionary Armenian societies, apparently for the express purpose of instigating a massacre, to excite the sympathy of the civilized world in behalf of the Armenians against the Turks.

"[T]he Armenian is freed from military service on the payment of an annual tax amounting to a little over a dollar..."

"With this exception the taxes which the Armenians pay are identical with those demanded from the Turk, and if anything they are treated by the authorities with a greater degree of consideration than the latter..."

It is only abroad that one hears of Turkish cruelties and the oppression of the Armenians, and those of the latter who complain of the persecutions of the Turkish government mostly all reside either in Western Europe or in the United States.

The Armenians enjoy many advantages at the hands of the Sultan. Thus, whereas every able-bodied Turk is compelled to serve a certain number of years in the army, his family during that time being deprived of his assistance and support, the Armenian is freed from military service on the payment of an annual tax amounting to a little over a dollar, and which is only exacted during the years which he would have had to serve with the colors did he profess the Mohammedan faith. With this exception the taxes which the Armenians pay are identical with those demanded from the Turk, and if anything they are treated by the authorities with a greater degree of consideration than the latter, partly owing to their superior wealth, partly to the influence exercised by their fellow-countrymen in office at Constantinople, and partly, too, because missionaries, consuls, and ambassadors are known to be on the look-out for anything which could be construed into religious and race prejudice on the part of the Turks against the Christian subjects of the Sultan in general, and in particular, against the Armenians. Converse with any leading Armenian financier or great backer at Constantinople, with any Armenian proprietor of a manufactory, or with any Armenian government official, and ask him whether he would wish for a restoration of the kingdom of Armenia, as it existed a thousand years ago, and be prepared to sacrifice to that object the position, the prestige, and the interests which be now enjoys at Stamboul. While he might theorize on the national sentiment of Armenia, he would be just as little disposed to put any project of that kind into execution as the Rothschilds, the Schiffs, the Guggenheims, the Strausses and other eminent Hebrew princes of finance would be willing to abandon their homes and interests in Western Europe and America in order to spend the remainder of their days in what was once the kingdom of Judea.

The national aspirations of the sensible Armenians, like those of the Hebrews of the same class, are, when they exist, purely theoretical. Whereas the Bulgarians prior to their independence occupied a compact territory, where they were three times as numerous as the Turks, the Armenians are a scattered race. Indeed the congress of Berlin in 1878, after a careful investigation of the question, declared itself powerless on this account to define the limits of Turkish Armenia, and unable thereof to form any project for Armenian autonomy. In the Ottoman provinces comprised in the ancient kingdom of Armenia, there are three Turks to every Armenian, while in the remainder of Asia Minor the Turks outnumber them by ten to one. All told, there are about 4,500,000 Armenians the world of whom at least 1,500,00[sic] are subject to the rule of the Czar, 1,200,000 in Turkey, 250,000 in Persia, and as many in India. There is a large colony of them in France, mainly in Paris and at Marseilles; also at Venice, in London, and in various parts of England. A considerable number of them are to be found in Boston and in New York, and there are many thousands of them scattered in the Philippines and other Asiatic archipelagoes. Wherever they embark in business they prosper and thrive, and become useful and respected members of the community. It is only the relatively small lawless, shiftless, political adventurer oral carpet-bag element that bring into disrepute this ancient and historic race, which has furnished so many eminent statesmen to Turkey, to Persia, to Egypt in the person of Nubar Pasha, and to Russia in the late Gen. Loris Melikoff, dictator of the empire in 1880.

Where Armenia has suffered is undoubtedly from having been used so frequently by Russia as a pawn in her political game, and as an instrument for her designs to reach the shores of the Mediterranean, if not via the Dardanelles and Constantinople, at any rate by the seaboard Armenian province of Cilicia, just opposite the island of Cyprus. Under the plea of liberating the Christian Armenians from Moslem misrule, she has, during her successive war, encroached more and more upon those Turkish provinces that in very olden times constituted the Kingdom of Armenia. That the Armenians prefer the rule of the Sultan to that of the Muscovite emperor in spite of all that has been said of their oppression and persecution by the Turk, is conclusively shown by their exodus from Russian to Ottoman territory which has been in progress for the last quarter of a century. Notwithstanding all the charges laid at the door of the Padishah on their account, they avowedly find his rule more liberal, more humane, and more conducive to their happiness and welfare than that of the Great White Czar.

ARMENIAN CHARACTER

The following article, entitled "Armenian Character," appeared in The Salt Lake Daily Tribune newspaper, December 29, 1895.

