-
"All truth passes through three stages:
First, it is ridiculed;
Second, it is violently opposed; and
Third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) -
DOCUMENT 1
1915-07-03-DK-001
The minister in Constantinople (Carl Ellis Wandel) to the foreign
minister (Erik Scavenius)
Source : Danish National Archives, Foreign Office, Group Cases
1909-1945. Dept. 139, Gr. D, No. 1, "Turkey - Inner Relations".
Package 1, to Dec. 31, 1916
No. LXX [70]
Constantinople, July 3, 1915.
Confidential.
Mr. Foreign Minister,
In my earlier reports I have already several times had the opportunity
to mention the hatred that the Young Turk government has been showing
with less and less ambiguity against the aliens in Turkey since
the beginning of the war and the abrogation of the capitulations,
and particularly against the Christians.
In spite of the repeated promises that the Grand Vizier has given
to the Apostolic delegate [Monseigneur Angelo Marie Dolci] and to
the mission chiefs, many of the monasteries and other religious
institutions that have been seized have not yet been reopened, and
they are still being treated with the utmost arbitrariness, often
under the pretext of military necessity.
The Catholic church in Bebek by the Bosporus has even been placed
at the disposal of the local Muslims, who have converted it into
a mosque ; and property belonging to the Holy See in Kadikeui,
near Constantinople, has been taken over in order to establish a
Muslim school.
All of these violations, though, amount to nothing compared to a
very vital step, that I have learned today has been taken by the
government to remove the protected status which the Catholics have
enjoyed in Turkey from old times.
The government has established a non-clerical council, made up of 12
Catholic Ottoman subjects - naturally chosen among followers of the
government - who must choose a chairman among themselves.
This council is supposed to administer the Catholic church in Turkey
(i.e., the Latin, not the Greek, Armenian, etc.), and will thus become
some sort of a new Patriarchate.
This way, the representative of the Papal delegate and of the
countries that have Catholic interests in Turkey will be robbed of any
opportunity of attending to such interests and that all monasteries and
churches, and everything that the Catholic church owns in this country,
will be administrated by this new council and seized by the Caliphate.
Not surprisingly, the Papal delegate has refused to receive the 12
newly appointed gentlemen in corpore.
In Catholic circles, there had been hope that under these circumstances
the German ambassador, who represents so many millions of Catholics,
and the representative of the "Apostolic king" [i.e., the Austrian
ambassador Johann Pallavicini] would have a moderating influence on
the Young Turk government, but this seems not to be the case.
The German ambassador says that it must be due to a misunderstanding
if one thinks that Germany or any other power has any influence
here, because the Turkish government disregards the daily efforts
he makes to direct its attention to the many unwise acts by which it
makes itself still more hated, and the Austrian-Hungarian ambassador
expresses himself in a similar way, in that he, among other things,
complains about the arrogant way the Turks try to give the impression
that the advancement of the Austrian armed forces first and foremost
is caused by the Turkish victories against the allied forces at the
Dardanelles and elsewhere.
With the highest esteem I remain, Mr. Minister, yours faithfully
[Wandel]
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DOCUMENT 2
1915-09-04-DK-001
The minister in Constantinople (Carl Ellis Wandel) to the foreign
minister (Erik Scavenius)
Source : Danish National Archives, Foreign Office, Group Cases
1909-1945. Dept. 139, Gr. D, No. 1, "Turkey - Inner Relations".
Package 1, to Dec. 31, 1916
No. CXIII [113]
Constantinople, September 4, 1915.
Confidential.
Mr. Foreign Minister,
In continuation of my most respectful reports No. LXXVIII [78] of
July 22, No. LXXXVII [87] of July 31, and No. IC [99] of August 18,
I have the honor of reporting that the persecutions of the Armenians
are continuing with great intensity, in spite of the promises made
by the government here, and of which I have already reported.
At the reception Monday the 16th of August, the German ambassador
once again brought up these persecutions with the Grand Vizier,
and asked him to induce his government to cease, - especially when
it comes to the Armenian Catholics who have never participated in
revolutions or interfered with politics and still are subjected to
the most persistent persecutions.
Even the Gregorian Armenians, who have distanced themselves from
all nationalist ideas to the extent that they have abandoned their
mother tongue and have embraced the Turkish language as their own,
are being persecuted.
The promises which the Grand Vizier gave to the German ambassador
were not kept, and when the persecutions and killings continued, His
Holiness Monseigneur Paul Pierre XIII, the Armenian-Catholic Patriarch,
turned to the resident Spanish minister and asked him, in the name of
Catholic Spain, to try to turn once more to the Grand Vizier to obtain
that at least the safety of the Catholic Armenians were respected.
The Spanish minister, who consented and, using the words of the
Patriarch, objected to the Grand Vizier at the reception last Monday,
tells me that His Highness, after having listened to him, showed his
surprise about what had happened, and that he, when the minister
firmly claimed that he had proof that the cruelties mentioned had
actually taken place, noted it and promised to immediately order that
the Armenian Catholics were spared.
However, both the minister and the Patriarch are convinced that these
terrible persecutions will not cease, among other things because the
central government has no power over the provincial authorities,
who, when it suits them, do not obey the orders they receive from
Constantinople, and - last not least - because the Germans in their
opinion only pretend to protest against the persecutions and killings.
