| Did the turks engage in massacring
the armenians as of 1890�s?
the so-called "armenian
question" is generally thought
of as having begun in the second
half of the nineteenth century. one
can easily point to the
russo-turkish war (1877 - 78) and
the congress of berlin (1878) which
concluded the war as marking the
emergence of this question as a
problem in europe. in fact,
however, one must really go back to
russian activities in the east
starting in the 1820's to
uncover its origins. czarist russia
at the time was beginning a major
new imperial expansing force across
central asia, in the process
overrunning major turkish khanates
in its push toward the borders of
china and the pacific ocean. at the
same time, russian imperial
ambitions turned southward as the
czars sought to gain control of
ottoman territory to extend their
landlocked empire to the
mediterranean and the open seas. as
an essential element of this
ambition, russia sought to
undermine ottoman strength from
within by stirring the national
ambitions of the sultan's
christian subject, in particular
those with whom it shared a common
orthodox religious heritage, the
greeks and the slavs in the balkans
and the armenians. at the same time
that russian agents fanned the
fires of the greek revolution and
stirred the beginnings of
pan-slavism in serbia and bulgaria,
others moved into the caucasus and
worked to secure russian influence
over the catholicos of the armenian
gregorian church of echmiadzin, to
which most ottoman gregorians had
strong emotional attachments. the
russians used the catholicos'
jealousy of the istanbul patriarch
to gain his support to such an
extent that catholicos nerses
aratarakes himself led a force of
60,000 armenians in support of the
russian army that fought iran in
the caucasus in 1827 �1828 and,
in the process capturing most of
iran's caucasus possessions,
including those areas where the
armenians lived. this new russian
presence along the borders of
eastern anatolia, combined with the
support of the catholicos, enabled
them to extend their influence
among armenians in the ottoman
empire. russian pressure in
istanbul finally got the patriarch
to add the catholicos' name to
his daily prayers starting in 1844,
furthering the latter's
ability to influence ottoman
armenians in russia's favor in
the years that followed. most
ottoman armenians were still too
content with their lot in the
sultan's dominions to be
seriously influenced by this
russian propaganda. the lands
abandoned by those who immigrated
to russia were turned over to
muslim refugees flooding into the
empire running away from
persecution in russia and eastern
europe. this led to serious land
disputes when many of the armenian
emigrants, or their descendants,
unhappy with life in russia, sought
to return to the ottoman empire in
the 1880's and 1890's.
the russians were not the only
foreign power seeking to
protect-the ottoman christians.
england and france sponsored
missionary activities that
converted many armenians to
protestantism and catholicism
respectively, leading to the
creation of the armenian catholic
church in istanbul in l830 and the
protestant church in 1847. however
these developments were not
directly related to the development
of the "armenian
question", except perhaps as
indications of the rising
discontent within the gregorian
church which the russians were
seeking to take advantage of in
their own way.
on the other hand, the reform
proclamation of 1856 was of major
importance. while not abolishing
the separate congressions and
churches and the institutions that
they supported, the ottoman
government now provided equal
rights for all subjects regardless
of their religion, in the process
seeking to eliminate all special
privileges and distinctions based
on religion, and requiring the
communities to reconstitute their
internal regulations in order to
achieve these goals. insofar as the
armenians were concerned, the
result was the armenian community
regulation, drawn up by the
patriarchate and put into force by
the ottoman government on 29 march
1862. of particular importance the
new regulation placed the armenian
comunnity under the government of a
council of 140 members, including
only 20 churchmen from the istanbul
patriarchate, while 80 secular
representatives were to be chosen
from the istanbul community and 40
members from the provinces. the
reform proclamation of 1856 led
england and france to be more
interested in armenians which in
return intensified the interests of
russia in the same ethnic group.
their concern was based on their
own imperialist interests rather
than their affection for armenians.
russia now sought to gain armenian
support for undermining and
destroying the ottoman state by
promising to create a "greater
armenia" in eastern anatolia,
which would cover substantially
more territory between the black
sea and the mediterranean than the
armenians ever had ruled or even
occupied at any time in their
history.
it was against this background that
the ottoman-russian war (1877 - 78)
awakened armenian dreams for
independence with russian help and
under russian guidance. toward the
end of the war, the armenian
patriarch of istanbul, nerses
varjabedian, got in touch with the
russian czar with the help of the
catholicos of echmiadzin, asking
russia not to return to the
ottomans the east anatolian lands
occupied by russian forces.
immediately after the war, the
patriarch went to the russian camp,
which by then was at san stephano,
immediately outside istanbul, and
in an interview with the russian
commander, grand duke nicholas,
asked that all of eastern anatolia
be annexed to russia and
established as an autonomous
armenian state, very much like the
regime then being established for
bulgaria, but that if this was not
possible, and the lands in question
had to be returned to the ottomans,
at least russian forces should not
be withdrawn until changes favoring
the armenians were introduced into
the governmental and administrative
organization and regulations of
these provinces. the russians
agreed to the latter proposal,
which was incorporated as article
16 of the 'treaty of san
stephano. even as the negotiations
were going on at san stephano,
moreover, the armenian officers in
the russian army worked frantically
to stir discontent among the
ottoman armenians, urging them to
work to gain "the same sort of
independence for themselves as that
secured by the christians of the
balkans." this appeal gained
considerable influence among the
armenians of eastern anatolia long
after the russian forces were
withdrawn.
