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**Joseph** · 09-24-2007, 10:47 AM

Part II

which is how to understand the Eastern Ques-
tion, and within it the Armenian Question
� correspond with the well-known national-
ist answer: the Eastern Question consisted of
the problems caused by the systematic sub-
version of the Ottoman minorities through
an unchanging imperialist European policy in
order to divide the Ottoman state. The so-
cial evolution, the forces of change and the
particular dynamics within the Empire and
the Eastern provinces are not considered, the
social earthquake of the anti-Armenian mas-
sacres in 1894�96 completely neglected. Those
pogrom-like killings cost the lives of about
100�000 people, mostly men and boys; social
envy, fear of an Armenian autonomy and, for
the first time, an organized militant Islamism
played an important role; the impunity of
those mass crimes threw a deep shadow on
the political culture in the 20th century.2
The Young Turks after 1908, and up to
WWI, are shown as honest brokers, believing
in Ottomanism and a multinational modern
state. The strong v�lkisch Turkist movement
after 1911, sponsored by the Committee of
Union and Progress (CUP), is not mentioned
at all. The problems on the ground, among
them the chronic insecurity of life and prop-
erty, and particularly the unresolved agrarian
question (Armenian land robbed during the
pogroms of the 1890s or seized otherwise) are
not touched upon. Emphasis is on Armenian
�wickedness�: general disloyalty, the terror-
ism of the revolutionary groups (their Arme-
nian victims are not mentioned), and the Ar-
menian appeal to Europe, in 1913, to finally
obtain the fulfilment of the security that arti-
cle 61 of the 1878 Berlin Treaty had promised
(e.g. in the province of Bitlis, Armenians were
being murdered at the rate of twenty-seven
per month, missionaries on the spot wrote in
1913). For Hala�oglu, the international re-
form plan for the Eastern provinces, signed
under pressure by the Ottoman government
on 8 February, was nothing more than a Rus-
sian plot to the end of the annexation of East-
ern Anatolia (pp. 24�31). Russia�s partial in-
vasion of that region in 1915 is seen as proof
2
See Verheij, Jelle, �Die armenischen Massaker von
1894-1896. Anatomie und Hintergr�nde einer Krise�,
in Kieser, Hans-Lukas (ed.), Die armenische Frage und
die Schweiz (1896-1923) / La question arm�nienne et la
Suisse (1896-1923), Z�rich: Chronos, 1999, pp. 69-129.
of this; Enver Pasha�s, the minister of war �s,
previous crucial decision, in autumn 1914, to
attack Russia, disappears from the picture.
In the summary of WWI and the tehcir (de-
portation) itself, I am again struck by what
is omitted: there is nothing on the decision
makers in the CUP�s Central Committee; no
word on the Special Organisation linked to
them; no critical assessment of Enver �s com-
pletely failed winter campaign against Russia
and the pan-Turkist dreams behind it; no con-
sideration of how, after this, the war on the
Eastern front (Eastern Anatolia and North-
ern Iran) was brutalized; no indication of the
systematic Turkish Muslim �nationalization�
in Anatolia in terms of economy, state, and
demography (resettlement policy) since 1913.
Instead of all this, there is again only �Ar-
menian wickedness�: i.e. treason (sympathy
and cooperation with the Allies, particularly
Russia); desertion (the equally high number
of Muslim deserters in Eastern Anatolia is
not taken into account; pp. 33�35); and �re-
bellion� (no consideration of the desperate
situation of an Ottoman Armenian commu-
nity massively targeted by its own state since
spring 1915). There is, in short, the reiteration
of the Young Turkish myth of the Armenian
stab in the back of an otherwise victorious Ot-
toman war effort.
Against this background, Hala�oglu
touches on some Ottoman documents in Part
II. The main Leitmotiv of his juxtaposition
of sources seems to be the concern to defend
the Ottoman decision makers, not the desire
to work for a coherent, broad and convincing
historical picture. Marginalizing the crucial
difficulty of how to integrate accounts of
witnesses on the ground (foreign teachers,
doctors, consuls, engineers), there is only a
categorically pejorative judgement on them
(p. 66). The state being irreproachable,
Kurds are responsible for the massacres of
deportees. The author cites the example of
an attack by Dersim Kurds on deportees, as
mentioned in a document of the ministry of
the interior (p. 60). True or not in this case,
the readers are given the impression that the
Dersim Kurds were the main perpetrators;
they do not learn of Dersim�s outstanding
and unique role as an asylum for Armenians
within Anatolia.