It is obvious, they say, that the Germans are interested in the
extermination of the Armenians and in the Greeks fleeing, who fear
that the same thing should happen to them, so that they (the Germans)
without effort can take over Turkey`s trade and become the only
Europeans with a foothold here.
The authorities in the provinces and the Young Turks, they say, do
not consider the German ambassadors' application to the government
as serious.
I shall briefly allow myself to give an account of the important and
sad communications of the latest developments, that has been given
to me by completely reliable and truthful source, and which is of
such a nature that it will cause general regret everywhere in the
Christian world.
The Turks are vigorously carrying through their cruel intention,
to exterminate the Armenian people.
In Brussa they have forced the well-to-do Armenians to pay the police
300 Turkish pounds (approximately 5000 Danish kroner) a person to be
allowed to stay in the city, and yet the next day they have banished
them from the city with their wifes and children.
Where these unfortunate people are now, and what fate they have met
after they have had to leave their homes, it is not possible to learn
even for the closest family.
In Adana the governor has ordered the posting of a proclamation which,
in a French translation I have received from the Patriarchate, goes
as follows :
"1) Jusqu`a la fin du mois courant les armeniens se trouvant dans la
ville meme d`Adana doivent avoir ete expedies au fur et a mesure et par
groupes. 2) Les proprietaires des fabriques sises a Mersina et a Adana,
ainsi que les employes de celles-ci qui travaillent pour le compte
du Departement Militaire, son exemptes pour le moment : ils ne seront
pas expedies et seront employes comme auparavant dans leur travaux.
3) Les familles dont les soutiens ou les maris sont en service
militaire ne seront pas expedies.
4) Tout le monde doit, a partir d`aujourd`hui, regler et mettre en
ordre ses affaires et se tenir pret a l`ordre de monter en chemin
de fer.
5) Il ne sera fait aucun cas de recours, qui seront faits faits pour
une demande de prolongation de delai ou d`autres empechements. 6)
L`expedition se fera quartier par quartier. 7) Il ne sera permis
pour chaque famille que le transport d`une quantite de meubles de
150 kilos seulement.
8) Pour les familles composees de plus 6 personnes, grandes ou petites,
il sera permis le transport de 200 kilos de meubles.
9) La population musulmans de la ville et de la banlieue est obligee
de fournir, pour cette expedition, les moyens de transport.
10) La commission nommee pour s`occuper des moyens de transport,
a commence deja ses travaux.
11) Les familles qui se seraient procure elles-meme leur moyens
de transport, sont autorisees, en vertu des pièces qui leur seront
delivrees par les Commissaires de Police, a se rendre directement a
Badjou et de la a Alep.
12) Par le train qui sera prepare le samedi 15 du mois courant,
seront expedies les quartiers de Akdje, Nesjid, Saradjen, Kharab,
Bagtche, Tchoukour, Kassab Bekir, Yarbachi, Tcinanli et Karan.
13) A partir de demain la population de ces quartiers devra absolument
s`adresser a la Commission d`inscription placee sous la presidence de
Adil Bey dans le Commissariat de Police et après s`etre fait inscrire,
devra prendre une pièce scellee et legalisee.
14) Ceux qui d`après l`inscription de leur etat civil, sinon du nombre
des habitants de ces quartiers et qui actuellement resident ailleurs,
leurs domiciles actuels ne seront pas pris en consideration, mais
ils seront obligee d`aller se faire inscrire avec les habitants des
quartiers auxquels ils appartiennent, et de partir, dans la meme
journee, avec les habitants de leur quartier d`origine.
15) Pour l`expedition soit des familles de militaires, soit des
personnes qui se trouveraient habitant dans d`autres quartiers, il
sera tenu compte, pour principe d`operation, de l`enregistrement de
leur etat civil.
16) Toutes les operations qui ne seront pas faites par inscription,
ne seront pas prises en consideration.
17) La population de ses quartiers devra, au matin du jour designe
ci-haut a 12 heures a la turque, avec ses bagages, tel qu`il est
dit a l`Art. 7 et avec les membres de la famille, se trouver a
la Nouvelle Station. 18) On doit se rendre a Alep par la voie de
Osmanieh-Radjou. 19) Une Commission speciale etant envoyee a Osmanieh,
sur la presentation des pièces, conformement a l`Art. 13, distribuera
a chaque famille, dans la mesure possible, des moyens de transport
et organisera les expeditions par groupes.
20) A l`arrivee a Osmanieh la susdite Commission fera diligence pour
l`installation et le bien-etre des groupes : par consequent chaque
quartier devra faire par l`intermediarie de leur Mouhtar respectif,
recours a la susdite Commission.
21) La quantite des personnes employees dont le sejour a ete decide,
avant etre notifie aux bureaux de la Police et de la Gendarmerie,
il sera procede, par les dits bureaux, a la separation et au maintien
de ceux-ci.
22) La sera delivre par la direction de la police, aux personnes
ainsi exemptees, des documents reguliers et legalises, concernant
leur maintien.
23) Si parmi la population des quartiers qui ont ete avisees, il se
trouvait des personnes, qui, a partir de demain, ne se presenteraient
pas et ne se feraient inscrire, ou qui ne se trouveraient pas
presentes a la Nouvelle Station au jour indique pour le depart soit
le samedi 15 du mois courant a l`heure indique ou qui chercheraient a
trouver des ruses ou des pretextes, les Mouhtars et les Conseils des
vieillards sont obliges de prevenir les Autorites et si les habitants
et le Mouhtar auraient contrevenu a tout cela, ils seront consideres
comme ayant agi contre l`Autorite Militaire et les ordres de l`etat
de mobilisation et seront immediatement deferes a la Cour Martiale
et dans les 24 heures une sentence sera donnee et executee.