the treaty of san stephano did not,
however, constitute the final
settlement of the russo-turkish
war. britain rightly feared that
its provisions for a greater
armenia in the east would
inevitably not only establish
russian hegemony in those areas but
also, and even more dangerous, in
the ottoman empire, and through
"greater armenia" to the
persian gulf and indian ocean,
where they could easily threaten
the british possessions in india.
in return for an ottoman agreement
for british occupation of cyprus,
therefore, to enable it to counter
any russian threats in eastern
anatolia, britain agreed to use its
influence in europe to upset the
provisions of san stephano,
arranging the congress of berlin to
this end. as a result of its
deliberations, russia was compelled
to evacuate all of eastern anatolia
with the exception of the districts
of kars, ardahan and batum, with
the ottomans agreeing to institute
"reforms" in the eastern
provinces where armenians lived
under the guarantee of the five
signatory european powers. from
this time onward, england in
particular came to consider the
"armenian question" as
its own particular problem, and to
regularly intervene to secure its
solution according to its own
ideas.
a committee sent by the armenian
patriarchate of istanbul attended
the congress of berlin, but it was
so unhappy at the final treaty and
the powers' failure to accept
its demands that it returned to
istanbul with the feeling that
"nothing will be achieved
except by means of struggle and
revolution." russia also
emerged from the congress without
having achieved its major
objectives, and with both greece,
and bulgaria being left under
british influence. it therefore
renewed with increased vigor its
effort to secure control of eastern
anatolia, again seeking to use the
armenians as a major instrument of
its policy. now, however, it was
resisted in this effort by the
british, who also sought to
influence and use the armenians by
stirring their national ambitions,
though in this respect, in the
words of the french writer rene
pinon, who is in fact known with
his pro-armenian views,
"armenia in british hands
would become a police station
against russian expansion."
whether under russian or british
influence, however, the armenians
became pawns to advance imperial
ambitions at ottoman expense.
it was british prime minister
benjamin disraeli and the tories
who defended ottoman integrity
against russian expansion at the
congress of berlin. but with the
assumption of power by william e.
gladstone and the liberals in i880,
british policy toward the ottomans
changed drastically to one which
sought to protect british interests
by breaking up the ottoman empire
and creating friendly small states
under british influence in its
place, one of which was to be
armenia. in pursuit of this policy,
the british press now was
encouraged to refer to eastern
anatolia as "armenia";
british consulates were opened in
every corner of the area to provide
opportunities for contact with the
local christian population; the
numbers of protestant missionaries
sent to the east was substantially
increased; and in london an
anglo-armenian friendship committee
was created to influence public
opinion in support of this new
endeavour. the way how russia and
great britain used armenians as a
tool for their own ambitions has
been adequately documented by
numerous armenian and other foreign
sources. thus, the french
ambassador in istanbul paul cambon
reported to the quai d'orsay
in 1894 that "gladstone is
organizing the dissatisfied
armenians, putting them under
discipline and promising them
assistance, settling many of them
in london with the inspiration of
the propaganda committee."
edgar granville commended that
"there was no armenian
movement in ottoman territory
before the russians stirred them
up. innocent people are going to be
hurt because of this dream of a
greater armenia under the
protection of the czar," and
"the armenian movements intend
to attach eastern anatolia to
russia." the armenian writer
kaprielian declared proudly in his
book "the armenian crisis and
rebirth that "the
revolutionary promises and
inspirations were owed to
russia." the tashnak newspaper
hairenik in its issue of 28 june
1918 stated that "the
awakening of a revolutionary spirit
among the armenians in turkey was
the result of russian
stimulation." the armenian
patriarch horen ashikian wrote in
his history of armenia "the
protestant missionaries distributed
in large numbers to various places
in turkey made propaganda in favor
of england and stirred the
armenians to desire autonomy under
british protection. the schools
that they established were the
nurseries of their secret
plans." and the armenian
religious leader hrant vartabed
wrote that "'the
establishment of protestant
communities in ottoman territory
and their protection by england and
the united states shows that they
did not shrink from exploiting even
the most sacred feelings of the
west, religious feelings, in
seeking civilization", going
on to state that the catholicos of
echmiadzin kevork v was a tool of
czarist russia and that he betrayed
the armenians of anatolia.
in pursuit of these policies,
starting in 1880 a number of
armenian revolutionary societies
were established in eastern
anatolia, like the black cross and
armenian societies in van and the
national guards in erzurum. however
these societies had little
influence, since the armenians in
the ottoman empire still lived in
peace and prosperity and had no
real complaints against ottoman
administration. with the passage of
time, therefore, these and other
such armenian societies within the
empire fell into inactivity and
largely ceased operations. the
armenian nationalists therefore
moved to center their organizations
outside ottoman territory,
establishing the hunchak committee
at geneva in 1887 and the tashnak
committee at tiflis in 1890, both
of which declared to be their basic
goal the "liberation"
from ottoman rule of the
territories of eastern anatolia and
the ottoman armenians.
according to louise nalbandian, a
leading armenian researcher into
armenian propaganda, the hunchak
program stated that:
"agitation and terror were
needed to "elevate the
spirit" of the people. the
people were also to be incited
against their enemies and were to
"profit" from retaliatory
actions of these same enemies.
