Much is from testimony at the Post-war tribunals. The following are exerpts from the Yozgat trials
Prelude to the trials (why they occured):
...a prominent Ottoman statesman made a crucial revelation: during his term as post-war President of the Council of State he came into possession of evidence documenting the fact that the Central Committee of lttihad had planned and ordered the massacre of the provincial Armenian population. Upon further examination, Re§it AkifPa^a determined that the lttihad Party and its boss, Talat, were responsible for the massacres
The Yozgat trials examined "the deportations and massacres" in 18 sittings be-tween February 5 and April 7, 1919
There were three defendants. At the 17th sitting the chief judge declared that the trial of one of them, 36-year-old Feyyaz Ali, a governmental estates official (evkaf memuru) was being detached for inclusion in a projected second series of Yozgat trials. Of the remaining two, Mehmet Kemal, the 35-year-old ex-kaymakam (sub-district governor) of Bogazliyan and subsequently interim district governor of Yozgat, was the principal defendant; his co-defendant was 44-year-old Major Mehmet Tevfik, commander of Yozgats gendarmery battalion. These defen-dants were represented altogether by six defense attorneys. All three defendants were subjected to pre-trial interrogations, both written and oral, during which they made a number of confessions.
Attorney-General Sami (accused those charged of) ...perpetrat(ing) "heartrending crimes against the Armenians in the course of implementing this law.(Deportation Law of May 1915) " He added that "an order from above is only then executable when it is in accord with ones conscience." Describing them as "crimes against humanity," Sami concluded that the task of this Court was "to establish these crimes and punish the guilty.
...the Court obtained a lengthy affidavit from Major Mehmet Salim, the wartime Military Commandant of Yozgat and President of its Recruitment Office. In it the Turkish major candidly admits the magnitude of the crimes against Yozgats Armenians, detailing atrocities and describing the pivotal role of lttihad Party leaders, whom he identifies by name and position. The Attorney General emphasized that he was basing his closing arguments on authenticated documents in the possession of the Court, rather than the testimony of Armenian witnesses. He referred to the testimony of the senior Muslim religious official of Bogazliyan, the Mufti, who had exhorted the chief defendant, Kemal, to cease and desist by invoking sacred Muslim law, (Abdullahzade Mehmet, Bogazhyan Mufti advised the Court in written testimony that Kemal’s method fo destroying Armenians consisted of liquidating the males first and subsequently massacring the convoys of women and children.)
...and of the former governor of Yozgat district, Cemal, who had begged the same Kemal not to reduce the common people to accomplices by enlisting them in criminal acts. The testimony of Colonels §ahabed-din and Recayi, and others, the Attorney General concluded, confirmed the organized nature of the Yozgat mass murder. As a result of this refutation, Yozgats gendarmery battalion commander Major Tevfik, the second defendant, felt constrained to amend his testimony about a sup-posed Armenian "insurgency." He conceded that his use of the word meant acts of resistance by fugitives trying to escape military service or deportation (15th sitting, March 27, 1919).
In written testimony sent on I December, 1918, to the Interior Ministry in Istanbul, Rifaat Bey, a Muslim notable from Yozgat, described in great detail the merciless bloodbaths Major Tevfik organized in and around Yozgat and the vast riches he acquired as a result. Rifaat portrays him as a bloodthirsty man who bragged about his role as executioner
...The atrocities adduced during the proceedings against district Governor Kemal exceeded in heinousness those recounted in all other testimony. His zest for massacring Armenians, especially women and children, was unexcelled.
According to Rifaat: Major Trevfik almost completely eliminated the Armenian population of Yozgat. He first slaughtered the males between the ages of 15 and 75 as Tass Punar village with “hatchets and axes as the victims kept screaming like birds. Thereafter, he carted off in wagons the belongings and jewelry of victims to his home.”
Major Tevfik then had the Armenian inhabitants of several villages of Akdag, Maden and Bogazliyan, as well as Kum Kuyu village burned alive in their homes.
Kemal was described as angry at the ineptness of the Turkish villagers rounded up to help his 500 mounted brigands massacre a convoy of several thousand deportees. Shouting furiously at them, "You don't seem to know how to slaughter," (Siz kesmesini bilmiyorsunuz), he reportedly demonstrated a more efficient way of dispatching the victims; the throats were to be slashed diagonally instead of horizon-tally (4th sitting, February II, 1919).
