The Armenian Genocide - My Perspective

[Armenian]

Re: The Armenian Genocide - My Perspective

Don't waste your time on it. It's boring drivel. Seems to consist entirely of dozens and dozens of anonymous photos, scanned mostly from books, from various periods, all set against truly atrocious background music. Just how many zooms in, and then zooms out, and then zooms in again, does its creator think an audience can stand?

It's just the sort of gibberish I'd expect from you. Did you help make it, "Armenian"?

Catman, seems to me you are developing some sort of an obsession towards me

Please go spray elsewhere.

[melikianAvak]

Re: The Armenian Genocide - My Perspective

Re: The Armenian Genocide - My Perspective

All Armenians have stories, here is my family story.
**************************************************
Yeghbayr Armenian

My story is very much the same, it was my father who survived and fought the Turks and Kurds.

Thank You
God Bless You and your Family

Avak Melikian

[Selpak]

Re: The Armenian Genocide - My Perspective

My story is very much the same, it was my father who survived and fought the Turks and Kurds.

You should work on definition of "genocide story". Tell us "it was my father who survived" part.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: The Armenian Genocide - My Perspective

You should work on definition of "genocide story". Tell us "it was my father who survived" part.

You should work on opening your packet of selpak - you could put one of the tissues to good use rather than wasting our time posting your stupid comments here.

[skhara]

Re: The Armenian Genocide - My Perspective

[Armenian]

Re: The Armenian Genocide - My Perspective

[milleniumboy]

The same story from another side!!! if you want to discuss, please here goes...

What happened to the Ottoman Armenians? (I)

Professor Nursen MAZICI

One of the basic aims of the social sciences is to try to solve the contradictory issues and problems between people, groups, communities and societies, and their political and social systems. The problems must be fixed objectively and according to cause and effect. The other necessity during scientific research is to avoid making propaganda and invoking the wrath of one group against another. In addition, researchers should not attempt to persuade others relating to their political beliefs. While studying the political history of the world, which has consisted of many wars that have caused the loss of uncountable human lives, the documents one must depend on are primary resources rather than secondary ones. Another important step in scientific research is to use the terms, notions and concepts related to the topic in the correct form.
In this context, since 1965 there has been an unfounded allegation that genocide was carried out against 1,500,000 Armenians by the Ottoman government in 1915 during World War I. First of all, it should be remembered what kind of position the Ottoman Armenians had before and during the war.
In addition, although nearly 25 million people, including Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Britons, French, Germans and Russians, died during World War I, what distinguished the Armenians' deaths, which have been discussed for nearly 41 years, is the subject of this paper.

Ottoman Armenians organizations before the war:
After living together in peace with Turks for more than 850 years, the Ottoman Armenians were encouraged to rebel against the Ottoman state by imperialist England, France and Russia, which aimed to divide and share the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th century.
Professor Langer, a diplomatic historian from Harvard University, explained how the Ottoman Armenians organized at Istanbul, Trabzon, Van, Harput, Izmir and Aleppo against the Ottoman Empire to work toward its collapse and create an independent Armenian state. Thus the Hunchak Armenian bands and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) secretly arranged revolutionary bands that could fight the government and “terrorize government officials, traitors and usurers and all kinds of exploiters” during the 1890s. [1] One of the revolutionary Armenians told Dr. Hamlin, [2] who was the founder of Robert College in Istanbul, that the Hunchak Armenian bands would:
… watch their opportunity to kill Turks and Kurds, set fire to their villages and then make their escape into the mountains. The enraged Muslims will then rise, and fall upon the defenseless Armenians and slaughter them with such barbarity that Russia will enter in the name of humanity and Christian civilization and take possession. [3]
Dr. Hamlin was shocked. He told the revolutionary that the scheme was atrocious and infernal beyond anything ever known, and he got this reply:
It appears so to you, no doubt; but we Armenians have determined to be free. Europe listened to Bulgarian horrors and made Bulgaria free. She will listen to our cry when it goes up in the shrieks and blood of millions of women and children … We are desperate. We will do it. [4]
Therefore, the Hunchak Armenians decided that social organization in the Ottoman Empire could be shifted by violence against Turks. They explained how to terrify the Ottoman government. To achieve it, their methods included “propaganda, agitation, terror organization and peasant and worker activities” led by guerrilla bands. [5] For example, the Hunchak Armenians arranged a demonstration of Bab-i Ali (the Sublime Porte), which caused much bloodshed on Sep. 18-30, 1895 in Istanbul. [6] Similarly, on Aug. 26, 1896, members of the ARF bombed the Imperial Ottoman Bank in Istanbul in an event similar to the Sept. 11, 2001 Al Qaeda ????? attack against the United States. The event at the Imperial Ottoman Bank caused an uprising by Muslims in which more than 900 Armenians and 700 Muslims died in Istanbul. Hayik Tiryakian, who was one of the people who bombed the bank, spoke about the attack:
…6 people were sufficient to begin the operation. We set out, with sack[s] full of bombs on our shoulders and guns in our hands. … The bombs were giving incredible results; they did not kill [the staff of the bank and the people around the bank] instantly, but tore their flesh apart, and made them writhe with pain and agony. We went with Garo to the president's office and wrote down our conditions. We demanded that the Powers [referring to England, France and Russia] fulfill our requests, that those who took part in this confrontation be freed; if not, we would blow up the bank along with ourselves … 3 had died, 6 of our friends were wounded. Our enemies' casualties [implying Turks] were also heavy. [7]