24) Les ordres formelles, comme il convent, ayant ete donnes a tous les
bureaux. Il est preferable de travailler a completer ces preparatifs
plutôt que de perdre du temps a chercher des pretextes et a faire
des demarches inutiles. Août 1915.
In a letter received here from the bishop of Erzerum, Monseigneur
Melchisedechian, it is stated that the parish of Khodirtchour, which
was made up of 12 villages, has been completely evacuated, and that
no one knows what has happened to the vanished population.
That same prelate, on July 17 this year, reported that he himself
had been forced to set out for an unknown destination, and nothing
has been heard of him since.
The former bishop of that same district, Monseigneur Ketchourian,
at the same time travelled to Constantinople, but disappeared along
the way.
The bishop of Karput, Monseigneur Israëlian, on June 23 reported to
the Patriarchate that he had been ordered to leave the town for Aleppo
with all of his parishioners within 48 hours, and it has later been
learned that this bishop and all the clergy that accompanied him have
been attacked and killed between Diarbekir and Urfa at a place where
approximately 1700 Armenian families have suffered the same fate.
The whole of the population in the abovementioned parish are considered
lost.
The population in the parishes of Diarbekir and Malatia has also been
driven out of their villages, and it is not known what has happened
to the bishops Tchelebian and Khatchadourian and their parishioners.
The sad message has also been confirmed that the archbishop of Mardin,
Monseigneur Maloyan, and approx. 700 of his Catholic parishioners
have been killed, and that the population in the town of Tallermen,
which was purely Catholic, has been completely exterminated.
Reports are completely lacking on what has happened to the bishop
of Mouch, Monseigneur Topuzian, and his parishioners, but there is
reason to believe that they too have been killed.
It is feared that a similar fate has befallen the clergy and
parishioners of Gurin.
In the parish of Sivas, the only village to have been spared is
Pirkinik, where the archbishop, Monseigneur Ketchedjian, has escaped
to. He, and one cleric that accompanied him, are the only survivors.
Trebizond, Samson, [illegible], Marsivan, and Amassia have been
completely evacuated, and there is no knowledge of what has happened
to the 47 clerics of these towns.
Tarsus, Hedzin, and Mersina have suffered the same fate.
In Angora, all of the men have been abducted from the town, and the
women have been forced to marry Muslims ; approximately 6000 men,
approximately 70 clerics, and the bishop, Monseigneur Gregoire Bahaban,
have been shot on the road to the place of banishment.
In the city of Ismid, the government has ordered that the Armenian
Catholics who had been banished to Eskicheir should be allowed to
return to their homes, but the governor would not let them enter
the city, and sent them back. The same thing has happened in many
other places.
Even here in Constantinople Armenians are being abducted and sent to
Asia, and it is not possible to get information of their whereabouts.
The Patriarchate has calculated that half of the Armenian-Catholic
hierarchy has been lost ; 7 bishops, approximately 100 priests, 70
other clerics, and thousands upon thousands of their parishioners
have disappeared.
The Church formerly consisted of 16 districts (Constantinople, Mardin,
Diarbekir, Karput, Malatia, Sivas-Tokat, Mouch, Erzerum, Trebisond,
Angora, Cesaree, Brussa, Adana, Marache, Aleppo, and Alexandrie [=
Alexandrette]), and according to the latest information only Marash,
Aleppo, and Cesaree have been spared outside of Constantinople.
The fate that thus has befallen the Catholic Armenians, have with
even greater cruelty befallen all the other Armenians, in that the
aim of the government, as I have already had the honor to report,
is to completely exterminate the Armenian people.
With the highest esteem I remain, Mr. Minister, yours faithfully
[Wandel]General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.” -
DOCUMENT 3 1915-09-22-DK-001
The minister in Constantinople (Carl Ellis Wandel) to the foreign
minister (Erik Scavenius)
Source : Danish National Archives, Foreign Office,Group Cases
1909-1945. Dept. 139, Gr. D, No. 1, "Turkey - Inner Relations".
Package 1, to Dec. 31, 1916
No. CXXV [125]
Constantinople, September 22, 1915.
Mr. Foreign Minister,
In my earlier reports I have already tried to demonstrate how H. M.
the Sultan rules, and how the Committee is managing.
I have tried to demonstrate that Turkey has been incautious in giving
up its neutrality, given that the country`s position will be very
difficult if the war ends with a victory of one of the groups of
Great Powers.
Regarding the fate of the country if the Entente powers win, Mr.
Foreign Minister is far better informed than I ; the matters that I
have the opportunity to observe will only have a minor influence in
the event of such an outcome, and I therefore prefer to deal with
the question of what will happen in the event of a victory for the
Central Powers.
If the Central Powers are victorious, and the Balkan coalition is
not being reformed against the "German danger," Turkey will in all
probability be faced with the choice of either giving up the major
parts of its political and economic independence to the benefit of
Germany, who will then gain firm ground here, or to enter into a
probably rather hopeless struggle for independence against its mighty
ally, and when this choice is to be made, the matters that I observe
daily could be decisive.
