Treaty of Sevres... can we do anything about it today?

[Ixtanbul]

These are all fabricated lies; even you people don’t know how to tell it straight. They say if a story doesn’t have any truth or facts in it, will vary every time it was told.

Mate the population of East Anatolia wasn't Turkish 100 years ago and still isn't Turkish today, whats in it for Turks? Other then helping our muslims brothers(that was the logic 83 years ago)?

Western Thrace and North Iraq was mainly Turkish populated and i'm sure Turks would rather fight for those lands then East Anatolia in the 1920's. Other then helping kurds what was in it for Turks?

[Kharpert]

Ixtanbul,
---------------

Alternate Use of the Words "Ottoman" and "Turkish"

In the period in question here, all diplomatic correspondence as well as publications by many historians and political scientists continued the tradition of previous centuries to use the words "Ottoman" and "Turkish," and "Ottoman Empire" and "Turkey" interchangeably; nor were officials and learned men of the Ottoman Empire itself always exempt from this practice. The objection to this practice is in this sense, therefore, unwarranted. Moreover, the ostensible effort to dissociate the Turkish Republic of today as a new and separate entity from the imagery one has about the Ottoman Empire is contradicted by the recent statements of a Turkish Minister of Culture, Istemihan Talay. In an interview with two Turkish journalists he publicly declared that "the Republic of Turkey is the continuation of the Ottoman Empire whose legacy is part of our history." He was speaking on the occasion of the festivities celebrating the 700th anniversary of the founding of the Ottoman Empire. He further stated that "to be embarrassed on account of that empire's legacy is tantamount to denying one's very own being."1

The Redundancy of the Argument of Armenian Rebelliousness

The four instances of uprising were not only isolated, local, and disconnected incidents but, above all, they were improvised, last-ditch acts of desperation to resist imminent deportation and thereby avert annihilation. Being strictly defensive undertakings, practically all of the insurgents involved perished in the course of the operations regular Turkish army units launched against them to suppress the insurgency. By sheer chance and fortuitous circumstance only the insurgents of the Van uprising managed to survive when at last they were liberated by the advance units of the Russian Caucasus Army, which overwhelmed the surrounding Turkish defense positions and captured the city of Van. The term "chance" calls for emphasis, for but for the timely arrival of the Russian military units, the insurgents of Van were likewise doomed, given the inevitable depletion of their meager resources of defense, including ammunition and weapons, and the mounting casualties they were sustaining. A delay of two or three days in the arrival of the Russians would surely have sealed the fate of the desperate defenders. The following testimony of Vice Marshal Pomiankowski, mentioned above, succinctly encapsulates this plight of the Armenians. He characterized the Van uprising as "an act of despair" because the Armenians "recognized that the general butchery had begun in the environs of Van and that they would be the next victims."3 A similar judgment was expressed by Metternich, German ambassador to Turkey, and a Venezuelan military officer of Spanish extraction who was in charge of the artillery battery relentlessly bombarding and reducing the Armenian defense positions in Van. His eyewitness testimony has extraordinary value because, as he put it, he was "the only Christian who witnessed the Armenian massacres and the deportations in an official capacity...."4