Footnotes:
[1] William L. Langer, “The Diplomacy of Imperialism 1890-1902”Volume 1, New York & London Alfred. A. Knopf 1935, p.155
[2] Dr. Cyrus Hamlin was one of American missionaries in the late term of the Ottoman Empire. So he had good friendship with Armenians as well as Turks.
[3]Langer,op.cit., p.157
[4]ibid, p.158
[5] Louise Nalbandian, The Armenian Revolutionary Movement,University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967 pp.110-111
[6] ibid, p.122 [7] Kamuran Gürün, “The Armenian File The Myth of Innocence Exposed,” K.Rustem& Bro.and Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd. London. Nicosia. Istanbul 1985, p.158 quoted from Vartanian's book “History of Dasnaksutyun” pp.160-163

[milleniumboy]

The same story Part II continues here,

What happened to the Ottoman Armenians? (II)


Nursen MAZICI

The position of Armenians during the war:
By 1914, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) had recruited many militants and in the spring of 1915, besieged the city of Van, massacring tens of thousands of Muslims and spearheading a Russian invasion of Eastern Ottoman Anatolia. For example, a report I obtained from the National Archives (N) proved that the ARF admitted to killing 60,000 Muslims in Sarikamis, Kars, in 1914 and massacring many Muslims who lived in Eastern Anatolia by collaborating with the Russian and French armies, which occupied eastern and southeastern Anatolia from 1914 to 1918.[1]

According to this report, the ARF explained what they had done, which was admitted by the Ottoman Armenians who had migrated to the United States as follows: In August 1914, a Turkish mission visited the ARF, which had congregated for its annual meeting at Erzurum in eastern Anatolia. Afterward, the Turkish mission suggested to the ARF that “if the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire and of Russia [make] common cause with Turkey, Turkey [will agree] to create, with a guarantee from Germany, an autonomous Armenian state by giving Erzurum, Van and Bitlis in Turkey.” However, the ARF rejected this arrangement. (p.3-4)

Meanwhile, before the entry of the Ottoman Empire into the war in October 1914, Russia, through Russian Commander Count Varantzoff Dachkoff, “proposed to Armenian political organizations that if Turkey should enter the war and if Armenians [make] common cause with Russia, thereby contributing to a Russian victory over Turkey, Russia [will] incorporate in the peace treaty stipulations for the complete autonomy of the six vilayets (provinces) of Turkey,” and the Armenians accepted the proposal. Therefore, “With the Armenians' excellent fighting qualities, especially when in the presence of a hereditary enemy [Turks are implied], these troops really made the difference between success and failure to the Russians in the Caucasus." (p.7)

Another comment in the report is that more than 200,000 Armenians fought with the allies [England, Russia and France, which wanted to divide and share the Ottoman Empire] or independently, and 100,000 lost their lives. “Of the 900 college and university students, especially of those whose families were in Turkey, (p.21) that enlisted in the Foreign Legion and fought on the Western front all, but 55 were killed in action and of the survivors every one received one or more decorations for gallantry in action. Following the defection of Russia, the Armenians took over the Caucasus front -- 600 miles long – and prevented the Turks from reaching the Baku oil fields for nine long months.” (p.1)

The Armenians had achieved the plan of the ARF, which was related to Dr. Hamlin, step by step, during the war on the Caucasus front. The report says: "In 1914 … the 10th Turkish Army, on its way from Olti to Sarikamis, was held up for 36 hours at the Barbuz Pass by the first Armenian battalion, under Armenian Col. Keri. This delay enabled the Russians to concentrate their forces at Sarikamis, where Enver Pasha [the minister of war in the Ottoman government] failed utterly in his offensive.” It adds: “The Turks lost 30,000, largely due to freezing conditions. Ali Ihsan Pasha and his staff were captured and shipped to Siberia. … When Enver returned to Istanbul, he publicly announced that his failure was due to the intervention of the Armenians. … Enver told the truth. … In April, 1915 … Armenian leader Andranik fought off Gen. Khalil Bey for three days. When Russian reinforcements arrived, 3,600 Turks lay dead and wounded in front of Armenian trenches." (pp. 9-10)

As a matter of fact, this information, that 100,000 Armenians had fought against the Turks in World War I, was confirmed at the U.S. Senate as well. [2]
Finally, the ARF declared “a people's war” [3] against the Turkish government and began to implement its plan by massacring hundreds of thousands of people. According to information provided by the Turkish State Archive, more than 523,000 Turk Ottoman subjects were killed by the ARF from 1910 to 1922. [4] As is well known, American and European Armenians have been claiming since 1973 that on April 24, 1915 there was an Armenian genocide by the Ottoman government. As explained in the report, the situation is so confused that it is almost impossible to understand who massacred whom in April 1915.