terror was to be used as a method
of protecting the people and
winning their confidence in the
hunchak program. the party aimed at
terrorizing the ottoman government,
thus contributing toward lowering
the prestige of that regime and
working toward its complete
disintegration. the government
itself was not to be the only focus
of terroristic tactics. the
hunchaks wanted to annihilate the
most dangerous of the armenian and
turkish individuals who were then
working for the government as well
as to destroy all spies and
informers. to assist them in
carrying out all of these
terroristic acts, the party was to
organize an exclusive branch
specifically devoted to performing
acts of terrorism. the most
opportune time to institute the
general rebellion for carrying out
immediate objectives was when
turkey was engaged in war. "
k. s. papazian wrote of the tashnak
society:
"the purpose of the a. r.
federation (tashnak) is to-achieve
political and economic freedom in
turkish armenia, by means of
rebellion ... terrorism has, from
the first, been adopted by the
tashnak committee of the caucasus,
as a policy or a method for
achieving its ends. under the
heading "means" in their
program adopted in 1892, we read as
follows: the armenian revolutionary
federation (tashnak), in order to
achieve its purpose through
rebellion, organizes revolutionary
groups. method no. 8 is as follows:
to wage fight, and to subject to
terrorism the government officials,
the traitors, ... method no.11 is:
to subject the government
institutions to destruction and
pillage. "
one of the tashnak founders and
ideologues, dr. jean loris-melikoff
wrote that:
"the truth is that the party
(tashnak committee) was ruled by an
oligarchy, for whom the particular
interests of the party came before
the interests of the people and
nation.. they (the tashnaks) made
collections among the bourgeois and
the great merchants. a t the end,
when these means were exhausted,
they resorted to terrorism, after
the teachings of the russian
revolutionaries that the end
justifies the means. "
the same policy was described by
.the tashnak ideologue varandian,
in history of the tashnakzoutune
(paris, 1932).
thus as armenian writers themselves
have freely admitted, the goal of
their revolutionary societies was
to stir revolution, and their
method was terror. they lost no
time in putting their programs into
operation, stirring a number of
revolt efforts within a short time,
with the hunches taking the lead at
first, and then the tashnaks
following, planning and organizing
their efforts outside the ottoman
empire before carrying them out
within the boundaries of the
sultan's land.
the first revolt came in erzurum in
1890. it was followed by the
kumkapi riots in istanbul the same
year, and then risings in kayseri,
yozgat, corum and merzifon in 1892
- 1893, in sasun in 1894, the
zeytun revolt and the armenian raid
on the sublime porte in 1895, the
van revolt and occupation of the
ottoman bank in istanbul in 1896,
the second sasun revolt in 1903,
the attempted assassination of
sultan abdulhamid ii in 1905, and
the adana revolt in 1909. all these
revolts and riots were presented by
the armenian revolutionary
societies in europe and america as
the killing of armenians by turks,
and with this sort of propaganda
message they stirred considerable
emotion among christian peoples.
the missionaries and consular
representatives sent by the powers
to anatolia played major roles in
spreading this propaganda in the
western press, thus carrying out
the aims of the western powers to
turn public opinion against muslims
and turks to gain the necessary
support to break up the ottoman
empire.
there were many honest western
diplomatic and consular
representatives who reported what
actually was happening, that it was
the armenian revolutionary
societies that were doing the
revolting and slaughtering and
massacring to secure european
intervention in their behalf.
in 1876, the british ambassador in
istanbul reported that the armenian
patriarch had said to him:
"if revolution is necessary to
attract the attention and
intervention of europe, it would
not be hard to do so. "
on 28 march 1894 the british
ambassador in istanbul, curie
reported to the foreign office:
"the aim of the armenian
revolutionaries is to stir
disturbances, in order to get the
ottomans to react to violence, and
thus get the foreign powers to
intervene. "
on 28 january 1895 the british
consul in erzurum, graves reported
to the british ambassador in
istanbul:
"the aims of the revolutionary
committees are to stir up general
discontent and to get the turkish
government and people to react with
violence, thus attracting the
attention of the foreign powers to
the imagined sufferings of the
armenian people, and getting them
to act to correct the situation.
"
graves response to new york herald
reporter sydney whitman�s
question:
"if no armenian revolutionary
had come to this country, if they
had not stirred armenian
revolution, would these clashes
have occurred ", was "of
course not. i doubt if a single
armenian would have been killed.
"
the british vice-consul williams
wrote from van on 4 march 1896:
"the tashnaks and hunchaks
have terrorized their own
countrymen, they have stirred up
the muslim people with their thefts
and insanities, and have paralyzed
all efforts made to carry out
reforms; all the events that have
taken place in anatolia are the
responsibility of the crimes
committed by the armenian
revolutionary committees. "
british consul general in adana
doughty wily wrote in 1909
"the armenians are working to
secure foreign intervention."
russian consul general in bitlis
and van; general mayewski, reported
in 1912:
"in 1895 and 1896 the armenian
revolutionary committees created
such suspicion between the
armenians and the native population
that it became impossible to
implement any sort of reform in
these districts. the armenian
priests paid no attention to
religious education, but instead
concentrated on spreading
nationalist ideas, which were
affixed to the walls of
monasteries, and in place of
performing their religious duties
they concentrated on stirring
christian enmity against muslims.
