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Memorandum by the Committee of Union and Progress outlining the strategy for implementing the Armenian Genocide, 1914-1915
COPY
MEMORANDUM OF THE "TEN COMMANDMENTS"
OF THE COMMITTEE OF UNION AND PROGRESS.
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Just before Christmas, I was approached confidentially
by someone who stated that there was still in the
Direction of Public Security, Constantinople, an
official who has been in the Minister of the Interior's
Department during the whole of the war, and who had
charge of the archives relating to the secret measures
and orders issued by the Minister of the Interior as a
result of the decisions taken by the Committee of Union
and Progress. He said that just before the Armistice,
officials had been going to the archives department at
night and making a clean sweep of most of the documents,
but that the original draft of the orders relating to
the Armenian massacres had been saved and could probably
be procured by us through him on payment of Ltq. £10,000
paper money. He pledged me to secrecy if I went any
further in the matter.
In the course of the next few weeks, I followed the
matter up. The man who stole or rescued this draft copy
is to-day an official in the Direction of Public
Security. I persuaded him without any great difficulty
that it would be in his own interests to let us have the
documents without payment, and that if in the future he
gets into trouble, we would protect him.
There are four documents in this dossier. The first is
what is called the "Ten Commandments" and is by far the
most interesting. It is unsigned and is the rough draft,
but the handwriting is said to be that of Essad Bey, who
was at the time one of the confidential secretaries
keeping secret archives in the Ministry of the Interior.
The second document which is a decypher of a wire from
Ahmed Djemal Pasha in Syria regarding the Armenian
expulsion is in the actual handwriting of Ahmet Essad
and undoubtedly the handwriting of these two documents
numbers 1 and 2 in the original Turkish are of that of
one and the same man.
There remains therefore only the arrest of this
individual to prove up to the hilt the authenticity of
otherwise of the draft "Ten Commandments" document. It
is extremely important from the point of view of
bringing home their guilt to all those responsible for
the Armenian massacres, who directed rather than
executed them. My informant states that at the meeting
when this draft was drawn up, there were present Talaat
Pasha, Dr. Beheddin, Shakir, Dr. Nazim, Ismail Jambolet
and Colonel Sefi, sub-Director of the Political Section
at the Ministry of War; its date is given as December or
January 1914 or 1915.
My informant declares that messengers were sent to the
different Vali's in the provinces with instructions to
read these orders to them and then return the originals
which were to be destroyed. Analysis of the documents
the "Ten Commandments" numbers 3 and 4 shows that in
order to economize their forces, the Turks distinguished
between places where they could rely on the population
to go ahead with the massacres almost unaided, and other
localities where they felt it required the presence of
the military in case the population did not show
sufficient zeal.
VERBATIM TRANSLATION.
DOCUMENTS RELATING TO COMITÉ UNION AND
PROGRES ORGANIZATION IN THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES.
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1. The 10 commandments of the COMITÉ UNION AND PROGRES.
(1). Profiting by Arts: 3 and 4 of Comité Union and
Progres, close all Armenian Societies, and arrest all
who worked against Government at any time among them and
send them into the provinces such as Bagdad or Mosul,
and wipe them out either on the road or there.
(2). Collect arms.
(3). Excite Moslem opinion by suitable and special
means, in places as Van, Erzeroum, Adana, where as a
point of fact the Armenians have already won the hatred
of the Moslems, provoke organised massacres as the
Russians did at Baku.
(4). Leave all executive to the people in the provinces
such as Erzeroum, Van, Mumuret ul Aziz, and Bitlis, and
use Military disciplinary forces (i.e. Gendarmerie)
ostensibly to stop massacres, while on the contrary in
places as Adana, Sivas, Broussa, Ismidt and Smyrna
actively help the Moslems with military force.
(5). Apply measures to exterminate all males under 50,
priests and teachers, leave girls and children to be
Islamized.
(6). Carry away the families of all who succeed in
escaping and apply measures to cut them off from all
connection with their native place.
(7). On the ground that Armenian officials may be spies,
expel and drive them out absolutely from every
Government department or post.
(8). Kill off in an appropriate manner all Armenians in
the Army - this to be left to the military to do.
(9) All action to begin everywhere simultaneously, and
thus leave no time for preparation of defensive
measures.
(10). Pay attention to the strictly confidential nature
of these instructions, which may not go beyond two or
three persons.
n.b. Above is verbatim translation - date December 1914
or January 1915.