The Charge of Armenian Treachery

Reference is made to "the Ottoman Armenians' violent political alliance with the Russian forces." One is prompted to ask, "what alliance" and "by which Ottoman Armenians?" In the annals of violent behavior inflicted upon defenseless human groups by tyrants, apologists have often taken refuge behind such utterly senseless generalizations. It is a matter of historical record that the leaders of the major Armenian political party, the Dashnaktzoutiun, as early as August 1914, publicly declared their allegiance to the Ottoman state and vowed as citizens of the state to fight for the defense of the country should the government, against all advice, decide to intervene in the war. It is likewise a historical fact that the religious head of Turkey's Armenian community, the Patriarch, through an encyclical, enjoined all the Armenian faithful in the provinces as well as the Ottoman capital to obey the governmental officials everywhere and loyally discharge their duties as Ottoman subjects. Nor can one dismiss the ancillary fact that the leaders of the above-cited Armenian political party did all they could to stop the Armenian volunteer movement that was gaining momentum in the adjoining Russian Trans-Caucasus, but failed. Still, the fact remains that the bulk of these volunteers eager to fight against the Turks in the ranks of the Russian army were either Russian subjects or citizens of various countries in Europe and North America. In any event, how could the presence of some Ottoman subjects, past and present, among these volunteers in any way justify the resort to the sweeping indictment of "Ottoman Armenians?" By the same token, why is the fact being ignored that thousands and thousands more Azeris and Kurds were likewise fighting against the Turks in the ranks of the Russian army? The same may be said about thousands of Jews from Russia and Europe who in 1915 served in the columns of the British Expeditionary Force at the Dardanelles and again in 1918 in the army of British General Allenby at the Palestine front. Does it not follow that there were other abiding and strategic considerations, than the participation of contingents of Armenian soldiers on the side of the Russians in the war against Turkey, in the genocidal selection and targeting of the Armenians?
Against this backdrop, the assertion that the anti-Armenian measures were but limited to the eastern theaters of war, and as such were strictly regional in thrust and scope, is simply astounding. It is belied by the grim realities of the Armenian genocide, whose sweeping compass engulfed Armenian population clusters in all corners of the vast Ottoman Empire. As one high-ranking wartime Turkish counter-intelligence officer in his post-war memoirs movingly lamented, "among those Armenians who were atrociously wasted, despite the fact that they were most innocent, guiltless, and who had committed no crime whatsoever, were the Armenians of Bursa, Ankara, Eskiehir, and Konya."5 These involved regions and provinces that were far removed from the war zones!

The Utter Fiction of the Claim of "Relocation"

The U.S. Congress is invited to lend credence to the transparently incredible assertion that the deported Armenian population was being merely exiled to the deserts of Mesopotamia where they were being "relocated." The brutal and utter cynicism of this assertion is exceeded only by the insolence with which the intelligence of the Congressmen, for that matter the intelligence of any thinking person, is thereby being insulted. Responding to this official claim at the time, Lewis Einstein, the Special Agent of the U.S. State Department at the American Embassy in Istanbul, mocked this brand of "official euphemism...the grim humor of paternal solicitude which usually covers the most barbarous massacres in Turkey...an armed policy of deportation, and the implied sequel of extermination."6 Another U.S. official, Leslie Davis, wartime American consul at Harput, in his report to the State Department described how huge clusters of Armenian deportee convoys on their way to Mesopotamia were rerouted to Harput "only to be butchered in this province...the Slaughterhouse Province."7 The candid testimony of a Turkish general with military jurisdiction over the Mesopotamia regions in question is even more telling in this respect. In his post-war memoirs he emphatically declared that "there was neither preparation, nor organization to shelter the hundreds of thousands of the deportees."8

The Kemalist,
------------------

"Disloyal Ottoman Armenians killed 1.1 million Muslims and 100,000 Jews" is false.

The recklessness of this statement is matched by the sordidness attending it. More important, it reveals and punctuates the ineptness with which the picture of 100,000 entirely invented Jews is injected into the controversy. The attempt to play on Jewish sensitivities already exacerbated by the impact of memories of the Holocaust and thereby to coopt the Jews in the ongoing game of denialism is as transparent as it is lurid. Even by official Ottoman statistics, this falsehood emerges as absurd as one may be able to imagine. Moreover, the figure represents a magnitude that would have provoked reaction and intense inquiry a long time ago. Nor is there any reference to any record or credible source on this matter in the entire literature respecting the whole episode at issue here. Indeed, as far as official Ottoman statistics are concerned, in the areas in which, according to Turkish claims, the Armenians committed atrocities in the course of "inter-communal clashes," the number of Jewish residents did not exceed 4,000. The question begs itself: where did this charge and the associated figure come from and how?
The figure of "1.1 million Muslims" killed roughly corresponds to the total number of the Ottoman Armenian population as presented by several Turkish sources. Like so many other, similar assertions, this too borders on the fantastic, as expounded earlier in the section "The Allegation of 'Inter-Communal Clashes.'" As the French essayist Montaigne once observed:

no one is exempt from talking nonsense;
the misfortune is to do it solemnly.
- Essays v. III, i.