**Joseph** · 09-24-2007, 10:48 AM

Part III

The Ottoman state documents, as selected
by the author, are not critically scrutinized
and contextualized. One example: a telegram
by Talat dated 29 August 1915 is presented
as proof undermining the accusation that the
Ottoman government attempted the extermi-
nation of the Armenians by means of tehcir
(pp. 55�56, facsimile 4 in the annex). Cer-
tainly, this telegram to the governors of the
Eastern and other provinces seems to literal
believers of the text evidence of the ministry
of the interior �s responsible and sensible be-
haviour. It expresses concern about the se-
curity of the deportees, and of the govern-
ment�s intention to punish acts of violence,
and its generosity in excluding from tehcir the
families of soldiers, some artisans, and the
Catholic and Protestant Armenians. Several
arguments however make clear that this tele-
gram�s first, and probably only aim was pro-
pagandistic: a) In those provinces the �job�
was mostly done, Protestants and Catholics
included, and, in Mam�ret�laziz alone, more
than 10,000 women and children had by that
time been killed; Talat himself said at the end
of August to German ambassador Hohenlohe
that �la question arm�nienne n�existe plus�;
b) Talat gave a German translation of the tele-
gram to Hohenlohe on 2 September for pub-
lication in the European press. Hohenlohe,
however, in his letter of 4 September to Reich
Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg, advised
against publication: the telegram�s propagan-
distic purpose was too evident, its contradic-
tion to uncensored news from the ground too
flagrant.3 Hala�oglu�s readers do not find any
critical contextualization of this kind.
Given the overwhelming Ottoman docu-
mentation, the author does not insist, of
course, on the old argument that the depor-
tation was made only in the regions on the
frontline. He still mentions this argument,
however, saying that the tehcir order was ul-
timately implemented in the other provinces
of Anatolia too: why? Because the Arme-
nians there cooperated with the enemy (p.
53). The author is not ready to see and ac-
cept the simple fact that being Armenian was
the sole reason for being sent away. This also
explains his confusion regarding the Catholic
3
All these German documents are now on
www.armenocide.de.
and Protestant Armenians: their exclusion
from deportation would provide in his eyes
a good argument against �genocide�; in fact,
however, most of them were also deported.
Thus again the author �s stereotypical argu-
ment: they worked against Ottoman secu-
rity and were accordingly also included; if
they were innocent, they would not have been
deported (pp. 54 and 62�63). He uses the
same argument to explain why Armenians
converted to Islam were finally also deported
(p. 64).
This books leaves the impression of an au-
thor, and probably many people with him,
who are still willing to believe in the inno-
cent goodwill of a state and its rulers they
seemingly identify with, even if it was the
pre-Republican Young Turkish regime of 90
years ago. Logically, reports of witnesses on
the spot cannot really be taken into account
in such a narrow narrative. If they are used at
all, it is done very selectively. To mention only
the example of the strong documentation by
the American consul in Mam�ret�laziz, Leslie
Davis, on the mass murder of Armenian de-
portees in his province.4 Only a single pas-
sage of his reports is cited, and it is used as
proof of acts of revenge by Armenians (p. 59).
Loyal submission to state and state propa-
ganda sometimes leads to tragicomical state-
ments in this book: the ministry of the inte-
rior �s tax exemption of 4 August 1915 for the
deportees is praised as a particularly humane
measure instituted by a state that heroically
had to bear the heavy financial burden of the
tehcir itself (p. 67). In such a view, there is,
of course, no consideration at all of the huge
economic transfer, facilitated by the tehcir, of
Armenian property to Muslims. The author
even maintains that the tehcir was a provi-
sional measure, that no property was stolen,
and that on the contrary commissions duly
cared for Armenian property left behind (p.
53). These are fictions, upheld against all ev-
idence, even that to be found in the Ottoman
state archive (e.g. in a telegram by Talat after
his inspection of central and eastern Anatolia
in December 1916, where he tells the Cherif
of Mecca, Ali Haydar Pasha in Medina, of his
4
Davis, Leslie A., The Slaughterhouse Province. An
American Diplomat�s Report on the Armenian Geno-
cide. 1915-1917, ed. Susan K. Blair, New Rochelle: Aris-
tide D. Caratzas, 1989.