(testimony of) Major Mehmet Salim, the Military Commandant of Yozgat and President of the latters Recruitment Bureau referred to above, provides every conceivable detail on the conception, organization, control, and execution of the Armenian genocide in the district of Yozgat. Salim forthrightly stressed the point that underlying the entire scheme of deportations lay "a policy of extermination" (imha siyaseti) which Kemal mercilessly implemented in his district. The details were plotted out "in nightly merry-making, drinking parties." Together with his drinking pals Kemal would work out these details for "the next days operations." The atrocities were intended to help redeem "lttihad's national aspirations" and became its "official policy." According to the same affidavit, the massacre of the male victims followed a uniform pattern. In order to render them defenseless they were marched off in twos or fours "with arms and hands tied up." The implements used were "axes, spades, swords, knives, hatchets." As to the secret character of the designs on the Ottoman Armenians, defendant Kemal himself unwittingly supplied proof. In the course of his December 16, 1918, second pretrial interrogation, Kemal volunteered the information that the central authorities in Istanbul had ordered him to "burn" certain ciphers after reading them (okuduktan sonra yakilmast emir olundugundan).
Cemal, the former governor, described to the Court how lttihads Responsible Secretary in Ankara (a position akin to Gauleiters of the Third Reich), Hu-seyin Necati, had ordered him to interpret "deportation" as a code word for "massacre."
Perhaps the most important feature of the Verdict was its conclusion that the deportations were a cloak for the intended massacres. "There can be no doubt and no hesitation"
The Verdict, death by hanging, was rendered the next day and carried out on April 10. The Court had rejected the Attorney Generals proposal to rely on Article 56 of the Ottoman Penal Code, which assumed a land of civil war involving mutual hostilities and excesses, instead, it relied on Article 45, which clearly distinguished victims from perpetrators. The defendants were found guilty for inciting not only the local Muslims, but Muslims in general. Moreover, the Tribunal exonerated the vast majority of the Armenian population of Yozgat, which had “proven its dedication and loyalty to the Ottoman State.”
Prelude to the trials (why they occured):
...a prominent Ottoman statesman made a crucial revelation: during his term as post-war President of the Council of State he came into possession of evidence documenting the fact that the Central Committee of lttihad had planned and ordered the massacre of the provincial Armenian population. Upon further examination, Re§it AkifPa^a determined that the lttihad Party and its boss, Talat, were responsible for the massacres
The Yozgat trials examined "the deportations and massacres" in 18 sittings be-tween February 5 and April 7, 1919
There were three defendants. At the 17th sitting the chief judge declared that the trial of one of them, 36-year-old Feyyaz Ali, a governmental estates official (evkaf memuru) was being detached for inclusion in a projected second series of Yozgat trials. Of the remaining two, Mehmet Kemal, the 35-year-old ex-kaymakam (sub-district governor) of Bogazliyan and subsequently interim district governor of Yozgat, was the principal defendant; his co-defendant was 44-year-old Major Mehmet Tevfik, commander of Yozgats gendarmery battalion. These defen-dants were represented altogether by six defense attorneys. All three defendants were subjected to pre-trial interrogations, both written and oral, during which they made a number of confessions.
Attorney-General Sami (accused those charged of) ...perpetrat(ing) "heartrending crimes against the Armenians in the course of implementing this law.(Deportation Law of May 1915) " He added that "an order from above is only then executable when it is in accord with ones conscience." Describing them as "crimes against humanity," Sami concluded that the task of this Court was "to establish these crimes and punish the guilty.
...the Court obtained a lengthy affidavit from Major Mehmet Salim, the wartime Military Commandant of Yozgat and President of its Recruitment Office. In it the Turkish major candidly admits the magnitude of the crimes against Yozgats Armenians, detailing atrocities and describing the pivotal role of lttihad Party leaders, whom he identifies by name and position. The Attorney General emphasized that he was basing his closing arguments on authenticated documents in the possession of the Court, rather than the testimony of Armenian witnesses. He referred to the testimony of the senior Muslim religious official of Bogazliyan, the Mufti, who had exhorted the chief defendant, Kemal, to cease and desist by invoking sacred Muslim law, (Abdullahzade Mehmet, Bogazhyan Mufti advised the Court in written testimony that Kemal’s method fo destroying Armenians consisted of liquidating the males first and subsequently massacring the convoys of women and children.)
