Eyewitness reports of Genocide (not "so-called" deportation)

[winoman]

American Consul Leslie A. Davis in a letter to Ambassador Morgenthau in Constantinople describing conditions he observed in the camps of Armenians deported from Erzerum and Erzinjan:

Kharpert Turkey:

A more pitiable sight cannot be imagined. They are almost without exception ragged, filthy, hungry and sick. That is not surprising in view of the fact that they have been on the road for nearly two months with no change of clothing, no chance to wash, no shelter and little to eat....

As one walks through the camp mothers offer their children and beg one to take them. In fact, the Turks have been taking their choice of these children and girls for slaves, or worse. In fact, they have even had their doctors there to examine the most likely girls and thus secure the best ones.

There are very few men among them, as most of them have been killed on the road. All tell the same story of having been attacked and robbed by the Kurds. Most of them were attacked over and over again and a great many of them, especially the men, were killed....

The system that is being followed seems to be to have bands of Kurds awaiting them on the road to kill the men especially and incidentally some of the others. The entire movement seems to be the most thoroughly organized and effective massacre this country has ever seen.

Davis described this massacre on July 7, 1915:

On Monday many men were arrested both at Harput and Mezreh and put in prison. At daybreak Tuesday morning they were taken out and made to march towards an almost uninhabited mountain. There were about eight hundred in all and they were tied together in groups of fourteen each. That afternoon they arrived in a small Kurdish village where they were kept overnight in the mosque and other buildings. During all this time they were without food or water. All their money and much of their clothing had been taken from them. On Wednesday morning they were taken to a valley a few hours' distance where they were all made to sit down. Then the gendarmes began shooting them until they had killed nearly all of them. Some who had not been killed by bullets were then disposed of with knives and bayonets.

[winoman]

German Missionary account

Between the 10th and the 30th May [1915], 1,200 of the most prominent Armenians and other Christians, without distinction of confession, were arrested in the Vilayets of Diyarbekir and Mamouret-ul-Aziz [Kharpert]... On the 30th May, 674 of them were embarked on thirteen Tigris barges, under the pretext that they were to be taken to Mosul. The Vali's aide-de-camp, assisted by fifty gendarmes, was in charge of the convoy. Half the gendarmes started off on the barges, while the other half rode along the bank. A short time after the start the prisoners were stripped of all their money (about L6,000 Turkish) and then of their clothes; after that they were thrown into the river. The gendarmes on the bank were ordered to let none of them escape.

...

For a whole month corpses were observed floating down the River Euphrates nearly every day, often in batches of from two to six corpses bound together. The male corpses are in many cases hideously mutilated (sexual organs cut off, and so on), the female corpses are ripped open.... The corpses stranded on the bank are devoured by dogs and vultures. To this fact there are many German eyewitnesses. An employee of the Baghdad Railway has brought the information that the prisons of Biredjik are filled regularly every day and emptied every night--into the Euphrates. Between Diyarbekir and Ourfa a German cavalry captain saw innumerable corpses lying unburied all along the road.

(In addition to reporting incidents of mass slaughter, this statement also gives examples of individual suffering. For example, a woman who gave birth to twins while being deported was allowed no time for recovery and was forced to start walking the next day. In despair, she placed the newborns under a bush and collapsed herself a short time later)

[winoman]

Account of Alma Johannsen, a German missionary:

(... eyewitness to events in Moush): " When there was no one left in Bitlis to massacre, their attention was diverted to Moush. Cruelties had already been committed, but so far not too publicly; now, however, they started to shoot people down without any cause, and to beat them to death simply for the pleasure of doing so."

"We all had to take refuge in the cellar for fear of our orphanage catching fire. It was heartrending to hear the cries of the people and children who were being burned to death in their houses. The soldiers took great delight in hearing them, and when people who were out in the street during the bombardment fell dead, the soldiers merely laughed at them...."