**Joseph** · 09-24-2007, 10:49 AM

Part IV

satisfaction with the economic transfer and
the settlement of Muslims in the stead of the
Armenians).5 The author, however, goes so
far as to take pride in what he calls �perhaps
the century�s most systematic organisation of
relocation� (p. 86).
The second book Ermeniler: S�rg�n ve G��
[The Armenians: Expulsion and Migration],
written by Hikmet �zdemir, Kemal �i�ek,
�mer Turan, Ramazan �alik, and Yusuf Ha-
la�oglu differs in one important respect from
the first: it includes many references to for-
eign archives and international literature. It
focuses even more than does the first book on
statistical material; its explicit aim is to ap-
proach the topic �in its mathematical, i.e. de-
mographical dimension�.
The consideration of a multiplicity of
sources and literature could, in principle,
have the potential for new insights. In the
discussion, for instance, of the international
reform plan of February 1914, an important
passage is cited (p. 55), in which the Amer-
ican historian Roderic Davison evaluates the
final plan as an appropriate and fair compro-
mise.6 We continue to read and realize with
some surprise that Davison�s argument is not
at all taken into account, and not commented
upon. Worse, the authors write on the next
page (p. 56, cf. p. 60) that WWI was the oc-
casion Armenians were waiting for because it
made possible the Russian invasion of Eastern
Anatolia. This is a misrepresentation on vari-
ous levels: what the Armenians on the ground
longed for in 1914 was the implementation of
the reform plan, and not war. War was what
the CUP decided for in August 1914, because
it believed it to be an occasion to achieve sev-
eral goals, the suspension of the reform plan
among them.
The main problem of the book remains the
same as that of Hala�oglu 2001: the incapac-
ity, or unwillingness, to bring together facts
and context, singular details and the whole
picture. The main statement and message of
a witness is completely dismissed; just one
element is taken from a whole body of evi-
dence and used as illustration for the book�s
own argument. The reason for the problem
5
BOA (Ottoman Archive in Istanbul) DH._FR 70/180.
6
Davison, Roderic H., Essays in Ottoman and Turkish
history, 1774-1923: the impact of the West, Austin: Uni-
versity of Texas Press, 1990, p. 196.
is again the outspoken premise, and promise
to the public, to refute once and for all, with
documents at hand, the vision of the tehcir
as a mass murder, not to say genocide. The
authors see themselves confronted with �to-
talitarian propaganda techniques� (p. 49): an
abusive expression that indicates a problem of
the authors.
Under the meaningful title �Anatomy of a
Crime: The Turkish Historical Society�s Ma-
nipulation of Archival Documents,� the Turk-
ish scholar in exile Taner Ak�am has written
a detailed critical review of Hala�oglu 2004.7
I refer to this review and want to mention
here just two additional observations on what
I consider an inadmissible use of sources. The
examples deal with the use of foreign sources
that, were they taken integrally, actually form
strong arguments counter to the authors� de-
sign.
A first example of distortion concerns the
British historian A. J. Toynbee and his con-
temporary work on the crime against the Ar-
menians. The authors cite a second hand
source saying that Toynbee, during an inter-
view in 1957, ��blushingly� admitted that all
these early works [he wrote] were war pro-
paganda and that he deeply repented this�.
This is taken in the next sentence as an argu-
ment against all historical writing based on
�biased� contemporary witness reports. To
the reader this may seem convincing, and an
argument for the authors objective, �mathe-
matical� approach, as they emphasize it (pp.
175�176). But again the reader is given a com-
pletely false idea of the whole picture, i.e. of
Toynbee�s ongoing work and reflection on the
Armenian genocide until his death. It is true
that after WWI he made a big effort better
to understand Turks and Turkey, by learning
Turkish, travelling to Turkey, and even dining
with Mustafa Kemal. But all this never made
him change his principal, original view of the
crime, as he put it on several occasions. As an
old man, for example, he wrote (in the 1960s)
that the �Ottoman Armenian deportees were
not only robbed; the deportations were delib-
7
Birikim n� 191, Istanbul, March 2005, pp. 89�104 (in
Turkish). Ak�am�s review has now been published
in English as well: �Anatomy of a Crime: the Turk-
ish Historical Society�s Manipulation of Archival Doc-
uments,� in: Journal of Genocide Research 7-2 (2005),
S. 255-277.

