About 1915 and Some Legends

[Gavur]

About 1915 and Some Legends


On 29 April an article devoted to the "Armenian Question" was published, the title of which was "Are we ready to face our history?" The article spoke with a sincerity rarely shown in Turkey about the necessity of assessing history and turning the issue into an object of open discussion. Even this viewpoint alone deserves saluting the author of the article. But there were some glitches in the writing. In that article too many subjects, familiar as being the Turkish official thesis, were offered as information, which are such tall stories that they have no relation whatsoever with the truth. The reality is that a number of individuals, as well as bodies founded with the purpose of proving the Turkish viewpoint, continuously create tall stories and lies. Even people like Ayse Hur, who think very seriously about this issue, often accept those tall stories as reality, and by repeating them contribute to the fact that the tall story gets transformed, little by little, into "information reflecting the truth." About this subject, we need to clearly distinguish the tall stories and lies from the true information. I would now like to address two of those tall stories:

1) Ayse Hur writes "up to the Mondros Armistice, 1397 persons were given various sentences; more than half of them were sentenced to death for the crime of harming Armenians." This information, which is simply a tall story, appeared for the first time in the Kamuran Gürün's book "The Armenian File," as far as I know. Thereafter, it was continuously used by others, too, as credible information. Nobody thought about asking the following question: who were these 1397 persons who were put on trial and/or sentenced to death?

Gürün provides no name, nor any document, but mentions -- as a reference -- the files of the cypher room of the Ottoman period Interior Ministry. Those files were kept secret from researchers for a long time. Only civil servants like Gürün or S. Soy, who were given the responsibility of creating a "tall story," were able to read them, and when those files were opened, those who wanted to read them were either expelled from the archives, or permission to access them was not provided under the pretext that the files were still being worked on, or that their subject had no relation with those files. Today those files are open, and one can read them by overcoming certain difficulties.

And the information contained in those files is the exact opposite of what Gürün claims. There is no proof of the fact that a number of persons were put on trial or that they were executed for having mistreated Armenians. As for those sued, they were not people who committed crimes against Armenians, but rather those who appropriated the possession of Armenians. The Ittihadists launched an inquiry against certain civil servants who had plundered possessions, since they wanted to take advantage of those possessions for certain purposes.

THE PROGRAM OF ITTIHADISTS

A number of documents show that Ittihadists used Armenian possessions for the following purposes:

1) To cope with the costs of the war (certain buildings were assigned to the military; the output of factories were assigned to meet the needs of soldiers).
2) To create Turkish middle-classes.
3) To get Muslim immigrants to settle down (for this purpose to expropriate seized houses).
4) To sell Armenian possessions, so as to cope with the cost of the deportation of Armenians with the income resulting from the sales of the possessions.

In these files, there are tens of documents about this subject, but there isn't even a single document about those persons who were sued for the crime of mistreating Armenians. The documents show us that the Ittihadists used Armenian possessions in accordance with a very well prepared plan, for certain purposes, and for this reason they put the plunderers on trial.

Besides these trials there is also a second tall story: according to this tall story, compensations for their possessions were paid to the Armenians at the places where they had been sent. Various decisions were made at various times by the authorities about the abandoned possessions of Armenians. Among these, the most important ones were the circular dated 10 June 1915 and the temporary law adopted in September. According to these circulars, the possession of Armenians would be sold and the compensations would be paid to them in their new places. However, there is not a single document about this in the Ottoman Archives. Therefore, the allegation that those who mistreated Armenians were sued and sentenced to death is not correct, much like the allegation that compensations for the seized possessions of Armenians were paid to them is not correct. These are simply lies, intentionally created by a lie-machine, in order to confuse people.