"I went to the Mutessarif and begged him to have mercy on the children at least, but in vain. He replied that the Armenian children must perish with their nation. All our people were taken from our hospital and orphanage; they left us three female servants. Under these atrocious circumstance Moush was burned to the ground."

(In Kharpert, she reported conditions were no better): "In Harpout and Mezre the people have had to endure terrible tortures. They have had their eyebrows plucked out, their breasts cut off, their nails torn off; their torturers hew off their feet or else hammer nails into them just as they do in shoeing horses."

[Anonymouse]

There is no way of denying that, unless they are an on acid trip.

[winoman]

Quite an extensive series of accounts with some unique recounts...

http://www.ermeni.org/english/thecourseofthegenocide.htm

[winoman]

A miraculously saved eyewitness from Marash, Verginé Mayikian (born in 1898) narrated us in detail the horrifying events she had seen:

The Karassoun Mankants Church was the largest and safest church, since it was surrounded by ramparts. They transferred there all the women, the young brides and the children of our region, on the whole, more than two thousand people. It was simply crammed. The altar, the vestibule and the upper hall were full of people. Our freedom-fighters guarded the church on all sides. But the Turkish rabble was enraged and was thirsty for Armenian blood. From every side the voices of the Turks were heard: 'In the name of Muhammad's sacred vow, we'll slaughter all the Armenians.' The Turkish armed mob surrounded the Karassoun Mankants Church and encircled it like a chain. They didn't even let the doors be opened, saying that they would open it at night. That was the order. The Karassoun Mankants Church was built on a hilltop. The road leading to it was a few hundred meters in length and its width was almost four meters, and there were trees on both sides. The Armenians inside the church waited for the doors to be opened at night. Ten o'clock in the evening came, then eleven o'clock, then midnight, but nobody opened the door. People were overcrowded inside. There was no water and no light inside the church, there was ordure everywhere, one was crying, another lamenting, still another praying. In one word: a complete commotion. We heard their voices from the cellar of our house where we were hidden. At half past one after midnight, we noticed from our narrow casement that a few Turks were climbing over the arched roof of the church and were throwing kerosene-soaked burning rags through the church cupola. The smell of burning spread all over. The voices reaching from the church were heart-breaking. People were crying, shouting, screaming and entreating to open the door. Their voices seemed to come from under the earth. They were sighing and moaning so loud that their echoes reached us; these echoes diminished with every passing hour. But the smell of burning flesh and bones remained. The monsters had realized their job. Nobody was alive any more in the church and in the neighborhood. The space of several hundred meters around the church, which was paved with large stones, was apparently covered with a thick layer of soap: it was, in reality, the grease of the burned Armenians, two inches in thickness, which had flowed down the threshold of the church and had hardened. The footsteps of the first passersby were printed on that layer of grease, like on the snow. Suddenly we saw Turkish women, everyone with a sieve in her hand, running toward the church. We were watching from afar, but I couldn't hold myself back; I wanted to go and see what had happened there. I put on something like a robe, wrapped my head with a bed sheet and covered my nose and mouth. I already spoke Turkish very well and was sure that I would not betray myself. I set out to go to the Karassoun Mankants Church, the sooty walls of which were in a dilapidated state, while the molten grease of the burned people had flown from under the door down the hill. I trod on it and my feet clung to the ground. At last I saw a Turkish woman passing by, with a sieve in her hand, who asked me: 'Badji (sister), why didn't you take a sieve with you?' Without getting confused, I said: 'I'll come back and fetch one.' She smiled and replied: 'Do you think anything will remain when you come back?' It was already the third day, the walls of the church were still hot and reddened like a potter's oven. I went into the church and what did I see? Every one of the Turkish women had appropriated a section of the church and did not allow the others to trespass on her property; they shouted at each other: 'I'll kill the one who crosses my borderline...' The woman who had come with me turned her face to me and said: 'If the gâvurs are filthy, their gold is clean.' It was worth seeing how those monstrous-looking women rejoiced when they found a molten piece of gold in the sifted ashes..." [Sv. 2000: T. 148, p. 274]