...and of the former governor of Yozgat district, Cemal, who had begged the same Kemal not to reduce the common people to accomplices by enlisting them in criminal acts. The testimony of Colonels §ahabed-din and Recayi, and others, the Attorney General concluded, confirmed the organized nature of the Yozgat mass murder. As a result of this refutation, Yozgats gendarmery battalion commander Major Tevfik, the second defendant, felt constrained to amend his testimony about a sup-posed Armenian "insurgency." He conceded that his use of the word meant acts of resistance by fugitives trying to escape military service or deportation (15th sitting, March 27, 1919).
In written testimony sent on I December, 1918, to the Interior Ministry in Istanbul, Rifaat Bey, a Muslim notable from Yozgat, described in great detail the merciless bloodbaths Major Tevfik organized in and around Yozgat and the vast riches he acquired as a result. Rifaat portrays him as a bloodthirsty man who bragged about his role as executioner
...The atrocities adduced during the proceedings against district Governor Kemal exceeded in heinousness those recounted in all other testimony. His zest for massacring Armenians, especially women and children, was unexcelled.
According to Rifaat: Major Trevfik almost completely eliminated the Armenian population of Yozgat. He first slaughtered the males between the ages of 15 and 75 as Tass Punar village with “hatchets and axes as the victims kept screaming like birds. Thereafter, he carted off in wagons the belongings and jewelry of victims to his home.”
Major Tevfik then had the Armenian inhabitants of several villages of Akdag, Maden and Bogazliyan, as well as Kum Kuyu village burned alive in their homes.
Kemal was described as angry at the ineptness of the Turkish villagers rounded up to help his 500 mounted brigands massacre a convoy of several thousand deportees. Shouting furiously at them, "You don't seem to know how to slaughter," (Siz kesmesini bilmiyorsunuz), he reportedly demonstrated a more efficient way of dispatching the victims; the throats were to be slashed diagonally instead of horizon-tally (4th sitting, February II, 1919).
(testimony of) Major Mehmet Salim, the Military Commandant of Yozgat and President of the latters Recruitment Bureau referred to above, provides every conceivable detail on the conception, organization, control, and execution of the Armenian genocide in the district of Yozgat. Salim forthrightly stressed the point that underlying the entire scheme of deportations lay "a policy of extermination" (imha siyaseti) which Kemal mercilessly implemented in his district. The details were plotted out "in nightly merry-making, drinking parties." Together with his drinking pals Kemal would work out these details for "the next days operations." The atrocities were intended to help redeem "lttihad's national aspirations" and became its "official policy." According to the same affidavit, the massacre of the male victims followed a uniform pattern. In order to render them defenseless they were marched off in twos or fours "with arms and hands tied up." The implements used were "axes, spades, swords, knives, hatchets." As to the secret character of the designs on the Ottoman Armenians, defendant Kemal himself unwittingly supplied proof. In the course of his December 16, 1918, second pretrial interrogation, Kemal volunteered the information that the central authorities in Istanbul had ordered him to "burn" certain ciphers after reading them (okuduktan sonra yakilmast emir olundugundan).
Cemal, the former governor, described to the Court how lttihads Responsible Secretary in Ankara (a position akin to Gauleiters of the Third Reich), Hu-seyin Necati, had ordered him to interpret "deportation" as a code word for "massacre."
Perhaps the most important feature of the Verdict was its conclusion that the deportations were a cloak for the intended massacres. "There can be no doubt and no hesitation"
The Verdict, death by hanging, was rendered the next day and carried out on April 10. The Court had rejected the Attorney Generals proposal to rely on Article 56 of the Ottoman Penal Code, which assumed a land of civil war involving mutual hostilities and excesses, instead, it relied on Article 45, which clearly distinguished victims from perpetrators. The defendants were found guilty for inciting not only the local Muslims, but Muslims in general. Moreover, the Tribunal exonerated the vast majority of the Armenian population of Yozgat, which had “proven its dedication and loyalty to the Ottoman State.”
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