There has been an allegation that after the entry of the Ottoman Empire into World War I, a so-called Armenian genocide paralleled the genocide of xxxs by the Nazi regime during World War II. As Professor Bernard Lewis mentioned, this allegation is unfounded because what happened to the Ottoman Armenians was the result of a massive Armenian armed rebellion against the Turks, which began even before the war broke out, and continued on a larger scale.

"To make this a parallel with the holocaust in Germany you would have to assume the xxxs of Germany had been engaged in an armed rebellion against the German state, collaborating with the allies against Germany. That in the deportation order the cities of Hamburg and Berlin were exempted, persons in the employment of the state were exempted and deportation only applied to the xxxs of Germany proper, so that when they got to Poland they were welcomed and sheltered by Polish xxxs." [5]

The Russian occupation continued from 1914 to 1916 in the eastern region. Consequently, it means that it was impossible to massacre Armenians who lived in eastern Turkey in 1915 because neither the Ottoman government nor the army had control over the region. Afterward, it is probable that the German and Ottoman governments, which were allied with each other during World War I, decided to deport the AFR members and their families temporarily to Syria, which was a province of the Ottoman Empire and far from all active fronts at that time.

Finally, the Ottoman government had to deport them at the insistence of the ARF on May 27, 1915. However, during the deportation some Armenians were killed in revenge by Kurdish tribes and by local officials whose members and relatives had been massacred by the AFR between the 1880s and 1915. The situation in the region is well described by Gen. Harbord: "In the territory untouched by war from which Armenians were deported, the ruined villages are undoubtedly due to Turkish deviltry, but where Armenians advanced and retired with the Russians their retaliatory cruelties unquestionably rivaled the Turks in their inhumanity." [6]

Footnotes:
[1] National Archives (N) RG 59 Records of the Department of State Relating to Political Relations Between the United States and Turkey, 1910-1929 Roll No: 6, M : NO:365 Document No:711.672/473, and Date: June 7,1926, Herbert Adams Gibbons “Armenia in the World War,” 1926, New York.
[2] Congressional Record Proceedings and Debates -- Senate, Volume LXVII, Part-1, March 17, 1925, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1926, p.292
[3] Nalbandian, op. cit. p.156
[4] The New York Times, April 18, 2005
[5] Gunay Evinch, “The Armenian Cause Today,” The Turkish American, Vol.2 No.8, Summer 2005, p. 24
[6] Maj. Gen. James. G. Harbord, U.S. Army, Conditions in the Near East, Report of the American Military Mission to Armenia, Presented by Mr. Lodge, April 13, 1920 -- Ordered to be printed, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1920, p. 9

[TomServo]

Re: The Armenian Genocide - My Perspective

Excuses, excuses.

[milleniumboy]

An opinion from different Approach

hey people, stop your aggression against Turkey and make Turkey your best friend in the world. According to me, aggression, revenge, unsulting etc. etc. etc. such bad feelings will bring nothing to you! You have now a State in Caucaus region, namely Armenia covered by turkic States and Georgia. There are also Georgians in Turkey, they love Turkey very much. Georgian Army is renewed and modernized by turkish army, with this I mean they have perfect relationship with Turkey. the population of Nordern Iran consists of basicly turks, sii (relegiously) Turks, there are 25million turks in Iran. I mean you are simply covered by turks. Georgia is enjoying good relationship with turkey, they are making money, they are trading with turkey, they are getting money from pipelines coming from Azarbaijan to Turkey etc. etc. etc. .... but Armenia lives in poverty.... Make turks your best friend and reach to prosperity with time, that is the only choice u have..... Armenia can live in prosperity like Switzerland in Europe. Think that turks do not have revenge feelings...

A european land, namely France even USA can do nothing in your favour, The only way France can do is to make war with Turkey. Suppose that France will fight against Turkey for Armenian diaspora.... It's not rational... France, in a conventional war case, has NO CHANCE against Turkey. Suppose further that France fights with nuclear heads against Turkey.... It's not rational, too (plus nuclear heads cannot be used offensively) because Turkey in this case answers to France with nuclear heads, too.... (DO NOT FORGET THAT ISRAIL ALSO DENIES IT'S NUCLEAR POWER, TURKEY DOES THE SAME...... Turkey and other turkic lands are powerful enough.... Do not let armenian diaspora convince you with their lies.... there are 250 millions of turkic people in the world, In every corner of streets in the world you can meet a turk. FRANCE IS ABUSING YOU IN THEIR FAVOUR. because France is already afraid of Turkey and using you... Do not fall into this game as figurants. Acc. to me Turkey also wants to see a rich and prosperious Armenia as it's neighbour.