the revolts that took place in many
provinces of turkey during 1895 and
1896 were caused neither by any
great poverty among the armenian
villages nor because of muslim
attacks against them. in fact these
villagers were considerably richer
and more prosperous than their
neighbors. rather, the armenian
revolts came from three causes:
1. their increasing maturity in
political subjects;
2.the spread of ideas of
nationality, liberation, and
independence within the armenian
community;
3.support of these ideas by the
western governments, and their
encouragement through the efforts
of the armenian priests. "
in another report in december 1912,
mayewski wrote that:
"the tashnak revolutionary
society is working to stir up a
situation in which muslims and
armenians will attack each other,
and thus pave the way for russian
intervention. "
finally, the tashnak ideologue
varandian admits that the society
"wanted to assure european
intervention," while papazian
stated that "the aims of their
revolts was to assure that the
european powers would interfere
ottoman internal affairs." at
each of their armed revolts the
armenian terrorist committees have
always propagated that european
intervention would immediately
follow. even some of the committee
members believed in this
propaganda. in fact, during the
occupation of the ottoman bank in
istanbul the armenian terrorist
armen aknomi committed suicide
after having waited in desperation
the arrival of the british fleet.
it can be seen thus that the basis
for the armenian revolts was not
poverty, nor was it oppression or
the desire for reform; rather, it
was simply the result of a joint
effort on the part of the armenian
revolutionary committees and the
armenian church, in conjunction
with the western powers and russia,
to provide the basis to break up
the ottoman empire.
in reaction to these revolts, the
ottomans did what other states did
in such circumstances, sending
armed forces against the rebels to
restore order, and for the most
part succeeding quickly since very
few of the armenian populace
supported or helped the rebels or
the revolutionary societies.
however for the press and public of
europe, stirred by tales spread by
the missionaries and the
revolutionary societies themselves,
every ottoman restoration of order
was automatically considered as a
"massacre" of christians,
while the thousands of slaughtered
muslims being ignored and christian
claims against muslims
automatically accepted. in many
cases, the european states not only
intervened to prevent the ottomans
from restoring order, but also
secured the release of many
captured terrorists, including
those involved in the zeytun
revolt, the occupation of the
ottoman bank, and the attempted
assassination of sultan abdulhamid.
while most of these were expelled
from the ottoman empire, it did not
take long for them to secure forged
passports and other documents and
to return to ottoman territory to
resume their terroristic
activities, with the cooperation of
their european sponsors. whatever
were the claims of the armenian
revolutionary societies and
whatever the ambitions of the
imperial powers of europe, there
was one major fact which they
simply could not ignore. the
armenians comprised a very small
minority of the population in the
territories being claimed in their
name, namely the six eastern
districts claimed as "historic
armenia" (erzurum, bitlis,
van, elaziz, diyarbakir and sivas),
the two provinces claimed to
comprise "armenian
cilicia" (aleppo and adana)
and finally trabzon which was later
claimed to have an outlet to the
black sea coast. event the french
yellow book, which among western
sources, which made the largest
armenian population claims, still
showed them in a sizeable
minority:
.
total population
total armenians population
percent of
gregorian
erzurum
645,702
134,967
20.90
bitlis
398,625
131,390
32.96
van
430,000
80,798
18.79
elaziz
578,814
69,718
12.04
diyarbakir
471,462
79,129
16.78
sivas
1,086,015
170,433
15.68
adana
403,539
97,450
24.14
aleppo
995,758
37,999
3.81
trabzon
1,047,700
47,200
4.50
thus even by these extreme claims,
the armenians still constituted no
more than one third of the
provinces' population.
according to the encyclopedia
britannica of 1910, the armenians
were only 15 percent of the
area's population as a whole,
making it very unlikely that they
could in fact achieve independence
in any part of the ottoman empire
without the massive foreign
assistance that would have been
required to push out the turkish
majorities and replace them with
armenian emigrants.
russia in fact was only using the
armenians for its own ends. it had
no real intention of establishing
armenian independence, either
within its own dominions or in
ottoman territory. almost as soon
as the russians took over the
caucasus, they adopted a policy of
russifying the armenians as well as
establishing their own control over
the armenian gregorian church in
their territory. by virture of the
polijenia law of 1836, the powers
and duties of the catholicos of
etchmiadzin were restricted, while
his appointment was to be made by
the czar. in 1882 all armenian
newspapers and schools in the
russian empire were closed, and in
l903 the state took direct control
of all the financial resources of
the armenian church as well as
armenian establishments and
schools. at the same time russian
foreign minister lobanov-rostowsky
adopted his famous goal of "an
armenia without armenians", a
slogan which has been deliberately
attributed to the ottoman
administration by some armenian
propagandists and writers in recent
years. whatever the reason, russian
oppression of the armenians was
severe. the armenian historian
vartanian relates in his history of
the armenian movement that
"ottoman armenia was
completely free in its traditions,
religion, culture and language in
comparison to russian armenia under
the czars." edgar granville
writes, "the ottoman empire
was the armenians' only
shelter against russian
oppression."
that russian intentions were to use
the armenians to annex eastern
anatolia and not to create an
independent armenia is shown by
what happened during world war i.
in the secret agreements made among
the entente powers to divide the
ottoman empire, the territory which
the russians had promised to the
armenians as an autonomous or
independent territory was summarily
divided between russia and france
without any mention of the
armenians, while the czar replied
to the protests of the catholicos
of etchmiadzin only that
"russia has no armenian
problem." the armenian writer
borian thus concludes:
"czarist russia at no time
wanted to assure armenian autonomy:
for this reason one must consider
the armenians who were working for
armenian autonomy as no more than
agents of the czar to attach
eastern anatolia to russia. "
the russians thus have deceived the
armenians for years; and as a
result the armenians have been left
with nothing more than an empty
dream.