On the Number of Armenian Victims

Without providing specifics, the Memorandum states that "the number of Armenians claimed to have perished has tripled over the last 80 years." Far from such being the case, however, that number more or less remains constant as far as credible sources are concerned. In March 1919 the then Ottoman Interior Minister relying on statistical data which the staff of the ministry had been compiling during the previous two months, publicly declared that "during the wartime deportations some 800,000 Armenians were killed."9 Excluded from this figure are the Armenian conscripts who, in the wake of their conscription, were liquidated in stages by fellow Turkish soldiers, and countless children, young girls, and brides who were forcibly Islamised and absorbed into the mainstream of the Turkish national entity. If one discounts French and British sources, identified as they were with the enemy camp, the available German and Austro-Hungarian sources involving civilian and military officials of all ranks, and serving as wartime allies of Turkey, supply much more inclusive figures. According to these sources, the number of victims of the Armenian genocide ranges between 1.2 and 1.5 million.10

---------------------

People who post without reading this thread should not be taken seriously.

[Reincarnated Am]

Helping our muslims brothers hu?

Mate the population of East Anatolia wasn't Turkish 100 years ago and still isn't Turkish today, whats in it for Turks? Other then helping our muslims brothers(that was the logic 83 years ago)?

Western Thrace and North Iraq was mainly Turkish populated and i'm sure Turks would rather fight for those lands then East Anatolia in the 1920's. Other then helping kurds what was in it for Turks?

Well the Arab Muslims don’t consider you brothers and they fought against Turk brothers in WW1 didn’t like how brotherly you were treating them, we know that Persian Muslims don’t consider you brothers, and if you say Kurds were your Muslim brothers, you better read this:

THE KURDISH DRAMA

Kurdistan is today partitioned among its four neighbours.

Turkey alone occupies half Kurdistan. The Turkish Kurdistan covers an area of 230.000 km2, represents 30% of the whole area of Turkey and is inhabited by approximately 12 million Kurds.

The remaining area of Kurdistan is occupied by Iraq, Iran and a small part by Syria.

In Iran, the Kurds have sufficient freedom and a relative autonomy. In Iraq, they have also autonomy, with their own parliament in Erbil, in north Iraq.

The only country which, not only does not recognise any human right to the Kurds, but also forbids them to speak their own language, to sing their songs, to have newspapers, books, schools, culture, is Turkey. For this reason, the Kurdish problem is mostly a problem, for the part of Kurdistan, which is enslaved to Turkey

The Kurds are a Indoeuropean people, related to the Persians. They inhabited the lands where they live today, 35 centuries ago. Their language is related to the Persian language and was written since the 7th century B.C. According to the latest scientific research, they are considered descendants of the Medes. Thus, they have absolutely no relation (racial, linguistic, anthropologic) to their turkish oppressors, who are of mongolic descent.They also have no relation with the Arabs who are of Semitic descent. The only common characteristic amongthese three nations is the moslem religion.

The Kurds enter history from the time of their acceptance of Islam after the occupation of their country by the army of Chalifa Omar in 637A. D. Saladin, the heroic opponent of the Crusaders, is the great hero of the Kurds during the Middle Ages. Saladin formed a great empire which survived even after his death, in 1193.

The Mongolian attacks of the beginning of the l3th century, dissolved the kurdish states. Because of the separation into many autonomous states and the feudal organisation of society, a great part of Kurdistan was later conquered by the Ottoman Empire and the rest was conquered by Persia.

There is hardly any parallel in history, to the struggles of the Kurds for their independence. In 1806 Babazade Abdul Rahman organised the first revolt against the Turks in Mosul. Since then, there have been 38 Kurdish revolts and uprisings.

The greatest was that which took place in 1925,led by Sheikh Said. It lasted almost 20 months. The totalitarian regime of Kemal crushed the Kurds and drowned their revolt in blood.

The Kurds were slaughtered or hanged by thousands. The turkish newspaper VAKIT, wrote characteristically in 7-5-1925 <<Wherever a turkish bayonet appears, there is no Kurdish problem>>. This is always the turkish response to peoples demanding their independence. The Kurdish revolts in Turkey had 1.500.000 victims. There is constantly for 50 years martial law in the eastern turkish provinces, where the Kurds live, and the district is forbidden to foreigners.

The turkish authorities want to ignore the Kurds, they call them mountainous Turks and they deprive them of any human right. Blood, violence, oppression, have not erased the desire of the Kurdish people to live independent not under this totalitarian enslavement where they are today.