There is already full awareness in the German embassy here, that a
serious conflict between Germany and Turkey, who in a future union
undoubtedly will demand an equal status, hardly will be avoidable,
even at best, if the chauvinists remain in power. Some remarks made
to me recently by the embassy`s advisory specialist in Balkan policy
is certainly indicative thereof.
When I, after having expressed my admiration for the great and
outstanding achievements of the German diplomatic and military missions
to the benefit of Germany`s interests, added that I still found it
hard to forgive German Balkan policy that it, by strengthening and
flattering the Committee, has helped bring about its arrogance and
xenophobia to such an extent that the government here has become
thoroughly intractable, he answered that, from the German position,
this was readily regretted.
"But you must not forget," he said, "that we had no other option ;
we needed Turkey`s help - it was for us a matter of life and death,
and we had to let things slide."
By and large, there can therefore hardly be much doubt about where
it goes from here ; since the foreign warships (station ships) left
the roadstead of Constantinople, the presumptuousness of the Young
Turks has been ever increasing, and there can probably be no talk of
moderation in thought and principles before the ships return.
A thorough study of the prospects in the event of a victory for the
Central Powers, though, faces many difficulties, since it is almost
impossible to obtain reliable information about the composition and
practical circumstances of the true, but irresponsible, government
of the country - the Committee. The history of the Committe has not
yet been written, and the persons who know it dare not speak out.
Considering the topicality of the subject, I will still try to give,
based on what I learn here, a short description of the Committee
and its men - who make up a kind of directorate, consisting of 15-20
members, that decides the actions of the government - and of the change
in its policy since July 1908, when it intervened for the first time
in the fate of the country with a firm grip and, measured with the
standards of this country, [became] a uniquely thorough organization.
The distinctive feature of the Young Turk Committee has always been,
and still is, its organizational strength. Without this firmness,
the Committee would not have been able to withstand being persecuted
by despotism, and to even grow in strength to such an extent that
it could topple the old regime. This organizational firmness, which
the Committee created in its earliest days when it toiled with its
great work of liberation, it has kept since that time, for better
or for worse, and when in power it has, aided by that firmness,
been able to get away with unpunished abuses similar to that of
the toppled despotism, [and,] aided by it, it could regain power by
determined action when it had been dethroned. And the Committee is
not only equipped with this organizational strength, it also is and
has always been the only Turkish political organization in possession
of this quality ; all the other parties, that have been formed since
the introduction of the constitution, have lacked it - and they have
quickly succumbed.
An effect of this state of things is that the top positions of the
Committee are no longer held by the theorists who originally drew
up the program of the Committee, but by its political-organizational
leaders, those men who have worked in the service of the organization
from the beginning, not as great idealists or founding statesmen,
but as organizers who use all means to further the well-being of their
organization. This fact also explains that the Committee now, albeit
under much the same leaders as in its earliest years of struggle,
actually fights for a completely different program than then it had -
it is not the ideals, but power that has been and is being fought for.
Among the men in the leadership of the Committee, one first of all
has to mention the present leader of the government, interior minister
Talaat Bey, without doubt a significant politician.
Talaat Bey, former telegraphist in the provinces, was working for
the Committee from its earliest days, and he came to the forefront
immediately after the revolution as one of the leaders of Turkish
politics, but only after 1909 did he and other Young Turk leaders
become direct members of the government - Talaat Bey as interior
minister - to replace the old Pashas, who still for some time had
been allowed to remain in office as puppets. It was Talaat Bey who,
when the Committee had been toppled by "the liberating officers"
(in the Spring of 1912), led the secret effort of the Committee
to regain power, and he who, together with his friends, in effect,
by nationalistic demonstrations, forced Kiamil [Kamil] Pasha, the
then Grand Vizier, to engage in the unfortunate war against the
Balkan states (the end of 1912), instead of accepting to effectively
implement the reforms demanded by the Powers. And once again, it was
Talaat Bey who, together with Enver Pasha, was the leader behind the
new coup d`etat, that once again brought the Young Turks to power -
in accordance with Talaat`s plan at the exact moment when the Kiamil
cabinet sent the note to the Great Powers, where it gave up Adrianople
as a result of the urgent requests of those Powers. Kiamil Pasha`s
abandonment of the holy Adrianople would have put the men of the coup
d`etat in a more flattering light as national liberators who toppled
the cabinet that had unnecessarily surrendered parts of the country,
but, as chance would have it, the toppled cabinet had not delivered
the note of reply to the Powers (it had been sent, but because of an
editorial error it was called back before the delivery to the Austrian
ambassador), and it was the new Young Turk ministry that was left with
responsibility for the decision. It was luck - the internal struggle
of the Balkan states - and not foresight that saved Talaat and the
Committee`s power and regained Adrianople for Turkey.
Since then, Talaat has more and more become the centre of the Young
Turk Committee. The military members - and especially Enver Pasha
- have had to focus on the defence of the country, and the entire
government has slipped into the hands of Talaat Bey, who actually is
both minister of the interior, of finance, and of foreign affairs.