**Joseph** · 09-24-2007, 10:49 AM

Part V

erately conducted with a brutality that was
calculated to take the maximum toll of lives
en route. This was the CUP�s crime; and my
study of it left an impression on my mind that
was not effaced by the still more cold-blooded
genocide, on a far larger scale, that was com-
mitted during the Second World War by the
Nazi[s].�8
In a deliberation on numbers, an important
German report writer, consul Walter R�ssler
in Aleppo, is cited (p. 106). He is taken as
support for the authors� assertion that about
200�000 Armenians died �in the events tak-
ing place during WWI�. This is what the
reader understands. In his letter of 20 Decem-
ber 1915 however, R�ssler alerts Reich Chan-
cellor von Bethmann Hollweg that the num-
ber of 800�000 Armenian dead, put forward
by the British enemy, was a possible realis-
tic number, and advised against publishing
counterpropaganda on this topic. He draw
the Chancellor �s attention to the fact that the
commissioner of the Ministry of the interior
sent to Aleppo had openly declared that �we
desire an Armenia without Armenians�. Ac-
cording to R�ssler, up to 75 % of the people
died during the deportation, as far as the East-
ern provinces were concerned. He strongly
invites his superior to consider the problems
of German co-responsibility, and of long term
political damage, if propaganda lies contin-
ued to be spread in the German press. The
number and the message R�ssler gives in his
report therefore is diametrically opposed to
the authors� design. Their distortion is this:
they cut out one of R�ssler �s numerical de-
liberations � up to a maximum of half a mil-
lion of Asia Minor �s Armenians were not de-
ported, and up to a maximum of half a million
arrived alive in Syria �, without saying that
8
Toynbee, Arnold J., Acquaintances, London: Oxford
University Press, 1967, p. 242. In another text: �[. . . ]
in our times we have had to coin a new word, �geno-
cide�, to describe a new kind of massacre. [. . . ] I
am old enough to remember the horror at the mas-
sacre of Armenian Ottoman subjects in the Ottoman
empire in 1896 at the instigation of the infamous Sultan
�Abd-al-Hamid II. But this act of genocide was amateur
and ineffective compared with the largely successful at-
tempt to exterminate the Ottoman Armenians that was
made during the First World War, in 1915, by the post-
Hamidian r�gime of �The Committee of Union and
Progress�, in which the principal criminals were Tala�t
and Enver.� Toynbee, Arnold J., Experiences, London:
Oxford University Press, 1969, p. 241�42.
R�ssler started from an estimated (high) num-
ber of 2.5 million Armenians in Asia Minor.
They distract 1 million (2 times 0.5 million)
from the 1.5 million (which they take as the
number of Asia Minor �s Armenians), distract
4�500,000 Armenians more as supposedly be-
ing abroad, and thus conclude on a very low
number of deaths.
An important point of the ongoing discus-
sion presented in both books and not only
them, is the underlying notion of genocide,
and with it the understanding of the Shoah,
the Jewish genocide. The �Turkish notion�
of genocide (soykirim) is indeed not that of
Raphael Lemkin, the author of the term of
genocide, nor that of the UN convention of
1948, initiated by him. Against the back-
ground of a vulgarized vision of the Holo-
caust, genocide is taken as the murder of a
whole ethnic group; genocide does not know
exceptions (unless they be a few lucky sur-
vivors); and it takes place in a society that
fed a deep hatred against the targeted group
for centuries. Two years ago, I was surprised
to read such an ahistorical description of the
place of the Jews in German history in an ar-
ticle by the renowned Turkish historian Ilber
Ortayli (recently made a director of the pres-
tigious Topkapi Museum),9 and since then I
have read it in other texts by Turkish authors,
trying to exculpate the nationalist founders
and members of the CUP. In such a vision
genocide took only place once in history: dur-
ing World War II against the Jews. Ortayli
took the supposed situation of the Jews in
German history as a necessary precondition
for genocide. By contrast, the situation of
the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire having
been completely different, it was a priori ab-
surd to speak of an Armenian genocide. Yet,
in many respects the Germano-Jewish sym-
biosis was a history of success from the late
18th century until the Weimar Republic in the
1920s.
Historians can renounce the term genocide
and describe its content by other linguistic
means. An important reason though to use
this neologism as a historical (not first juridi-
cal) term is its precise meaning in the con-
text of contemporary history: it stands for
9
Ortayli, Ilber, ��Soykirim� iddialarinin arkasindaki
ger�ek�, Pop�ler Tarih n� 35, July 2003, pp. 58�62.

**Joseph** · 09-24-2007, 10:50 AM

Part VI

the intended total or partial destruction of an
ethnic group, be it by killing or other vio-
lent measures. Beyond the evidence that the
case accords with the definition in the UN
Convention, there is another strong argument
for using the term genocide for the Arme-
nian experience: the simple fact that the pi-
oneers of genocide studies, first of all Raphael
Lemkin himself, started out from this experi-
ence. Lemkin wrote in his autobiography: �In
Turkey, more than 1,200,000 Armenians were
put to death [. . . ]. Then one day [in 1922], I
read in the newspapers that all Turkish war
criminals were to be released. I was shocked.
[. . . ] Why is the killing of a million a lesser
crime than the killing of a single individual?
I didn�t know all the answers, but I felt that
a law against this type of racial or religious
murder must be adopted by the world.�10
HistLit 2005-3-048 / Hans-Lukas Kieser �ber
Hala�oglu, Yusuf: Facts on the relocation of Ar-
menians 1914-1918 [Ermeni tehciri ve ger�ekler
(1914-1918)]. Ankara 2002. In: H-Soz-u-Kult
21.07.2005.
HistLit 2005-3-048 / Hans-Lukas Kieser �ber
Hala�oglu, Yusuf; �alik, Ramazan; �i�ek, Ke-
mal; �zdemir, Hikmet; Turan, �mer (Hg.):
The Armenians. Banishment and migration [Er-
meniler. S�rg�n ve g��]. Ankara 2004. In: H-
Soz-u-Kult 21.07.2005.

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