The turkish military regime has recently intensified the oppression and extermination of Kurds. Thousands of them rot in prisons while others live in caves. It would however be wrong to believe that violence against the Kurds was less intense under the so called democratic regime of Turkey. Policy is one and the same for any turkish regime: The policy of extermination of every minority.

The Treaty of Sevres which has not been officially annulled, mentions an autonomous, independent Kurdistan. The Kurds have the right to free themselves from turkish yoke. Kurdish independence must become a reality. Give your help to that end.

[Ixtanbul]

Ixtanbul,
---------------

Alternate Use of the Words "Ottoman" and "Turkish"

In the period in question here, all diplomatic correspondence as well as publications by many historians and political scientists continued the tradition of previous centuries to use the words "Ottoman" and "Turkish," and "Ottoman Empire" and "Turkey" interchangeably; nor were officials and learned men of the Ottoman Empire itself always exempt from this practice. The objection to this practice is in this sense, therefore, unwarranted. Moreover, the ostensible effort to dissociate the Turkish Republic of today as a new and separate entity from the imagery one has about the Ottoman Empire is contradicted by the recent statements of a Turkish Minister of Culture, Istemihan Talay. In an interview with two Turkish journalists he publicly declared that "the Republic of Turkey is the continuation of the Ottoman Empire whose legacy is part of our history." He was speaking on the occasion of the festivities celebrating the 700th anniversary of the founding of the Ottoman Empire. He further stated that "to be embarrassed on account of that empire's legacy is tantamount to denying one's very own being."1

Nothing written above doesn't change the fact that the Republic of Turkey isn't legally responsible for anything the Ottoman Empire did good or bad.

The Redundancy of the Argument of Armenian Rebelliousness

The four instances of uprising were not only isolated, local, and disconnected incidents but, above all, they were improvised, last-ditch acts of desperation to resist imminent deportation and thereby avert annihilation. Being strictly defensive undertakings, practically all of the insurgents involved perished in the course of the operations regular Turkish army units launched against them to suppress the insurgency. By sheer chance and fortuitous circumstance only the insurgents of the Van uprising managed to survive when at last they were liberated by the advance units of the Russian Caucasus Army, which overwhelmed the surrounding Turkish defense positions and captured the city of Van. The term "chance" calls for emphasis, for but for the timely arrival of the Russian military units, the insurgents of Van were likewise doomed, given the inevitable depletion of their meager resources of defense, including ammunition and weapons, and the mounting casualties they were sustaining. A delay of two or three days in the arrival of the Russians would surely have sealed the fate of the desperate defenders. The following testimony of Vice Marshal Pomiankowski, mentioned above, succinctly encapsulates this plight of the Armenians. He characterized the Van uprising as "an act of despair" because the Armenians "recognized that the general butchery had begun in the environs of Van and that they would be the next victims."3 A similar judgment was expressed by Metternich, German ambassador to Turkey, and a Venezuelan military officer of Spanish extraction who was in charge of the artillery battery relentlessly bombarding and reducing the Armenian defense positions in Van. His eyewitness testimony has extraordinary value because, as he put it, he was "the only Christian who witnessed the Armenian massacres and the deportations in an official capacity...."4

People who suffered Armenian/Russian atrocities have a different story to tell. Quoting Christians isn't exactly a neutral way to approach history either...

The Charge of Armenian Treachery

Reference is made to "the Ottoman Armenians' violent political alliance with the Russian forces." One is prompted to ask, "what alliance" and "by which Ottoman Armenians?" In the annals of violent behavior inflicted upon defenseless human groups by tyrants, apologists have often taken refuge behind such utterly senseless generalizations. It is a matter of historical record that the leaders of the major Armenian political party, the Dashnaktzoutiun, as early as August 1914, publicly declared their allegiance to the Ottoman state and vowed as citizens of the state to fight for the defense of the country should the government, against all advice, decide to intervene in the war. It is likewise a historical fact that the religious head of Turkey's Armenian community, the Patriarch, through an encyclical, enjoined all the Armenian faithful in the provinces as well as the Ottoman capital to obey the governmental officials everywhere and loyally discharge their duties as Ottoman subjects. Nor can one dismiss the ancillary fact that the leaders of the above-cited Armenian political party did all they could to stop the Armenian volunteer movement that was gaining momentum in the adjoining Russian Trans-Caucasus, but failed. Still, the fact remains that the bulk of these volunteers eager to fight against the Turks in the ranks of the Russian army were either Russian subjects or citizens of various countries in Europe and North America. In any event, how could the presence of some Ottoman subjects, past and present, among these volunteers in any way justify the resort to the sweeping indictment of "Ottoman Armenians?" By the same token, why is the fact being ignored that thousands and thousands more Azeris and Kurds were likewise fighting against the Turks in the ranks of the Russian army? The same may be said about thousands of Jews from Russia and Europe who in 1915 served in the columns of the British Expeditionary Force at the Dardanelles and again in 1918 in the army of British General Allenby at the Palestine front. Does it not follow that there were other abiding and strategic considerations, than the participation of contingents of Armenian soldiers on the side of the Russians in the war against Turkey, in the genocidal selection and targeting of the Armenians?