Close to Talaat is his friend Halil Bey, chairman of the deputy chamber
and of the Committee, Bedri Bey, prefect of the security police in
Turkey (in the Spring of 191[ ?] he had been condemned to death for
having shot a military police officer, had later escaped from prison,
been pardoned, and made chief of public security), Nazim Bey, the
Committee`s chauvinist secretary general and leader of the daily
administration of the Committee, Midhat Chukri Bey and Behaeddine
Chakir Bey, also pronounced chauvinists, Hussein Djahid Bey, former
editor of the Committee`s organ "Tanin," and Djavid Bey, the former
finance minister, who took care of the great loan in France in 1914,
from a Jewish family that converted to Islam, originally school
inspector in the provinces, etc., etc.
A person completely preoccupied at the moment by the military events
is Enver Pasha, the officer who, together with Niazi Bey who was
killed shortly after, in June 1908 raised the rebel banner with his
troops in Albania, and thereby originated the revolution itself,
after which he became military attache in Berlin, a nomination that
surely has had a great impact on the relationship between Germany and
Turkey. After having returned to Turkey he became chief of staff for
the 10th Army Corps, was an active participant in the coup d`etat in
1913, and led the triumphant expedition to Adrianople. As a reward
he was, albeit relatively late, made minister of war in January 1914,
and thereby gained all of Turkey`s military power in his hand, after
the Committee had fired all the old generals and high ranking officers,
who enjoyed popularity with the troops, and replaced them with Enver
Pasha`s new proteges.
Another influential military member of the Committee was until lately
Enver Pasha`s co-suitor to the military leadership, Djemal Pasha, the
former military commander of Constantinople, named Pasha the same day
as Enver, decorated with the Osmanieh Order at the same time as Enver,
and finally, on Enver Pasha`s advice, made traffic minister to limit
his influence, but later, after urgent request, made marine minister,
a capacity in which he worked with great force on the renewal of the
fleet right until the beginning of the war, when he left Constantinople
as chief of the army that was sent to Egypt. From this time on, Djemal
Pasha has naturally been unable to participate in the governing of
Turkey, and the Marine Ministry too has been in the hands of Enver.
Among other people who have left their mark on the work of the
Committee during the past time, besides from the "liberator" Mahmoud
Chevket Pasha who was murdered in June 1913, must be mentioned Azmi
Bey, who, together with the then military commander of the city,
Djemal Pasha, and in connection with Talaat Bey, led the terror
regime as Chief of Police in the capital after the killing of Mahmoud
Chevket Pasha, but who on the Russian embassy`s firm demand was sent
to Konia shortly thereafter as governor, furthermore Hadji Adil Bey,
the present governor in Adrianople, mentioned in my report No. CXXIII
[123] of yesterday, and finally 2 men, who have eventually distanced
themselves from the Committee because they could not follow it in its
lust for power and its abuse : Rahmy Bey, the governor of the vilayet
Aidin (Smyrna), who, as also mentioned in my earlier reports, several
times has opposed the Committee`s orders when he found them unjust,
and Ahmed Riza Bey, who became the only important opponent of the
Committee`s autocracy in the last parliamentary session. Riza Tevfik
Bey, an influential member in the early days of the Committee as the
original intellectual protagonist of the Committee, and very esteemed
by all sides, also by the opponents of the Committee, was already at
an early stage repulsed by the way the rulers realized his ideals,
and was already in 1910 among the opponents of the Committee.
The Committee for Union and Progress took control under the motto :
Equal rights for all Ottomans. But to achieve the unity, that was at
the beginning of the Committe`s title, in the vast and ethnographically
tangled empire, there had to be created both an Ottoman sense of unity
shared by all peoples of the empire, and be raised guarantees that
this new "Ottomanism" would also be led by the Young Turk members
of the Committee in the future, both be created equal rights for all
Ottoman citizens, without consideration for nationality and religion
(the idealistic demands of the revolution), and made sure that the new
Ottomanism would still become a purely Turkish movement. The struggle
between these demands lasted for some time, until the Committee
immediately after the end of the Balkan war threw one of the demands
(equal rights for all Ottomans) overboard and decided to go forward
along the road of Turkification, the road that is characterized by
the anti-Greek boycott in the Spring of 1914 that affected those
Greeks who were Ottoman subjects just as well as the Greek subjects,
the simultaneous persecutions of the Greeks in Asia Minor and Thrace,
and, later that same year - with German assistance - the declaration
of Jihad, which was favoured by the World War and the subsequent
abrogation of the capitulations, and which finally has led to the
xenophobic and nationalistic policy, whose effects I have lately looked
closely upon several times in my reports, and whose main purpose at the
moment is the extermination of the Armenian population of the empire.
Mr. Foreign Minister will maybe realize from this account, in spite of
its faultiness, that it does not seem to be men with great political
refinement and experience, or with good knowledge, who now rule Turkey,
but people whose foolhardiness and irrepressable force of will and
action has replaced the former inertia, which was the strength of
the old Pashas before 1908, and Germany, should the occasion arise,
will have to realize that they are not manageable.
They are chauvinists and xenophobes, more or less true fanatics and
enthusiastic desperados ; for some of them there can be no doubt about
their integrity, but the common perception is that it will continue
down that same road that has already led to so many serious conflicts.
After the Greeks and the Armenians, the Jews and the Germans will most
likely be next, and it is very probable that the present government
will, at a given moment, prefer to play va banque and put everything on
the line, rather than understand that wise compliance and a compromise
for practical reasons can be preferable to a policy that almost can
be characterized as national suicide.
