CHAPTER II
The Armenians, as a Race, have never been, and are not, a Menace to the Security of Turkey. They are Blameless of the Charge of Disloyalty, which has been the Excuse for their Massacre and Deportation.
The Armenians, as a Race, have never been, and are not, a Menace to the Security of Turkey. They are Blameless of the Charge of Disloyalty, which has been the Excuse for their Massacre and Deportation.
The Armenians, as a Race, have never been, and are not, a Menace to the Security of Turkey. They are Blameless of the Charge of Disloyalty, which has been the Excuse for their Massacre and Deportation.
IN commenting upon the report of the American Committee, on Armenian Atrocities, Djelal Munif bey, the Turkish Consul-General in New York, declared: “However much to be deplored may be these harrowing events in the last analysis, we can but say the Armenians have only themselves to blame.”Djelal Munif bey went on to explain that the Armenians had been planning a revolution, and were killed by the Turkish soldiers only after they had been caught “red-handed with arms in their hands, resisting lawful authority.”
This has been the invariable explanation for the massacre of Armenians in Turkey. We heard it in 1895-1896 and in 1909. We have been hearing it again in 1915. But facts to substantiate it have never been given. On the other hand, there exists overwhelming evidence of the most convincing character to show how inadmissible it is as an explanation, how baseless it is as a charge.
I have talked personally with, or have seen letters and reports from, American missionaries and consular officials of all nations, who were witnesses of the massacresof 1895 and 1896. At that time, as a result of unendurable persecution and injustice, certain organizations of young men, of the type the French callexaltés, banded together in secret societies, an imitation of internal organizations in Russia, agitated, within the Ottoman Empire and abroad, for a more favourable treatment of Armenians and other Christians. Some of theseexaltéscertainly advocated, and tried to work for, the independence of Armenia. But the propaganda never gained favour in ecclesiastical circles, nor ground among the great mass of the Armenian population in Turkey. Except in thevilayetof Van, the Armenians no longer formed the majority of the population. They were too scattered throughout the empire to have serious hope of winning independence,such as the Greeks, Bulgarians, Servians, and Rumanians had succeeded in obtaining in the Balkan peninsula.[1]
In the 1909 massacre, I was on the ground at the time, and studied these charges. I demonstrated to my own satisfaction (and to that of a number of newspaper men, including Germans) thetotal lack of foundation of this charge against the Armenians of Cilicia. Not one Armenian out of a hundred had anything to do with the revolutionary societies. The lower classes were too ignorant to be affected by such a propaganda. The Armenian Church denounced the folly of the visionaries. College professors spoke and wrote against it. The wealthy city classes frankly let the agitators know that they were not only passively, but also actively, opposed to the propaganda.
The Turks had nothing whatever to fear from Armenian revolutionaries. They knew this. More than that, they knew just who theexaltéswere. The Turkish Government was well able to assure itself that the propagandists were not to be feared. If they had feared them, they could easily have laid their hands onthem any time they wanted to. In Adana, the arrest of from thirty to forty young men would have gathered into the net all the agitators. Instead of that, six thousand were massacred there, and half the city burned. Then the Armenian revolution was trumped up as an excuse!
The hideous miscarriage of justice of the court martial after the Adana massacre was the beginning of the downfall of the Young Turk régime. It was a demonstration of the mockery of the Young Turk assertion that the Ottoman Empire was to be reconstructed on the principles of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. From that day to this, their every act has given the lie to their profession. I sayhideousmiscarriage of justice, because no element in the empire had welcomedmore heartily the advent of the constitutional régime, no element had supported the Young Turks more loyally than the Armenians. If they erred at all during those first nine months of the constitutional era, it was in showing so openly—and so joyously—their touching faith in the men of Salonika. They accepted the revolution as sincere. Their support of the new régime was spontaneous and enthusiastic. They believed in the Young Turks—until they were undeceived by the Young Turks themselves.
After the massacre had stopped,on word from Constantinople, I heard a Young Turk officer address the survivors in the courtyard of the American Mission at Tarsus. He assured them that the danger was over, that it had been due to thecounter-revolution of Abdul Hamid, and that now they might feel assured that Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity were really theirs. He told the Armenians that the Young Turks had suffered equally with them, and that they had been companions in misfortune. With sublime faith, sublime even though stupid, the bulk of the Armenians believed once more. They accepted the explanation of the massacre, and continued to support the Ottoman Government.
During the four years after Adana, I spent most of my time in Constantinople, and I was constantly with the leaders of the Armenian race. Never once did I hear an Armenian ecclesiastic or other Armenian of weight and reputation speak against the Ottoman Government. I know positively that they were notworking against the Ottoman Government. On the other hand, I am sure that the Turks knew they could count on the loyal support and co-operation of the Armenians. The Turks had proof of Armenian loyalty during the Italian war and the two Balkan wars. Armenians, enrolled in the Turkish army, fought bravely for the common fatherland beside their Moslem brethren. In the hour of danger and humiliation, the Armenians of Turkey stood by their fellow Ottoman subjects. They gave their blood for Turkey. Unlike the Ottoman Greeks, they could be suspected of no secret wishes for the success of the enemy.
It is unfair for the Ottoman Government to cite, as basis for its charges against its Armenian subjects, the fact that Armenians in large numbers are fightingin the Russian army. As a result of the war of 1877, Turkey was compelled to cede a portion of Armenia to Russia. The Armenians of these territories and of the Caucasus have been for nearly forty years under Russian rule, and are naturally, as Russian subjects, fighting against Turkey. In giving the fact that there are Armenians in the Russian armies as a reason for doubting the loyalty of the Armenians in Turkey, the Turks and their German apologists have traded upon European and American imperfect knowledge of the history and geography of the regions beyond Van. The formation of corps of Armenian volunteers in the Allied armies, and the open support of the cause of the Allies on the part of Armenian communities in France and Great Britain havebeen unfortunate. As individuals who have left Turkey, these exiled Armenians have a right to do as they choose, as communities, it would have been—it is now—better for them to keep quiet. Although they have no justification for doing so, the Turks and Germans have been using the manifestations made by these small communities outside of Turkey as reflecting the spirit and intentions of the Armenians in Turkey, and have succeeded in confusing many neutrals about the real facts of the Armenian situation.
If the Armenians, during the present massacres and forcible deportations, have in some places, as they did in Adana in 1909, defended, arms in hand, their homes and their loved ones, it has been only when the Ottoman Government failedthem, and when they were convinced that their extermination had been decided upon. Even in these cases, as at Adana, when they received assurances of protection against local Moslem fanaticism from the Government at Constantinople, they trusted once more. In every instance of this kind—again let me remind my readers that I have authentic eye-witness testimony—their faith was betrayed. The Ottoman Government officials broke their word, and butchered the Armenians after they had laid down their arms.
With the possible exception of Van, there was no place where the Turks had the slightest ground for suspicion that the local attempt of the Armenians to defend their wives and children was in connivance with the enemy.And Vanis only one of thirty centres of massacre and deportation in Asia Minor!
If the Ottoman Government has facts to establish its contention that the Armenians of Turkey were plotting against the security of the empire, let it lay these facts before the world.