That the Turks can be regarded as patterns of gentleness and morality is not claimed by their best friends. But many writers doubt that the Osmanli deserve all the abuse which is being heaped upon them in these days. It is pointed out that the Turks, unlike the Spaniards and Russians, omitted to force the nations whom they conquered to adopt their religion. It is further pointed out that Western civilization does not benefit all races. These views are broadly defended by a correspondent in the Koinische Zeitung, Cologne, who describes himself as a “twenty-five-year resident of Turkey.” He believes that the Turks benefit about as much by contact with Western civilization as the American Indians profited by the arrival of the European settlers. As for the Armenians, their conduct is regarded as altogether unreliable by this writer. He says:

The Armenians cannot be said to have a historical right to demand independence. Long before the Turks came, Armenia had been ruled over by foreign nations. The Osmanli freed them from this worst of degradation and allowed them to settle in Constantinople, hoping that the Armenians, freed from Byzantine oppression, would become faithful friends of their new patrons. The Armenians have been petted for ages, they have amassed great wealth, and many high positions are to this day filled by them. The bitterness with which the Mussulmans regard Armenian revolt is therefore easily explained. That the Armenians suffer under the corruption which rule supreme in Turkey cannot be denied, but they suffer no more than their Mohammedan fellow subjects, who, in addition to all other ills, have to bear the burden of military service, from which the Christians are freed. Turkish officials have to spend money to obtain their positions, and as those positions are not permanent, they must endeavor to reimburse themselves as speedily as possible.

Much responsibility rests with the Anglo-Armenian committees, who work upon the easily roused humanitarian principles of the English, and instigate revolt and bloodshed in the hope of getting official positions in Armenia, if that country is ever made independent. Much harm, also is done by the American missionaries. Ostensibly they devote their lives to the education of the young; in reality they seek to make converts and promulgate modern views among a people entirely unfit to receive them. As the Turks do not support any missions in America, it is not easy to see why Turkey should grant hospitality to people who so ill requite it. The reports of English and American missionaries are very much overdrawn. The Consular commission sent to investigate the horrors of the Sassoun district has never published its report. The English declare that the Consular report would rouse public indignation in England to a fever heat, but the Turks claim that no proof of the alleged Turkish excesses can be obtained. The Turkish police and the Turkish troops behaved in the most exemplary manner. No law-abiding Armenian suffered any inconvenience, and the theatrical flight of some Armenians who sought refuge in their churches was entirely unnecessary. While the papers spoke of Constantinople as being in a state of anarchy, foreign ladies and gentlemen on a tour of pleasure visited places of interest without the slightest obstruction.



Arminius Vambery
The Hungarian professor believed
the Hungarian & Turkish languages
were similar, and helped
Bram Stoker for his research with
Dracula; he is believed to be the
inspiration for Van Helsing

Prof. Arnim Vambery, the daring Hungarian Orientalist and perhaps the best living authority on these matters, also believes that the Armenians provoked the conflict unnecessarily and regards the stories of Turkish cruelty as much exaggerated. Thus in the Sassoun district, where according to newspaper reports, over 6000 Christians were murdered, the population was never more than 2000 to 4000, Moslems and Christians included. On the other hand the demand for reform, not only in politics but also in private life, is recognized by many Turkish gentlemen. Unfortunately, the press in Turkey is not permitted to speak out. A gentleman resident in Constantinople sends us a communication in which it is asserted that Turkish papers are strictly prohibited from mentioning the Armenian question. Our correspondent incloses the translation of an article in the Terguman, a Turkish paper published in the Crimea. The article, which illustrates the position taken by liberal-minded Mussulmans, runs substantially as follows:

The power and influence of the Armenians is due neither to their revolutionary committee nor to the English, but to their industry and progress. The influence of revolutionaries and of the English may be overcome, but the real forces behind the Armenians will always stay. The Armenian question is not political, it is economical. Twenty-five or thirty years ago the Armenains [sic] began to found commercial houses in the great centers of Europe, America and India, and their students began to frequent European and American universities. Neither the Kurds nor the Georgians nor the Tartars followed suit, hence they must go to the wall. Some members of the latter nations have been educated by order of the Government, but these, of course, do not count. The Armenians work on their own initiative, Mussulmans of the Caucasus who wish to sell their silk at Moscow of Lyons are forced to contract through Armenian houses. The Mussulmans who sell English calicoes in their little shop in Eastern Turkey are dependent upon Armenian wholesalers. At Bakuin in the Caucasus there are many more Mussulmans than Armenians, yet the latter furnish by far the largest contingent of students in the scientific and industrial schools of that city. They have the best private schools and the libraries and book-shops are theirs. The benevolent societies are theirs. They support the theaters and subscribe to the Russian and foreign newspapers to increase their knowledge. Our own people prefer to listen to the story-tellers and dirge-singers. They look backward rather than forward. Both in Russian and in Turkey the Armenians have made themselves necessary to the welfare of the nation. The other races must emulate them. Nobody ever said to the Georgians and Tartars, “Don’t work, don’t read!” And nobody ever commanded the Armenians to work or read. They go to work of themselves. If the Georgian neighbors of the Armenians do not work as they should, their vineyards, their wine-jars, and their stables will become the property of Armenians. If our Mussulmans do not work, their mulberry groves, their caravansaries and their green pastures will, little by little, be bought up by the Armenians. The money will be spent and the property will remain in the hands of the Armenians. There is no defense against this sort of thing but work and education. These, and not the friendship or enmity of England, will settle the Armenian question.

--Translated and condensed for the Literary Digest.
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© Holdwater
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