With the highest esteem I remain, Mr. Minister, yours faithfully
[Wandel]General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”Comment
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DOCUMENT 4
1916-04-27-DK-001
The minister in Constantinople (Carl Ellis Wandel) to the foreign
minister (Erik Scavenius)
Source : Danish National Archives, Foreign Office, Group Cases
1909-1945. Dept. 139, Gr. N, No. 1, "Armenia"
No. LXXXXVIII [98]
Constantinople, April 27, 1916.
Confidential.
Mr. Foreign Minister,
The Papal minister [Angelo Marie Dolci] yesterday turned up in the
local Spanish legation [in Constantinople] accompanied by a German
Catholic priest who had arrived here from the Turkish Vilayet of Angora
in Asia Minor, where he has witnessed the treatment that has befallen
the local Armenian Catholic congregation, and which he introduced to
the [Spanish] minister, whom they asked to intervene and protest to
the Porte in the name of Catholic Spain.
The reason for their turning to the Spanish legation, they said, was
because the German and Austrian embassies had such a relationship
with the Turkish government that they, in order not to [offend]
it, had to show so much consideration that they really could not
energetically plead the cause of the Armenians.
When one bears in mind that the two embassies mentioned represent
24 and 34 million Catholics respectively, and that the leader of the
Catholic Centrum of the German Reichstag [Matthias Erzberger] in these
very days is here in Constantinople on an official visit as a guest
of the Turkish government, and that the local German ambassador,
Count Metternich, himself is a Catholic, one can conclude by this
request how careful the German diplomacy in Turkey is now acting,
and the extent to which it weighs Germany`s political considerations
over all other considerations.
Even though, as it appears from my report No. CXIII [113] of September
4 last year, 13 of the 16 Catholic congregations that existed among
the Armenians in Turkey outside of Constantinople have disappeared
completely, without anyone having knowledge of what has happened to
all of the clergy, the Catholic Centrum of the German Reichstag does
not seem to dare to attempt any forceful intervention on behalf of
its unfortunate, persecuted co-religionists.
While describing the state of things, I shall not refrain from adding
that it is very possible that even a vigorous German diplomatic
intervention on behalf of the Armenians would not move the Turkish
government to refrain from its project, because the great effort that
the local American embassy, which does not have to show the same
kind of consideration as the German and Austrian embassy, has done
to save the Armenians, has, the American Charge d`Affaires [Phillips]
tells me, been fruitless, and this has in all probability, after what
I only later have learned, also been one of the contributing factors
to the departure of the American ambassador [Henry Morgenthau].
With the highest esteem I remain, Mr. Minister, yours faithfully
[Wandel]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DOCUMENT 5
1916-03-14-DK-001
The minister in Constantinople (Carl Ellis Wandel) to the foreign
minister (Erik Scavenius)
Source : Danish National Archives, Foreign Office, Group Cases
1909-1945. Dept. 139, Gr. N, No. 1, "Armenia"
1 enclosure.
No. LVIII [58]
Constantinople, March 14, 1916.
Mr Foreign Minister,
In continuation of my report No. LIV [54] dated the 10th of this
month concerning the persecutions of the Armenians, I have the honor
to report that the latest pieces of information received here state
that the general removal of the Armenian population, which has already
taken place in all the other Vilayets of Asia Minor except for the
Vilayet Aidin (Smyrna), has now also begun in the Vilayet of Castamuni,
in which the Armenians hitherto have not been disturbed.
The governor of the Vilayet of Castamuni, who has not used the
authority given to him to have the Armenian population removed,
has been dismissed, and in his place the governor up till now of the
Vilayet of Angora, who has been more zealous, has been appointed.
I use the opportunity to send an enclosed official announcement from
today concerning the execution of 4 Armenians, who were hanged in
Stambul yesterday morning.
With the highest esteem I remain, Mr. Minister, yours faithfully
[Wandel]
Enclosure : "Lloyd Ottoman", March 14, 1916 :
Pendaisons
Du commandement de la place :
Par decision de la cour martiale sont condamnes a la peine capitale
: Les nommes Horen veledi Hatchadour Beremian, forgeron habitant
la quartier Kouyoumdji a Adapazar, Kirkor veledi Ohannès, Kabian,
locataire de l`hôtel Ararat et du casino habitant dans le quartier
Abdal de la meme ville, le bijoutier Karabet veledi Ohannès Patokian,
du village Bagdjedjik (Ismidt), convaincus d`avoir fait partie du
comite revolutionnaire armenien et d`avoir neglige de remettre,
durant le delai prescrit, aux autorites les bombes cachees dans leur
maison ; ainsi que le converti Mehmed Chakir bin Minas alias Abdullah,
de Brousse coinvancu d`avoir complote contre le gouvernement ottoman
et d`avoir fait l`espionnage contre le gouvernement pou le compte du
gouvernement Anglais et le nomme Adem effendi de Monastir, agent de
police, convaincu d`avoir assassine par premeditation Ali Riza bey,
merkez m'mour du poste Tcinili a Scutari.
Cette decision de la court martiale ayant ete sanctionnee par irade
imperial, l`execution a eu lieu hier matin. Les quatre premiers
condamnes ont ete pendus sur la place de Bayazid et l`agent de police
Adem effendi pres du debarcadère de Scutari.
# # #
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Translations of reports from the archives of the Danish foreign
ministry documenting the Armenian genocide were by Matthias Bjørnlund.
