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General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.” -
An article by a Survivor of the Armenian Genocide, Nishan Nercessian
by Nishan Nercessian (Eyewitness Accont - 10/6/2001)
I will prove in this article that the deportations of Armenians were decided by the ruling Ittihad Party as far back as 1910.
The accusations that the Armenians were disloyal and were fighting with the Russian Army are false because the Armenians in the Russian Army or in guerilla bands were Russian citizens and were doing their military duty for
their country. War Minister Enver Pasha is said to have blamed the Armenians for his defeat on the Russian-Turkish front in the winter of 1914-1915 when it was his incompetence of ordering a Turkish attack in the
middle of winter, which ended with a Russian victory. He did not know that you do not make war in Russia in winter.
During 1914-1918, all Armenian males, age 18-48, were taken into the Turkish Army, worked to death or killed outright.
Dr. Ataov should be aware of the existence of the Chadwyck-Healy (1101 King St., Alexandra, VA 22314) publication of some 30,000 microfiches containing
the reports, letters and eyewitness accounts of many U.S. diplomats, missionaries, doctors and nurses who were in Turkey during the Genocide. But I will quote more Turkish and European documents proving Turkish premeditation and guilt of the Armenian Genocide.
Prof. Vahakn Dadrian, in his book, The Armenian Genocide (pp. 180-184), writes about the secret speeches of Talaat Pasha, Minister of the Interior, to the Ittihad members during their convention in Salonika (Turkish territory at that time) in 1910. In these speeches, Talaat spoke of plans to homogenize the peoples in Turkey and stop the intervention of foreign powers on behalf of the Armenians and other minorities." Intelligence sources informed the French Consul Choublier, British Vice Consul Arthur Geary and Austrian Vice Consul Zitkovsky of the speeches which were naturally cabled to their respective governments. These reports are available today to any researcher. Naturally, the Armenian nation is eternally indebted to Prof. Dadrian for finding and publishing these documents.
Another document is the book Armenians in Ottoman Documents (1915-1920) published by the Turkish Republic, Prime Ministry, General Directorate of the State Archives, Directorate of Ottoman Archives, Publication No. 25, Ankara, 1995. The book is printed in Turkish and I am indebted to Sarkis Karayan, M.D., for his review and translation into English of segments, which appeared in The Armenian Observer of July 29 and August 5, 1998. The book is 642 pages long, containing 262 telegrams, the majority of which were signed by Talaat Pasha. I will quote two telegrams and give my reasons for quoting them.
1) The Sublime Porte
Ministry of Interior
Office of the Director of General Security
Special 14
Coded Urgent and Secret
This evening at 10:23 hours, train no. 78 will leave Haidarpasha (Istanbul train station - S.K.) and will arrive in Ankara the day after, at eight o'clock (along) with train No. 164 there are fifteen policemen, two officers, one commissar, one civilian official accompanied by seventy-five
armed soldiers and about one hundred eighty deportees consisting of Armenian revolutionaries and those whose living here (in Istanbul - S.K.) is considered to be inconvenient. Of these, as our coded telegram of yesterday stated, about sixty to seventy will remain under arrest in the military
depot in Ayash and the remaining hundred will be deported via Ankara, without staying there, to Changri. The deportees to Ayash will be separated at Sinjankoy station where armed troops will be ready to take them to Ayash. Or you may take all the deportees to Ankara and from there separate in two groups and send them to Ayash and Changri. The safety and comfort of deportees is entrusted to your understanding.
25 April 1915
Minister (Talaat)
My question to Dr. Ataov is: Why did the Turkish government arrest these
and other Armenian intellectuals (religious leaders, members of the Ottoman
Parliament, teacher, writers, doctors, etc.), about 345 in number? They
were deported within days, without any charges or trial, to the interior of
Turkey to be massacred. Only a handful were saved.
2) Page 150, Document 179
The Feeding and Lodging of Homeless Armenians
30 April 1916
Translation of the Telegram Coded
Copy to Deputy General Commander His Excellency Enver Pasha
1. All those Armenian families whose male members have been deported or have
been conscripted in the army, and, as a result, these families have been
isolated or without a male parent should be distributed in small towns and
villages that do not have any foreign or Armenian population. Expenses for
these families should be provided from the budget for (Turkish - S.K.)
immigrants, and they (Armenians - S.K.) should get acquainted with local
customs.
2. Young women and widows should get married.
3. All children below the age of twelve should be distributed in our orphanages.
4. If there are not enough places in orphanages, the children should be given to well-to-do Moslem families so they will learn customs and culture and thus get assimilated.