2) Ayse Hur writes in her article that Protestants and Catholics living in Western provinces were not deported. In reality, there are two different tall stories about this issue. The first is that Armenians were not deported from Western provinces; whereas, the second is that Catholics and Protestants were not subjected to deportation. About this, there is no need for foreign sources, even the State Archives disprove the two above-mentioned tall stories in a book published in 1995. It is said in this book that Armenians were deported from Adana, Ankara, Aydin, Bolu, Bitlis, Bursa, Canik, Çanakkale, Diyarbakir, Edirne, Eskishehir, Erzurum, Izmit, Kastamonu, Kayseri, Karahisar, Konya, Kütahya, Elazig, Maras, Nigde, Samsun, Sivas, Trabzon, and Van. In reality, those are incomplete, too. But, even this shows the deportation was carried out on the whole territory of Anatolia. At the head of these tall stories is the one in which it is claimed that there was no deportation from Izmir and Istanbul; whereas, the records of the Interior Ministry indicate that there were deportations from Istanbul and Izmir, too. Let's hope that the existing documents will one day be published.

TALAAT PASHA'S TELEGRAM

Now as for that tall story, according to which Catholics and Protestants were not deported, it is true that there were a number of telegrams sent regarding this subject in order that the local responsible authorities could prevent such deportations. But the first message sent was already dated 4 August 1915. That is, it was sent 3 months after the deportations. The first document about Catholic Armenians was sent by Talaat Pasha. The telegram stated that the deportation of Catholic Armenians should not take place. A similar telegram was sent on 15 October about Protestant Armenians. There, too, the following was said: those Protestant Armenians who haven't been deported yet, shall not be deported anymore. As inferred from both telegrams, Armenian Catholic and Protestants had already been deported prior to that date. Now in telegrams sent on 18 September 1915 from Kayseri, Eskishehir, Diyarbakir, and Nigde, governors replied that all the Armenians in their respective regions had been deported and that none remained.

From many documents, we understand that those telegrams of Talaat Pasha were sent "merely for the sake of doing it". Later, verbal instructions were sent to the same governors so that they would not take those telegrams seriously. But even the above-mentioned documents alone are sufficient to show that the claim that Catholics and Protestants had not been deported is a tall story.

Let's hope that, this painful page of the history accepted in the international public opinion as the Armenian Genocide and that among us it is recalled only as the "Armenian Question", stop being for us a topic on the agenda only in the month of April, and that it shall be the object of a general serious discussion rid of legends, because he who doesn't face his own past, cannot build his future.


Taner Akcam

[1.5 million]

Good post - once again Ackam tells it like it (truly) was...BTW - you should credit Ackam in the title of this thread and perhaps add specifically what it addresses - the myths about prosecution of those who "mistreated" Armenians.

In fact though this is not something new - either these Turkish claims or their refuation. I addressed this very issue with an "informed" Turkish apologists (a former student of McCarthy who was married to a Turkish Cypriot) back in 2000/2001 and if I can dig up posts from our debate I will do so and repost them here. Essentially the Ottoman authorities - mostly the CUP - were punishing those who were in their eyes stealing from the government. All confiscated Armenian properties were to be administered by the State aparatus (really the CUP party aparatus) however abuses were abundent. The CUP encouraged such by its favorites however when others skimmed off they were occasionaly punished. Many of those who were tried were Kurdish chieftans and bandits.

Likewise the Ottoman Army went after some folks (of the Special organization as well as deserters who turned bandit etc) for criminal excesses. These were bands who became indiscriminate in who they attacked and who were massacreing Muslim Turks as well as Christian Armenians. In fact - even very early into the war - the Special Organization excesses in this regard prompted the Ottoman 3rd Army commander to request thie disbandment and he asked for the arrest of Dr Sakir - all due to excesses commited against Turks! (CUP responded by recalling Shakir and transfering control of the Special Organization out from the Army directly to the Interior Ministry which was headed by Talat) Shakir fled back to Istanbul with doctored accounts blaming the Armenians for the rampages and much of this was used by the CUP as "evidence" for Armenian crimes and treason and such "evidence" is still used by Turks to this day to blame Armenians for the violence. In fact there even exist accounts from ex-Special Organization members that depict their units dressing up murdered Armenians to look like Turks and brinbing in Kurdish women to wail over them - all for the pictures - which were then used to make the case against the Armenians.