Cause Armenians on top of treason started massacring there next door neighbour whom they had lived together with there entire life. Who cares about European Jews or Azeris, we didn't live with them side to side for centuries we lived with YOU! What they did was what any enemy would do, what you did was not what any friend would do...

To understand the Muslim rage that led to the Armenian deportation you must understand that Muslims had no tolerance left for those Armenians that betrayed them the minute they saw the Russian soldiers and what was even worse was Armenians joined the Russian army to rape and kill the Muslim population.

Against this backdrop, the assertion that the anti-Armenian measures were but limited to the eastern theaters of war, and as such were strictly regional in thrust and scope, is simply astounding. It is belied by the grim realities of the Armenian genocide, whose sweeping compass engulfed Armenian population clusters in all corners of the vast Ottoman Empire. As one high-ranking wartime Turkish counter-intelligence officer in his post-war memoirs movingly lamented, "among those Armenians who were atrociously wasted, despite the fact that they were most innocent, guiltless, and who had committed no crime whatsoever, were the Armenians of Bursa, Ankara, Eskiehir, and Konya."5 These involved regions and provinces that were far removed from the war zones!

Let alone Bursa, Ankara or Eskisehir even in Istanbul Armenian gangs had started to terrorize the Muslim population, raiding Police stations, robbing banks, attempting to kill the Ottoman Sultan.

If that happened again today, i'd again support a deportation. The US invaded 2 countries cause of 1 single terrorist attack in 1 city, we were living it all over the country for xxxxs sake. Anyone in our shoes would do the same...

The Utter Fiction of the Claim of "Relocation"

The U.S. Congress is invited to lend credence to the transparently incredible assertion that the deported Armenian population was being merely exiled to the deserts of Mesopotamia where they were being "relocated." The brutal and utter cynicism of this assertion is exceeded only by the insolence with which the intelligence of the Congressmen, for that matter the intelligence of any thinking person, is thereby being insulted. Responding to this official claim at the time, Lewis Einstein, the Special Agent of the U.S. State Department at the American Embassy in Istanbul, mocked this brand of "official euphemism...the grim humor of paternal solicitude which usually covers the most barbarous massacres in Turkey...an armed policy of deportation, and the implied sequel of extermination."6 Another U.S. official, Leslie Davis, wartime American consul at Harput, in his report to the State Department described how huge clusters of Armenian deportee convoys on their way to Mesopotamia were rerouted to Harput "only to be butchered in this province...the Slaughterhouse Province."7 The candid testimony of a Turkish general with military jurisdiction over the Mesopotamia regions in question is even more telling in this respect. In his post-war memoirs he emphatically declared that "there was neither preparation, nor organization to shelter the hundreds of thousands of the deportees."8

bs, bs, bs...

If there was no relocation why did the treaty of Sevrés allow Armenians to return home?

[Reincarnated Am]

And you may read this one too

From the incontestable testimony that we presented the conclusion is that the Turks cannot co-exist with other nationalities. Thus Turkey follows systematically a policy of extermination and genocide of other nationalities, for the creation of a <<pure>> national state. This policy is steady and independent of the form of government.

The Neo-Turks slaughtered the Greeks of Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace, the Armenians, the Syrians, the Arabs and the Kurds, even though they pretended to be liberal and that they were ruling through a Constitution and a Parliament.