5. If there are no well-to-do Moslem families that can adopt and educate the orphans, they should be distributed in villages and 30 kurush per month should be spent for each one from the budget of Turkish immigrants. Reports about the implementation of these decisions to be sent gradually.
Minister (of Interior)
My second question to Dr. Ataov is: If there were no killings of Armenians, why was the Minister of Interior Talaat sending these telegrams to the governors of provinces?
Finally, I quote from an interview given by Dr. Ataov to the Turkish weekly Nokta in 1984: "...thirteen hundred persons were sentenced; what else do you want?" But, further on, he glosses over the following fact: If Talaat had not given those order, if the documents are faked, why then were those criminals convicted? These few lines of confession by Dr. Ataov were translated from the Armenian and published in the supplement "Kroonk" of
Sovetakan Hayastan, No. 9, 1984.
My final advice to Dr. Ataov and those interested in the truth on the Armenian Genocide: Please read the Turkish papers (or translations) of Istanbul of 1919 and on.
Many readers, like Sarkis Karayan, M.D., reviewer of the above book, The Armenians in Ottoman Documents, published by the Turkish Republic in 1995, might wonder why the Turkish government published these incriminating documents in that year. I believe they were published to prepare the
Turkish opinion for an official recognition of the responsibility of the Ittihad Government for organizing and carrying out the Armenian Genocide. Another reason is to convince all those Turks, who have not yet made up their minds about the recognition and apologies for the Genocide, that this book is an official confession.
All they need is some courage, a vote in the Parliament and the approval of the Turkish Army General Staff.
Copyright © 2001 Nishan NercessianGeneral Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”Comment
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New evidence on Armenian Genocide revealed 18.10.2007 20:52 GMT+04:00 (IMG:http://panarmenian.net/news/images/ico_print.gif) (IMG:http://panarmenian.net/news/images/ico_mail.gif) (IMG:http://panarmenian.net/news/images/ico_rus.gif) /PanARMENIAN.Net/ In the result of the consistent work during last years new photos and documents on the Armenian Genocide were revealed from different countries’ state archives and private collections by various researchers dealing with the issues of the Armenian Genocide, reported the press office of the Museum-Institute of Armenian Genocide.
Photos made by Austrian military man Victor Pitchman are of great interest. Victor Pitchman was born in Vienna in 1881. He was in Turkey from 1914 till the end of the World War First. First he served in Turkish then in Austrian and German armies. He built Turkish mountain firing in Erzerum and drew war map of the South Western Asia for the German main headquarter. Being in Erzerum he witnessed Armenian slaughters carried out by the Ottoman government. There are deportation views of the Armenians in photos made by Pitchman near Erzerum. Artem Ohandjanyan, doctor of historical sciences, a resident of Austria provided these photos with the photo collection of the AGMI.
New photos were revealed also in the state achieves of the Deutsche Bank and they were contributed to the AGMI. Meanwhile the museum collection was enriched with dozens of unprinted memoirs recorded by the survivors of the genocide.
Reminiscence “War and Peace memories” by Eric af Wirsen, military attaché of the Swedish Embassy to the Ottoman Empire, contains exclusive facts on the Armenian Genocide. One of its chapters is titled as “Slaughter of one nation” where the author describes one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century. The author witnessed the mass graves of the Armenians in the vicinity of Euphrates as well as he had direct contacts with foreign diplomats, who witnessed the massacre. Mr. Wirsen writes, “Slaughters were carried out in such ways that humanity has never seen since the middle ages”.
Wirsen was informed by different consuls that the Turkish gendarmes entered houses of foreign diplomats, and without any words they shot their servants of Armenian origin. Eric af Wirsen notices that it is difficult to release the Germans from the responsibility as they did nothing to prevent the bloodshed. Mr. Wirsen also states that some German officers gave back the medals and rewards granted by the Ottoman government with the following reason they cannot accept any honors from a government carrying out such cruelties. “I join to the words of general fon Lossov who tête-à-tête told me that slaughters of the Armenians were the most terrible brutalities in the world history”, wrote Wirsen.
As a primary source this work is important and valuable as first it was written by a representative of Sweden, a neutral state during the war, where Ambassador Morgenthau’s evidences are affirmed for many times. Concluding the above-mentioned chapter, Wirsen wrote, “I constantly recollect cynic expression of Talaat’s face when he said there is no “Armenian problem” anymore”.General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”Comment
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Re: Armenian Genocide Documents
Found this the other day. I put a link on hyeclub on “Armenian Allies” discussion. I suppose it would be more appropriate here. I am not sure if this has been added to AG documents, you guys would know better, but I thought I post it here as well.
It is from the Archives of NY Times dated 1921 titled: President reaches decision on Armenia.
Full article which is only a few paragraphs in PDF file.
B0zkurt HunterComment
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