Copyright Matthias Bjørnlund and Wolfgang Gust,
website : www.armenocide.de http://www.armenocide.de/
email : [email protected].General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”Comment
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Danish and Norwegian Missionaries
I may have posted this before but it is worth a second look. Picture #32 is particularly haunting for me and I cannot explain why.
Below is the English Summary. Every photo has an English caption as well.
Women Missionary Workers
Kvinnelige misjonsarbeidere
Documenting genocide
Women Missionary Workers (WMW) was established in 1902 after the pattern of Danish and Swedish sister organisations. WMW soon focused on the humanitarian situation for the Armenian people, who for some years had been subject to oppression from Turk authorities. In 1905 the missionary nurse Bodil Biørn (1871-1960) was sent to Armenia. First based in the town of Mezereh (now Elazig) and later in Mush she worked for widows and orphaned children in cooperation with missionaries from the German Hülfsbund. She witnessed the massacres of 1915 in Mush and saw most of the children in her care murdered along with Armenian priests, teachers, and assistants. She barely escaped after 9 days on horseback but stayed on in the region for another 2 years under increasingly difficult working conditions. After a period at home she again went to Armenia and until she retired in 1935 worked for Armenian refugees in Syria and Lebanon.
Bodil Biørn was also an able photographer. Many of her photos are now in the WMF archive, which since the organisation was dissolved in 1982 has been preserved in the National Archives of Norway. In combination with her comments, written in her photo albums or on the back of the prints themselves, these photos bear strong witness of the atrocities that she saw.
During World War 1 reports out of Armenia and Kurdistan to the outside world had to be carefully worded if they were to pass the censorship imposed by the Turk authorities. Extracts of letters from Bodil Biørn were published in the WMF newsletters to their members all over Norway, and they constitute eye-witness reports of what has been regarded as the first genocide of the 20th century. Missionaries from other nations have made similar contributions.
But it is Bodil Biørn’s pictures of the many people that she met – smiling and expectant in times when things looked promising, terrified and despairing in the face of extinction – that leaves us with the stongest impression.General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”Comment
-
Danish and Norwegian Missionaries
I may have posted this before but it is worth a second look. Picture #32 is particularly haunting for me and I cannot explain why.
Below is the English Summary. Every photo has an English caption as well.
Women Missionary Workers
Kvinnelige misjonsarbeidere
Documenting genocide
Women Missionary Workers (WMW) was established in 1902 after the pattern of Danish and Swedish sister organisations. WMW soon focused on the humanitarian situation for the Armenian people, who for some years had been subject to oppression from Turk authorities. In 1905 the missionary nurse Bodil Biørn (1871-1960) was sent to Armenia. First based in the town of Mezereh (now Elazig) and later in Mush she worked for widows and orphaned children in cooperation with missionaries from the German Hülfsbund. She witnessed the massacres of 1915 in Mush and saw most of the children in her care murdered along with Armenian priests, teachers, and assistants. She barely escaped after 9 days on horseback but stayed on in the region for another 2 years under increasingly difficult working conditions. After a period at home she again went to Armenia and until she retired in 1935 worked for Armenian refugees in Syria and Lebanon.
Bodil Biørn was also an able photographer. Many of her photos are now in the WMF archive, which since the organisation was dissolved in 1982 has been preserved in the National Archives of Norway. In combination with her comments, written in her photo albums or on the back of the prints themselves, these photos bear strong witness of the atrocities that she saw.
During World War 1 reports out of Armenia and Kurdistan to the outside world had to be carefully worded if they were to pass the censorship imposed by the Turk authorities. Extracts of letters from Bodil Biørn were published in the WMF newsletters to their members all over Norway, and they constitute eye-witness reports of what has been regarded as the first genocide of the 20th century. Missionaries from other nations have made similar contributions.
But it is Bodil Biørn’s pictures of the many people that she met – smiling and expectant in times when things looked promising, terrified and despairing in the face of extinction – that leaves us with the stongest impression.General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”Comment
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My sincerest thanks for your efforts.Comment
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Bodil Biorn - An Unsung Heroine
[December 10, 2007]
"When we finished shooting the film," said Jussi Flemming Biorn, "The director, who had been an atheist all his life, said, 'I now have no choice but to believe in God.' I thought that it could not have been any other way - throughout the shoot there had been all sorts of lucky 'coincidences', even miracles, as if someone up above truly wanted this movie to be completed. Throughout production, it seemed as if we always ended up in the right place at the right time."
Norwegian Jussi Flemming was in Armenia to select Armenian music for his movie entitled They Call Me Mother, about his grandmother Bodil Biorn.
"There are people," said Jussi, "Who have been real heroes, and whose mission has required more effort and courage than the first people to the North or South Poles. One of them was Bodil Biorn, a person who embodied the ideals with which Norway has moved forward today."
In 1902, a Danish woman, Emsy Collet, founded a union called the Women's Missionary Workers, located in Copenhagen. Within this movement, schools were opened which preached the Bible, funds were raised for charitable purposes and - one of the main objectives of the union - missionaries were sent to Anatolia to work with the Christians there. Of all the organizations operating in that region at the time, this stood out as the smallest and the only one consisting solely of women.
Bodil Biorn was the only Norwegian of the twenty-two women sent to Western Armenia by the organization. She was born in 1871 in the Norwegian city of Kragero, into a family of wealthy ship owners. The building that is currently the Kragero City Hall used to be her family home. Bodil was one of the few girls who went to school at that time. Girls were simply refused an education then, but her paternal uncle was the principal of a school in Oslo and he admitted her there.