[thinktwice]

Oh lovely Ambassador Morgenthau's Stories... hahaha

Professor Levon Marashlian writes a letter to a major newspaper stating Morgenthau's testimony is "unimpeachable"... in addition to his mentor, Richard Hovannisian, referring to Morgenthau as a valid source.
Professor Lowry, how you must have suffered when the Armenian forces, led by Peter "Mr. Double Killing" Balakian, mobilized against you, easily recruiting famous literary names who only relied on the Armenians' side of the story, in their blind ignorance or racism, and harassed your good reputation and psychological well-being for two years... the effects of which continue, thanks to the ubiquitous Armenian web sites reporting on what a Turk-Tool you were, in an attempt to keep discrediting you.

The only thing that matters is the quality of your research, when all is said and done. The impeccable job you have done on "The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau's Story," along with the few of your other works that I have read (featured on this TAT web site), speaks for itself. You have much to be proud of.

[winoman]

Nothinkturk - did you say something? No. I thought not.

[RookieArcher]

winoxxxx the boast-master, poohes another xxxx.
Post me real stories of people who experienced relocation, not the reports of "diplomats", "missionaries", who were syphatetic to Christian Armenians and mostly (we can say nearly unexceptionally) had Armenian/non-Turkish translators.

Suppose you, as an Armenian, were a translator of a missionary at that time. how would you "report" the events xxxxhead? Could you be able to tell what was really going on or you would just tell what was happening to Armenians, and omit what your brethen doing to Turks? Did your father report to the diplomats/foreigners of that era how many turks he killed? He just told you, to boast, as you do today. Nobody else heard how many turks he slaughtered. (Probably he did his slaughters before deportation, like many of that are Armenians, actually creating the "rationale" for deportation, and thus eventual "catastrophe" in Syrian deserts.) Maybe your xxxxhead grandfather didnt speak up, because he knew he actually was one of the most guilty.

Come to terms with your sick mind. Turkish nation/government never argued/rejected/denied that the Armenian relocation occured. Turkish nation/government never denied lots of them perished in the Syrian deserts.

You xxxxhead quote many execrpts from many sources saying "deatmarch" "long walk heading to deserts only" and you still deny that there were not a relocation?

If you have asked Turkish government/people apologies for the perished people in syrian deserts you would long have got it already. But you, like your xxxxhead grandfather, keep what they have done to turks secret/unheard.

We can talk on if the relocation of Armenians to syria was an "in-direct" genocide or not. That is the correct start point.

[winoman]

From Richard Hovannisian:

"Enver and Talaat initially denied the validity of the news, but finally Talaat admitted that action against the Armenians stemmed from a carefully planned policy of Ittihad ve Terakki. He accused the Armenians of enriching themselves at the expense of the Turks, aspiring to establish a separate state, and actively assisting the enemies of the Empire. He concluded :
It is no use for you to argue, we have already disposed of three quarters of the Armenians; there are none at all left in Bitlis, Van, and Erzerum. The hatred between the Turks and the Armenians is now so intense that we have got to finish with them. If we don't they will plan their revenge."

"...few Armenians remained in their native provinces. Whereas most Armenians of Cilicia and western Anatolia perished along the deportation routes or after reaching the Syrian desert, the majority in the eastern provinces were massacred outright and thus spared the prolonged agony.

The only major exception was Van. Among the government's initial measures was the segregation of the Ottoman Armenian soldiers, who were serving on several fronts. Forced to relinquish their weapons, these men were driven into special military labor battalions, assertedly created to facilitate communication and transportation. The disarmed soldiers were then slaughtered.

If the apologists for Turkish policies have shaped a credible case against the Armenians, the critics have refuted the arguments point for point and have concluded that the deportations and massacres were calculated, irresponsible, and brutal crimes.