Kemal Ataturk slaughtered the Greeks of Ionia and Pontus in Asia Minor, the Armenians who survived previous slaughters and the Kurds, at the same time that he proclaimed on the surface a democratic form of government with a Turkish National Assembly in Ankara and a new constitution.

In 1938 slaughters of Arabs took place in the Alexandretta area in order to override the plebiscite, which took place under the auspices of the League of Nations and which favored the Arabs.

Menderes destroyed the remaining Greek community of Constantinople the night of Sept. 6/7,1955, even though in Ankara there was a parliament which discussed officially the catastrophe and even though the rights of the Greeks were definitely protected by international treaties.

Etsevit, claiming liberal, and leader of the socialdemocratic party which by its own nature should have followed an anti-imperialist policy, invaded Cyprus, becoming a tool of the imperialist militarists, and threatened Greece.

Dictator Evren follows the policy of his predecessors of persecution and annihilation of the Kurds.

Consequently, the policy of elimination of all nationalities (except the Turkish one) is followed steadily by the Turks no matter what type of government (democracy or dictatorship) and the political position of the governing party (left, center or right).

The philosophy behind this policy is the annihilation of all people under Turkish rule or neighboring with Turkey without distinction if they are Armenians, Greeks, Arabs, Kurds or Cypriots.

Therefore, it is obvious that in the future new slaughters will take place against the Armenians, Arabs and Greeks who live in Turkey or against the Kurds who are struggling for independence, and the recognition of their human rights.

We want with this publication to attract the attention of all the governments throughout the world and also of every man with conscience for the imminent dangers which we reported, before it is too late. We ask for your help for the recognition of human rights, and the creation of independent nations in Asia Minor. Especially for the Armenians who have the historical right of repatriation to their ancestral lands, the Kurds who ask for the application of human rights and independence for themselves, and the Cypriots who demand the withdrawal of the Turkish invaders from their island-nation in accordance with the U.N. decisions.

The U.S. ambassador James Gerald had written <<The principles of Justice are more important than oil or the railroads>> and that <<the Turks should not be accepted into the society of decent nations until they show sincere repentance for their crimes. Fraternizing with them on any other terms creates the suspicion of sordidness and complicity>>.

This is the truth. We have become the accomplices by keeping silence before this condition. It is high time to put an end to the indifference and liberate the lands of the Armenians, Greeks and Kurds in Asia Minor as well as to put an end to the occupation by Turkey of the Northern part of Cyprus.

It is high time that the whole world should rise and demand the application of human rights to the various enslaved nations of Asia Minor which will include the right of repatriation of refugees to their homes and ancestral lands which belong to them by historical right.

[Kharpert]

I have yet to encounter an article that describes Armenians trying to assassinate Abdul Hamid II, and aside from a few crimes done by a few Armenian individuals whom most Armenians have NOT supported, I've yet to encouter a valid explanation of the damage done by Armenian gangs.

The Armenian gang answer is overblown, false in many cases, and does NOT justify a deportation.

If there was no relocation why did the treaty of Sevrés allow Armenians to return home?

Pfff...yeah, the Armenians that weren't already dead yet.

The US invaded 2 countries cause of 1 single terrorist attack in 1 city

The United States did NOT invade Iraq because of September 11. Saddam Hussein had absolutely no affiliation with any terrorist groups. Also, that "one single terrorist attack" was the largest in history. Unlike your fictitious claims of Armenian gangs, killing 5,000 people with two hijacked airplanes full of kidnapped travellers and bringing down two of the largest towers in the heart of the economic center of the world is the FIRST time the United States was ever assaulted on its own land. America joined World War II for less.

[TurQ]

Young Turks and Tashnak Armenians organized assasination to Sultan AbdulHamid Han. Attempt failed because Sultan was 5 minutes late where the bomb was plotted.

About the Armenian gangs Andranik Ozanyan from Shebin KArahisar of Erzurum is a good example. He was ordained as a General in Russian army. He joined the Russian army with his Armenian fedayins. He fought against Ottoman state long before 1915 events. By late 19th century he organized several revolts in eastern Anatolia. He joined his forces to Russian armies advancing from Balkans towards Istanbul in 1912/13. His army massacred thousands of Turkish villagers in and around Edirne and Bulgaria.

I dont wanna get intothis again, I have posted my great grand father's experience in Eastern front in 1914 about how Ottoman soldiers were poisoned etc.