In 1909, after Bodil graduated from school, she was sent to Berlin to study music for two years. She was then supposed to marry and start a family, like all girls of her time. But Bodil chose a different destiny. Bodil trained as a gynecological nurse, joined the Women's Missionary Workers, and left for Western Armenia. The living and working conditions there were very different from those in her native city of Kragero. The Christians were living in conditions of constant oppression and persecution. In those days, when women had only just received the right to vote, Bodil opened orphanages, schools and free hospitals in Western Armenia, gathering a staff consisting only of locals, whom she trained. She spoke Armenian, Turkish, Arabic, German and English. Bodil worked in the Near East for more than thirty years.
She was in Western Armenia when the Armenians were massacred. But in 1917, Bodil was forced to flee from Eastern Anatolia to escape the Ottomans. She left for Norway, only to return just a year later to the newly independent Republic of Armenia. Four years later, she was forced to flee once more, this time to escape the Soviet authorities.
Bodil continued her missionary service in Syria. She lived with her son until her death and was especially close to her grandson, Jussi Flemming Biorn.
Bodil Biorn died in 1960, at the age of 90. After her death, Jussi had come up with the idea of both a book and a movie based on his grandmother's life. The significance of Bodil's work also lay in the fact that she had left journals and numerous photographs, which spoke in great detail not only of the massacres and the related tragedies - starving and emaciated orphans - but also of the daily life and culture of the people who lived in those times.
Jussi left his job as an advisor in the energy sector, found a director who agreed to shoot the film and a producer who was willing to cover the costs, and began shooting in 2004.
In the film, currently in post-production, Jussi facilitates a meeting between the past and the present. He is sent along the footsteps of his grandmother to Syria (Aleppo and the desert of Der-Zor), many regions of Turkey and Western Armenia. He tries to find the people who grew up as children in the orphanages established by Bodil, as well as other people she had mentioned in her journals.
The film has a number of aims. When Bodil fled from Western Armenia, she took with her to Norway an Armenian child, whom she said she had adopted in Mush. She only mentioned that the child, whom she had named Fritjoff, had had brothers and sisters, and that his father's name had been Petros Safaryan. Bodil had refused to give other details, and rumors started going around that the child, who had fair skin and blue eyes - resembling Bodil greatly - was in fact her biological son and not adopted. Fritjoff's son Jussi has tried to find his real roots - were they Armenian, or Norwegian?
"The other aim is to focus not only on the tragic events, which is often the case in movies related to the Genocide," said Jussi, "I want to present the many cheerful stories with happy endings that Bodil had written about."
One of those stories was linked to an amazing coincidence which they had witnessed while shooting the movie. Jussi was telling a story from Bodil's journals to the Armenian community in Aleppo. It was about a family who had escaped from the Turks during the massacres by hiding in a well for a few days, without food or water. They had then managed to escape with the help of a Turkish officer and had fled to Syria. The family consisted of four girls, their father and mother, who was pregnant with a fifth child. After he completed the story, one of those present left and came back with someone else, who then told Jussi that that had been the story of his family and that he had been the unborn child at that time.
A memorial stone to Bodil was made in Aleppo. It now stands in her native Kragero, opposite City Hall. "They knew of Bodil's family in City Hall," said Jussi, "But they didn't know that their native city had borne a true heroine. People know very little about Bodil in Norway. She is buried in a very modest grave in Oslo. A year after the installation of the memorial stone, City Hall recognized the Armenian Genocide as a historical fact. This could be the first step for official recognition by Norway."
Another coincidence occurred when the crew were shooting in Gyumri. In 1921, Bodil had set up an orphanage in Gyumri, then Alexandropol, which had then been closed down four years later by the Soviet authorities. Jussi had used the photographs and journal descriptions to determine an approximate location of the orphanage.
"At one point, I just felt that we were very close and I asked the driver to stop the car. We stepped out and saw Ludwig."
Ninety-year old Ludwig knew the story of the orphanage well. He had grown up in an American orphanage and remembered that the children of Bodil's orphanage (around thirty people) had slept two to a bed, but had had no lack of food or clothing.
In Western Armenia, their expensive camera broke down when they were shooting in Van. "We had rented it in Oslo and didn't know what to do. If it had been in Istanbul, it wouldn't have been a problem to find a similar camera. But there was nothing we could do in this distant place."
The Kurd accompanying them came to the rescue. He found a small recording company that worked to provide video coverage of weddings. The company owner had a month ago coincidentally bought the same make of camera that the director had been using. It was very expensive and too complicated to use for weddings, so the man was delighted to rent it out to the foreigners.
"What was funny was that people would ask me in Western Armenia, 'Are you looking for gold?' as they would ask prospectors a hundred years ago. They wanted to become partners in the deal. I used to say, 'Yes, I'm looking for gold, but this is a different kind of gold.'"
They Call Me Mother will be shown as part of the upcoming Golden Apricot film festival. An exhibition of Bodil's photographs will also be organized simultaneously.
Jussi Fleming also presented Bodil Biorn's story in Yerevan, at a conference dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the establishment of Genocide Memorial.
Hasmik Hovhannisyan
Copyright © 2002-2007 Hetq Online. All rights reserved. Design by NetFlute. Developed and supported by Aram BadalyanGeneral Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”Comment
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Interesting.Comment
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