Utilizing scores of documents and the testimony of many European witnesses, these critics have insisted that the overwhelming majority of the Armenians fulfilled every obligation of Ottoman citizenship during the first months of war. Exhortations of the Patriarch, the revolutionary organizations, and many other societies urging the Turkish Armenians to maintain a correct attitude have been cited. Moreover, the dedication of Armenian soldiers was acknowledged by Enver himself, who, upon returning from the Sarikamish debacle, informed the Patriarch and other high-ranking clergy of the unsurpassed bravery of these troops.

The gravest Turkish accusation involved Armenian rebellion during time of war; the "Revolt of Van" became the classic charge. The Lepsius-Toynbee school of critics labeled the indictment as fabrication. The city rose in self-defense only after the deportations and massacres had begun in Cilicia and after Jevdet Bey, brother-in-law of Enver and Armenophobe vali "("governor") of Van, had ordered the destruction of Armenian villages in the outlying districts. If, as Turkish sources claim, the revolt were premeditated, why would Ishkhan, popular leader of the Van Armenians, leave the city at the behest of the vali to restore peace between feuding Moslems and Christians in an isolated upland of the vilayet? Only after the treacherous murder of Ishkhan, the imprisonment of Arshak Vramian, a member of the Ottoman parliament, and the siege of the Armenian quarter by Jevdet's forces did Van rise in self-defense, barricade the streets, and inauguratein the last half of April, 1915, the monthlong obdurate resistance. This sequence of events was substantiated by testimony of American eyewitnesses.

Turning from the question of Van, the castigators of Turkish policies then negated the other contentions. The hopeless battles in the interior of Turkey at Shabin Karahisar, Urfa, and Cilicia were not indications of an Armenian revolution fermenting throughout the Empire, but simply reflected the resolution of a condemned people to fall fighting rather than be slaughtered. That the Armenians possessed weapons was not astounding; they had carried arms for decades to defend their homes and fields from depredation. Among the photographs published by the Ittihadist government were pictures of bombs and grenades, but these explosives belonged to the era when both Turkish and Armenian opposition groups were struggling against Abdul Hamid II. Since the attempted Hamidian coup of 1909, when Ittihad leaders had requested that these weapons be used against the forces of reaction, they had not been touched by the Armenians. To the charge that Ottoman subjects, as volunteers in the Russian Army, viciously attacked the Empire, Arnold Toynbee drew an analogy to the Polish units, which, joining the Austro-Hungarian forces, battled against the tsarist armies. If the entire Armenian nation could be condemned for the activities of several hundred or even several thousand men, then should not Russia, on the same basis, annihilate the millions of Poles within its borders?

Analyzing the real motivations for Ittihad rmeasures against the Armenians, Johannes Lepsius first summarized the Ottoman charges:

1. Garegin Pasdermadjian (Armen Garo), member of the Ottoman parliament, had deserted to Russia and joined the volunteers.

2. English and French naval commanders had sent agitators into Cilicia where the population was engaged in sabotage and espionage.

3. Armenians in Zeitun had resisted the commands of the military authorities.

4. Turkish opponents of the Ittihadists had contrived against the government and used as accomplices several members of the Hnchakist party.

5. The Armenians of Van had taken up arms against the government.

6. The combatants of Shabin Karahisar had barricaded themselves in the ancient citadel and fought against Turkish troops

Even if the accusations were true, esclaimed Lepsius, to construe an Armenian revolution from them was fantastic. Not Armenian treachery but the ideology adopted by the Ittihadists was the foundation for the government's action. Nationalism as understood by the "Young Turks" on the eve of the World War necessitated the "Turkification" of all elements of the Empire.

As long as there were Armenians, foreign intervention, as experienced during the latest episode of the reform question, would pose a constant threat to the sovereignty of Turkey. Moreover, eradication of the Christian Armenian element from Anatolia and the eastern provinces would remove the major racial barrier between the Turkic peoples of the Ottoman Empire, Transcaucasia, and Transcaspia. Enver's dream of a Pan-Turanic empire would be a step closer to realization.