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DID THE TURKS ENGAGE IN MASSACRING THE ARMENIANS AS OF 1890�s?
The so-called "Armenian Question" is generally thought of as having begun in the second half of the nineteenth century. One can easily point to the Russo-Turkish war (1877 - 78) and the Congress of Berlin (1878) which concluded the war as marking the emergence of this question as a problem in Europe. In fact, however, one must really go back to Russian activities in the East starting in the 1820's to uncover its origins. Czarist Russia at the time was beginning a major new imperial expansing force across Central Asia, in the process overrunning major Turkish Khanates in its push toward the borders of China and the Pacific Ocean. At the same time, Russian imperial ambitions turned southward as the Czars sought to gain control of Ottoman territory to extend their landlocked empire to the Mediterranean and the open seas. As an essential element of this ambition, Russia sought to undermine Ottoman strength from within by stirring the national ambitions of the Sultan's Christian subject, in particular those with whom it shared a common Orthodox religious heritage, the Greeks and the Slavs in the Balkans and the Armenians. At the same time that Russian agents fanned the fires of the Greek Revolution and stirred the beginnings of Pan-Slavism in Serbia and Bulgaria, others moved into the Caucasus and worked to secure Russian influence over the Catholicos of the Armenian Gregorian church of Echmiadzin, to which most Ottoman Gregorians had strong emotional attachments. The Russians used the Catholicos' jealousy of the Istanbul Patriarch to gain his support to such an extent that Catholicos Nerses Aratarakes himself led a force of 60,000 Armenians in support of the Russian army that fought Iran in the Caucasus in 1827 �1828 and, in the process capturing most of Iran's Caucasus possessions, including those areas where the Armenians lived. This new Russian presence along the borders of eastern Anatolia, combined with the support of the Catholicos, enabled them to extend their influence among Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Russian pressure in Istanbul finally got the Patriarch to add the Catholicos' name to his daily prayers starting in 1844, furthering the latter's ability to influence Ottoman Armenians in Russia's favor in the years that followed. Most Ottoman Armenians were still too content with their lot in the Sultan's dominions to be seriously influenced by this Russian propaganda. The lands abandoned by those who immigrated to Russia were turned over to Muslim refugees flooding into the Empire running away from persecution in Russia and Eastern Europe. This led to serious land disputes when many of the Armenian emigrants, or their descendants, unhappy with life in Russia, sought to return to the Ottoman Empire in the 1880's and 1890's.
The Russians were not the only foreign power seeking to protect-the Ottoman Christians. England and France sponsored missionary activities that converted many Armenians to Protestantism and Catholicism respectively, leading to the creation of the Armenian Catholic Church in Istanbul in l830 and the Protestant Church in 1847. However these developments were not directly related to the development of the "Armenian Question", except perhaps as indications of the rising discontent within the Gregorian church which the Russians were seeking to take advantage of in their own way.
On the other hand, the Reform Proclamation of 1856 was of major importance. While not abolishing the separate congressions and churches and the institutions that they supported, the Ottoman government now provided equal rights for all subjects regardless of their religion, in the process seeking to eliminate all special privileges and distinctions based on religion, and requiring the communities to reconstitute their internal regulations in order to achieve these goals. Insofar as the Armenians were concerned, the result was the Armenian Community Regulation, drawn up by the Patriarchate and put into force by the Ottoman government on 29 March 1862. Of particular importance the new regulation placed the Armenian comunnity under the government of a council of 140 members, including only 20 churchmen from the Istanbul Patriarchate, while 80 secular representatives were to be chosen from the Istanbul community and 40 members from the provinces. The Reform Proclamation of 1856 led England and France to be more interested in Armenians which in return intensified the interests of Russia in the same ethnic group. Their concern was based on their own imperialist interests rather than their affection for Armenians. Russia now sought to gain Armenian support for undermining and destroying the Ottoman state by promising to create a "Greater Armenia" in eastern Anatolia, which would cover substantially more territory between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean than the Armenians ever had ruled or even occupied at any time in their history.
It was against this background that the Ottoman-Russian war (1877 - 78) awakened Armenian dreams for independence with Russian help and under Russian guidance. Toward the end of the war, the Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul, Nerses Varjabedian, got in touch with the Russian Czar with the help of the Catholicos of Echmiadzin, asking Russia not to return to the Ottomans the east Anatolian lands occupied by Russian forces. Immediately after the war, the Patriarch went to the Russian camp, which by then was at San Stephano, immediately outside Istanbul, and in an interview with the Russian Commander, Grand Duke Nicholas, asked that all of Eastern Anatolia be annexed to Russia and established as an autonomous Armenian state, very much like the regime then being established for Bulgaria, but that if this was not possible, and the lands in question had to be returned to the Ottomans, at least Russian forces should not be withdrawn until changes favoring the Armenians were introduced into the governmental and administrative organization and regulations of these provinces. The Russians agreed to the latter proposal, which was incorporated as Article 16 of the 'Treaty of San Stephano. Even as the negotiations were going on at San Stephano, moreover, the Armenian officers in the Russian army worked frantically to stir discontent among the Ottoman Armenians, urging them to work to gain "the same sort of independence for themselves as that secured by the Christians of the Balkans." This appeal gained considerable influence among the Armenians of Eastern Anatolia long after the Russian forces were withdrawn.