Harput I am not writing these to justify CUP policies, this is just an asnwer to your question..

I have yet to encounter an article that describes Armenians trying to assassinate Abdul Hamid II, and aside from a few crimes done by a few Armenian individuals whom most Armenians have NOT supported, I've yet to encouter a valid explanation of the damage done by Armenian gangs.

The Armenian gang answer is overblown, false in many cases, and does NOT justify a deportation.


Pfff...yeah, the Armenians that weren't already dead yet.


The United States did NOT invade Iraq because of September 11. Saddam Hussein had absolutely no affiliation with any terrorist groups. Also, that "one single terrorist attack" was the largest in history. Unlike your fictitious claims of Armenian gangs, killing 5,000 people with two hijacked airplanes full of kidnapped travellers and bringing down two of the largest towers in the heart of the economic center of the world is the FIRST time the United States was ever assaulted on its own land. America joined World War II for less.

[Kharpert]

The only evidence of such an assasination attempt I can find is on a website named "A Myth of Terror", which offers only a tiny explanation and an ambiguous photo. It's ridiculous rhetoric, screams of Armenian terrorism, and support of Justin McCarthy has made me seriously doubt its validity, especially since its the only source.

The Ottoman empire had conducted massacres against Armenians (1880s) before General Antranik became a military leader (1901).

[TurQ]

Harput

It is not the assasination only, there were hundreds of events commited by Armenian anarchists. Just an example they occupied a bank(like Asala type of acts in late 19th century)kidnapped people inside the bank in Karakoy Istanbul.

Assasination attempt by Armenians is a clear fact. Tashnaks and their young Turk buddies commited it togather. Just ask this to any Armenian historian of your choice. Young Turk intellectuals(I think it was Omer Seyfettin?) praised those Armenian citizens(the tashnaks) for their courage, in his article!

Assasination was a policy by Tashnaks to destablize Ottomans. Just before the Russian occupation of Van, the high ranking personell were assasinated and the governor's building was bombed by fedayins. These were not isolated events, these were totally orgaized by Tashnak and the Hinchak. By saying this I am not claiming that whole Armenian population was in this conspiracy. Actually these anarchist groups first killed their fellow Armenians who are loyal to Ottoman state. They first killed prominent Armenians who oppose Hinchak and Tashnak. Early 1900s is full of such political assasinations. The Armenians themselves ask Sultan's protection against these villains. Stupid CUP policy pushed whole Armenian population to their side.

The only evidence of such an assasination attempt I can find is on a website named "A Myth of Terror", which offers only a tiny explanation and an ambiguous photo. It's ridiculous rhetoric, screams of Armenian terrorism, and support of Justin McCarthy has made me seriously doubt its validity, especially since its the only source.

The Ottoman empire had conducted massacres against Armenians (1880s) before General Antranik became a military leader (1901).

[Zara]

Young Turks and Tashnak Armenians organized assasination to Sultan AbdulHamid Han. Attempt failed because Sultan was 5 minutes late where the bomb was plotted.

Too bad for them, they would have done the entire empire a favor...

About the Armenian gangs Andranik Ozanyan from Shebin KArahisar of Erzurum is a good example. He was ordained as a General in Russian army. He joined the Russian army with his Armenian fedayins. He fought against Ottoman state long before 1915 events.

Do you have a source for the date he was ordained a General in the Russian Army - (non-Turkish source if possible)?

By late 19th century he organized several revolts in eastern Anatolia. He joined his forces to Russian armies advancing from Balkans towards Istanbul in 1912/13.

I don't know so much about Andranik, but I plan to read more soon. I don't know which "revolts" you refer to - again could you please cite your sources on this.

Regardless of the details of the above revolts, I have to say that it doesn't much matter... Armenians were promised reforms during the Tanzimat period, and were denied them over and over again. Armenians had all the rights to demand better treatment that ANY minority group in the Empire had... Turks didn't perpetrate any Genocides of this magnitude against Balkan nations for the same reason - only Armenians. Why? Because it wasn't about unfair treatment, or reforms or revolts or anything of the sort - It was about ethnic homogenization and Pan-Turanism... If Armenians, led by Andranik waited until 1912/13 to physically revolt, then they waited WAY TOO LONG!!!