I should also add that the CUP went after other individuals from the Special Organization as well - all after the fact of the worst excesses of course. As many Kurds boasted about their exploits killing Armenians and others out and out proclaimed that they were acting on orders form the government - the CUP was nervous that their actions to hide their involvement would be revealled. Rememember many of those used by the CUP were violent criminals and they really could not be trusted to keep secrets. CUP cables mention that regional authorities should do what was necessary to silence or ensure the silence of these types - who had outlived their usefulness and who had seen and knew too much. There are many known accounts of these types being waylaid and killed or arested and then they disapeared etc.

[Gavur]

1915 Legends and Realities by Taner Akcam

1915 Legends and Realities


One of the main subjects that the "Turkish thesis" insists upon in discussions of the events of 1915, is the exaggeration of the number of slain people in Armenian circles. How many people died or were actually murdered? In a world, where Generals responsible of the murder of 7,000 people in Bosnia were sued for having committed the crime of genocide, this is a very weird argument. In addition, those taking part in this argument don't seem to be aware of the simple reality that the 1948 definition of genocide by the United Nations doesn't consider the principle of "killing" as a necessary condition. That's why claiming that the number of casualties is from 50,000 to 600,000, rather than 1 to 1.5 million, has no importance, and for this reason [this claim] is not taken seriously. It's perceived and interpreted as an indication of the panic of being guilty. This is a reality that our people don't see and don't want to see. What we need to know is that all the numbers given about Armenians - dead or alive - are conjectural, including in the first place the number of 600,000 given by A. Toynbee in the year 1916 when deportations and deaths still continued. The only official statistics were provided by the Ottoman Government after the war. After the fall of the Union and Progress party from power, one of the first tasks of the newly formed cabinet was to investigate this matter. In December 1918, a Commission was formed upon the initiative of the Interior Minister Mustafa Arif (Deymer). The Commission worked about 3 months, and the conclusions were made public by the Interior Minister of that time, Cemal Bey, on 14 March 1919. According to the Ottoman State Archives, the number of Armenians slain during the period 1914-1918 is 800,000 (Vakit, Alemdar, Ikdam, 15 March 1919). The fact that during the deportations and killings 800,000 Armenians lost their lives is a well-known and repeated fact by everybody during an entire period of time. At the head of people using that figure is Mustafa Kemal [Atatürk]: Mustafa Kemal said during a meeting with the American General Harbord that 800,000 Armenians were killed. (Memories of Rauf Orbay, "Our Recent History", Vol. 3, Pg, 179)

How Should the Turks be Punished?

Concerning this subject, the second source is a book published in 1928 by the General Staff about the losses of World War I. The book, published by Lieutenant-Colonel Nihat, is the translation of a French book, and the figures related with Turkey are provided after modification and correction. According to the numbers given by the General Staff "800,000 Armenians and 200,000 Greeks died because of massacres and deportations, or in labor battalions" during the First World War. Y. H. Bayur, who transmits this information, says that "these figures should also be considered correct by our official sources". (Y. H. Bayur, The History of Reforms, Vol. III, Part IV, pg. 787). It may look amazing, but the reality that what happened in 1915 was a mass murder was accepted by everybody having lived in that period, and was never the object of an argument. Of course the word soykirim [genocide] (being a term belonging to the post World War II period) was not used in those days. To describe what had happened in 1915, words such as "katliam" [massacre], "taktil" [killings], "teb'id" [taking away, expulsion, expelling], "kital" [massacre] were used. Mustafa Kemal has dozens of speeches in which he defines the treatments reserved to Armenians as "cowardice", or "barbarity", and names these treatments "massacre". In September 1919, the American General Harbord, who visited Mustafa Kemal in Sivas, says "he, too, disapproved the Armenian Massacre." According to Mustafa Kemal, "the massacre and deportation of Armenians was the work of a small committee who had seized the power" (see the above mentioned work of Rauf Orbay.) Again during the same period, in an interview given to the USA Radio Newspaper, he says, "we have no expansionist plan...we can give the guarantee that there will be no new barbaric deeds against Armenians." (Bilal Simsir, British Documents on Atatürk, Vol. I, pg. 171, Ankara 1973) In a telegram sent to Kazim Karabekir on 6 May 1920, he directs Kazim Karabekir to abstain from any initiative, meaning a new "Armenian Massacre". (Kazim Karabekir, Our War of Liberation, pg. 707) In a speech made on 24 April, he describes the treatments reserved to Armenians in 1915 as "cowardly". (Atatürk's speeches in public and secret sessions of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, vol. I, pg. 59), etc.