The Treaty of San Stephano did not, however, constitute the final settlement of the Russo-Turkish war. Britain rightly feared that its provisions for a Greater Armenia in the East would inevitably not only establish Russian hegemony in those areas but also, and even more dangerous, in the Ottoman Empire, and through "Greater Armenia" to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, where they could easily threaten the British possessions in India. In return for an Ottoman agreement for British occupation of Cyprus, therefore, to enable it to counter any Russian threats in Eastern Anatolia, Britain agreed to use its influence in Europe to upset the provisions of San Stephano, arranging the Congress of Berlin to this end. As a result of its deliberations, Russia was compelled to evacuate all of Eastern Anatolia with the exception of the districts of Kars, Ardahan and Batum, with the Ottomans agreeing to institute "reforms" in the eastern provinces where Armenians lived under the guarantee of the five signatory European powers. From this time onward, England in particular came to consider the "Armenian Question" as its own particular problem, and to regularly intervene to secure its solution according to its own ideas.
A committee sent by the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul attended the Congress of Berlin, but it was so unhappy at the final treaty and the Powers' failure to accept its demands that it returned to Istanbul with the feeling that "nothing will be achieved except by means of struggle and revolution." Russia also emerged from the Congress without having achieved its major objectives, and with both Greece, and Bulgaria being left under British influence. It therefore renewed with increased vigor its effort to secure control of Eastern Anatolia, again seeking to use the Armenians as a major instrument of its policy. Now, however, it was resisted in this effort by the British, who also sought to influence and use the Armenians by stirring their national ambitions, though in this respect, in the words of the French writer Rene Pinon, who is in fact known with his pro-Armenian views, "Armenia in British hands would become a police station against Russian expansion." Whether under Russian or British influence, however, the Armenians became pawns to advance imperial ambitions at Ottoman expense.
It was British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and the Tories who defended Ottoman integrity against Russian expansion at the Congress of Berlin. But with the assumption of power by William E. Gladstone and the Liberals in I880, British policy toward the Ottomans changed drastically to one which sought to protect British interests by breaking up the Ottoman Empire and creating friendly small states under British influence in its place, one of which was to be Armenia. In pursuit of this policy, the British press now was encouraged to refer to eastern Anatolia as "Armenia"; British consulates were opened in every corner of the area to provide opportunities for contact with the local Christian population; the numbers of Protestant missionaries sent to the East was substantially increased; and in London an Anglo-Armenian Friendship Committee was created to influence public opinion in support of this new endeavour. The way how Russia and Great Britain used Armenians as a tool for their own ambitions has been adequately documented by numerous Armenian and other foreign sources. Thus, the French Ambassador in Istanbul Paul Cambon reported to the Quai d'Orsay in 1894 that "Gladstone is organizing the dissatisfied Armenians, putting them under discipline and promising them assistance, settling many of them in London with the inspiration of the propaganda committee." Edgar Granville commended that "There was no Armenian movement in Ottoman territory before the Russians stirred them up. Innocent people are going to be hurt because of this dream of a Greater Armenia under the protection of the Czar," and "the Armenian movements intend to attach Eastern Anatolia to Russia." The Armenian writer Kaprielian declared proudly in his book "The Armenian Crisis and Rebirth that "the revolutionary promises and inspirations were owed to Russia." The Tashnak newspaper Hairenik in its issue of 28 June 1918 stated that "The awakening of a revolutionary spirit among the Armenians in Turkey was the result of Russian stimulation." The Armenian Patriarch Horen Ashikian wrote in his History of Armenia "The protestant missionaries distributed in large numbers to various places in Turkey made propaganda in favor of England and stirred the Armenians to desire autonomy under British protection. The schools that they established were the nurseries of their secret plans." And the Armenian religious leader Hrant Vartabed wrote that "'The establishment of protestant communities in Ottoman territory and their protection by England and the United States shows that they did not shrink from exploiting even the most sacred feelings of the West, religious feelings, in seeking civilization", going on to state that the Catholicos of Echmiadzin Kevork V was a tool of Czarist Russia and that he betrayed the Armenians of Anatolia.
In pursuit of these policies, starting in 1880 a number of Armenian revolutionary societies were established in Eastern Anatolia, like the Black Cross and Armenian societies in Van and the National Guards in Erzurum. However these societies had little influence, since the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire still lived in peace and prosperity and had no real complaints against Ottoman administration. With the passage of time, therefore, these and other such Armenian societies within the Empire fell into inactivity and largely ceased operations. The Armenian nationalists therefore moved to center their organizations outside Ottoman territory, establishing the Hunchak Committee at Geneva in 1887 and the Tashnak Committee at Tiflis in 1890, both of which declared to be their basic goal the "liberation" from Ottoman rule of the territories of Eastern Anatolia and the Ottoman Armenians.
According to Louise Nalbandian, a leading Armenian researcher into Armenian propaganda, the Hunchak program stated that:
"Agitation and terror were needed to "elevate the spirit" of the people. The people were also to be incited against their enemies and were to "profit" from retaliatory actions of these same enemies. Terror was to be used as a method of protecting the people and winning their confidence in the Hunchak program. The party aimed at terrorizing the Ottoman government, thus contributing toward lowering the prestige of that regime and working toward its complete disintegration. The government itself was not to be the only focus of terroristic tactics. The Hunchaks wanted to annihilate the most dangerous of the Armenian and Turkish individuals who were then working for the government as well as to destroy all spies and informers. To assist them in carrying out all of these terroristic acts, the party was to organize an exclusive branch specifically devoted to performing acts of terrorism. The most opportune time to institute the general rebellion for carrying out immediate objectives was when Turkey was engaged in war. "
K. S. Papazian wrote of the Tashnak Society:
"The purpose of the A. R. Federation (Tashnak) is to-achieve political and economic freedom in Turkish Armenia, by means of rebellion ... terrorism has, from the first, been adopted by the Tashnak Committee of the Caucasus, as a policy or a method for achieving its ends. Under the heading "means" in their program adopted in 1892, we read as follows: The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Tashnak), in order to achieve its purpose through rebellion, organizes revolutionary groups. Method no. 8 is as follows: To wage fight, and to subject to terrorism the Government officials, the traitors, ... Method no.11 is: To subject the government institutions to destruction and pillage. "
One of the Tashnak founders and ideologues, Dr. Jean Loris-Melikoff wrote that:
"The truth is that the party (Tashnak Committee) was ruled by an oligarchy, for whom the particular interests of the party came before the interests of the people and nation.. They (the Tashnaks) made collections among the bourgeois and the great merchants. A t the end, when these means were exhausted, they resorted to terrorism, after the teachings of the Russian revolutionaries that the end justifies the means. "
The same policy was described by .the Tashnak ideologue Varandian, in History of the Tashnakzoutune (Paris, 1932).
Thus as Armenian writers themselves have freely admitted, the goal of their revolutionary societies was to stir revolution, and their method was terror. They lost no time in putting their programs into operation, stirring a number of revolt efforts within a short time, with the Hunches taking the lead at first, and then the Tashnaks following, planning and organizing their efforts outside the Ottoman Empire before carrying them out within the boundaries of the Sultan's land.
The first revolt came in Erzurum in 1890. It was followed by the Kumkapi riots in Istanbul the same year, and then risings in Kayseri, Yozgat, Corum and Merzifon in 1892 - 1893, in Sasun in 1894, the Zeytun revolt and the Armenian raid on the Sublime Porte in 1895, the Van revolt and occupation of the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul in 1896, the Second Sasun revolt in 1903, the attempted assassination of Sultan Abdulhamid II in 1905, and the Adana revolt in 1909. All these revolts and riots were presented by the Armenian revolutionary societies in Europe and America as the killing of Armenians by Turks, and with this sort of propaganda message they stirred considerable emotion among Christian peoples. The missionaries and consular representatives sent by the Powers to Anatolia played major roles in spreading this propaganda in the western press, thus carrying out the aims of the western powers to turn public opinion against Muslims and Turks to gain the necessary support to break up the Ottoman Empire.
There were many honest western diplomatic and consular representatives who reported what actually was happening, that it was the Armenian revolutionary societies that were doing the revolting and slaughtering and massacring to secure European intervention in their behalf.
In 1876, the British Ambassador in Istanbul reported that the Armenian Patriarch had said to him:
"If revolution is necessary to attract the attention and intervention of Europe, it would not be hard to do so. "
On 28 March 1894 the British Ambassador in Istanbul, Curie reported to the Foreign Office:
"The aim of the Armenian revolutionaries is to stir disturbances, in order to get the Ottomans to react to violence, and thus get the foreign Powers to intervene. "
On 28 January 1895 the British Consul in Erzurum, Graves reported to the British Ambassador in Istanbul:
"The aims of the revolutionary committees are to stir up general discontent and to get the Turkish government and people to react with violence, thus attracting the attention of the foreign powers to the imagined sufferings of the Armenian people, and getting them to act to correct the situation. "
Graves response to New York Herald reporter Sydney Whitman�s question:
"If no Armenian revolutionary had come to this country, if they had not stirred Armenian revolution, would these clashes have occurred ", was "Of course not. I doubt if a single Armenian would have been killed. "
The British Vice-Consul Williams wrote from Van on 4 March 1896:
"The Tashnaks and Hunchaks have terrorized their own countrymen, they have stirred up the Muslim people with their thefts and insanities, and have paralyzed all efforts made to carry out reforms; all the events that have taken place in Anatolia are the responsibility of the crimes committed by the Armenian revolutionary committees. "
British Consul General in Adana Doughty Wily wrote in 1909 "The Armenians are working to secure foreign intervention." Russian Consul General in Bitlis and Van; General Mayewski, reported in 1912:
"In 1895 and 1896 the Armenian revolutionary committees created such suspicion between the Armenians and the native population that it became impossible to implement any sort of reform in these districts. The Armenian priests paid no attention to religious education, but instead concentrated on spreading nationalist ideas, which were affixed to the walls of monasteries, and in place of performing their religious duties they concentrated on stirring Christian enmity against Muslims. The revolts that took place in many provinces of Turkey during 1895 and 1896 were caused neither by any great poverty among the Armenian villages nor because of Muslim attacks against them. In fact these villagers were considerably richer and more prosperous than their neighbors. Rather, the Armenian revolts came from three causes:
1. Their increasing maturity in political subjects;
2.The spread of ideas of nationality, liberation, and independence within the Armenian community;
3.Support of these ideas by the western governments, and their encouragement through the efforts of the Armenian priests. "
In another report in December 1912, Mayewski wrote that:
"The Tashnak revolutionary society is working to stir up a situation in which Muslims and Armenians will attack each other, and thus pave the way for Russian intervention. "
Finally, the Tashnak ideologue Varandian admits that the society "wanted to assure European intervention," while Papazian stated that "the aims of their revolts was to assure that the European powers would interfere Ottoman internal affairs." At each of their armed revolts the Armenian terrorist committees have always propagated that European intervention would immediately follow. Even some of the committee members believed in this propaganda. In fact, during the occupation of the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul the Armenian terrorist Armen Aknomi committed suicide after having waited in desperation the arrival of the British fleet. It can be seen thus that the basis for the Armenian revolts was not poverty, nor was it oppression or the desire for reform; rather, it was simply the result of a joint effort on the part of the Armenian revolutionary committees and the Armenian church, in conjunction with the Western Powers and Russia, to provide the basis to break up the Ottoman Empire.