Not only there was no argument of the fact that the treatments of Armenians was a massacre, on the contrary it was openly defended that the guilty persons should be punished. There were a series of correspondences between the Cabinet of Ali Riza Pasha and Mustafa Kemal in September 1919. The War Minister Cemal conducting the correspondence on behalf of the Istanbul Government required that Mustafa Kemal make a declaration stating "the perpetrators of all sorts of crimes committed during the war will not avoid legal punishments." In his reply, Mustafa Kemal says, "our most special desires are the exposure and punishment of misgovernment during the war, to understand that in our fatherland the responsibility is shared equally by the ordinary people and the leaders alike, as well as to understand that the era of law has started in an impartial manner and with justice". He adds that he considers "more appropriate and useful" that this punishment "be shown to friends and enemies by putting it into practice, rather than be made of publications on paper in the advertisement style, which would lead to many arguments". That is, the punishments expected by Mustafa Kemal were not to be left on paper for advertising purposes, but they were in the form of concrete actions. (Speech, Vol. III, Documents, Document 141-2, pg. 164-6) The trial of those guilty of massacres was also discussed in the deliberations of Amasya. During the deliberations, decisions were made about five protocols, three of them being public and two being secret. In the first protocol dated 21 October 1919, the punishment of the criminals was considered in two separate articles: "1- The resurgence of the Unionism, of the idea of the Union and Progress, and even the appearance of certain signs of it are politically harmful. 4- It's judicially and politically necessary to legally punish those who committed crimes during the deportations". The third protocol was about the elections which would take place, and the necessity of hindering the participation in the elections of those unionists sought for because of their participation in the Armenian Massacre was agreed upon. For this reason, Anatolia reserved itself the right to intervene in the elections and it is said "The presence at the Delegation of Deputees, to be convened, of those whose personalities and Unionism are connected with their wicked acts, and those sullied with issues of deportations, massacres, and other wicked acts incompatible with the real interests of the nation and country, is unacceptable and that presence must be hindered by all possible means." (Speech, Vol. III, Document 159-160, pg. 193-4)

It is possible to quote examples over several pages. What I want to explain is the following: the fact that what happened in 1915 was a mass murder was not even the subject of an argument in any manner from the viewpoint of the actors of that period, with Mustafa Kemal at their head. The main discussion of that period was organized around the axis of the deliberations of Paris, and it was about how the "Turks" should be punished for the Armenian Massacre. To put the criminals on trial was one form of punishment. Another form was the partition of Anatolia. That is, the Western Powers were hiding their imperial ambitions mainly behind the reality of Armenians having been killed. Mustafa Kemal and his friends accepted the reality that those responsible of the massacre should be punished, but opposed that this punishment be in the form of the partition of Anatolia. Today, rather than producing lies and legends, if we make the position of Mustafa Kemal on this subject our departure point, and continue our discussion from there, we shall have covered a fairly long distance.


Taner Akcam