In reaction to these revolts, the Ottomans did what other states did in such circumstances, sending armed forces against the rebels to restore order, and for the most part succeeding quickly since very few of the Armenian populace supported or helped the rebels or the revolutionary societies. However for the press and public of Europe, stirred by tales spread by the missionaries and the revolutionary societies themselves, every Ottoman restoration of order was automatically considered as a "massacre" of Christians, while the thousands of slaughtered Muslims being ignored and Christian claims against Muslims automatically accepted. In many cases, the European states not only intervened to prevent the Ottomans from restoring order, but also secured the release of many captured terrorists, including those involved in the Zeytun revolt, the occupation of the Ottoman Bank, and the attempted assassination of Sultan Abdulhamid. While most of these were expelled from the Ottoman Empire, it did not take long for them to secure forged passports and other documents and to return to Ottoman territory to resume their terroristic activities, with the cooperation of their European sponsors. Whatever were the claims of the Armenian revolutionary societies and whatever the ambitions of the imperial powers of Europe, there was one major fact which they simply could not ignore. The Armenians comprised a very small minority of the population in the territories being claimed in their name, namely the six eastern districts claimed as "historic Armenia" (Erzurum, Bitlis, Van, Elaziz, Diyarbakir and Sivas), the two provinces claimed to comprise "Armenian Cilicia" (Aleppo and Adana) and finally Trabzon which was later claimed to have an outlet to the Black Sea coast. Event the French Yellow Book, which among western sources, which made the largest Armenian population claims, still showed them in a sizeable minority:
.
Total Population
Total Armenians Population
Percent of
Gregorian
Erzurum
645,702
134,967
20.90
Bitlis
398,625
131,390
32.96
Van
430,000
80,798
18.79
Elaziz
578,814
69,718
12.04
Diyarbakir
471,462
79,129
16.78
Sivas
1,086,015
170,433
15.68
Adana
403,539
97,450
24.14
Aleppo
995,758
37,999
3.81
Trabzon
1,047,700
47,200
4.50
Thus even by these extreme claims, the Armenians still constituted no more than one third of the provinces' population. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1910, the Armenians were only 15 percent of the area's population as a whole, making it very unlikely that they could in fact achieve independence in any part of the Ottoman Empire without the massive foreign assistance that would have been required to push out the Turkish majorities and replace them with Armenian emigrants.
Russia in fact was only using the Armenians for its own ends. It had no real intention of establishing Armenian independence, either within its own dominions or in Ottoman territory. Almost as soon as the Russians took over the Caucasus, they adopted a policy of Russifying the Armenians as well as establishing their own control over the Armenian Gregorian church in their territory. By virture of the Polijenia Law of 1836, the powers and duties of the Catholicos of Etchmiadzin were restricted, while his appointment was to be made by the Czar. In 1882 all Armenian newspapers and schools in the Russian Empire were closed, and in l903 the state took direct control of all the financial resources of the Armenian Church as well as Armenian establishments and schools. At the same time Russian Foreign Minister Lobanov-Rostowsky adopted his famous goal of "An Armenia without Armenians", a slogan which has been deliberately attributed to the Ottoman administration by some Armenian propagandists and writers in recent years. Whatever the reason, Russian oppression of the Armenians was severe. The Armenian historian Vartanian relates in his History of the Armenian Movement that "Ottoman Armenia was completely free in its traditions, religion, culture and language in comparison to Russian Armenia under the Czars." Edgar Granville writes, "The Ottoman Empire was the Armenians' only shelter against Russian oppression."
That Russian intentions were to use the Armenians to annex Eastern Anatolia and not to create an independent Armenia is shown by what happened during World War I. In the secret agreements made among the Entente powers to divide the Ottoman Empire, the territory which the Russians had promised to the Armenians as an autonomous or independent territory was summarily divided between Russia and France without any mention of the Armenians, while the Czar replied to the protests of the Catholicos of Etchmiadzin only that "Russia has no Armenian problem." The Armenian writer Borian thus concludes:
"Czarist Russia at no time wanted to assure Armenian autonomy: For this reason one must consider the Armenians who were working for Armenian autonomy as no more than agents of the Czar to attach Eastern Anatolia to Russia. "
The Russians thus have deceived the Armenians for years; and as a result the Armenians have been left with nothing more than an empty dream. |
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