The literature is voluminous on what Armenians call the first genocide of the twentieth century and what most Turks refer to as an instance of intercommunal warfare and a wartime relocation. Yet despite the great outpouring of writing, an acrimonious debate over what actually happened almost one hundred years ago continues unabated. The highly charged historical dispute burdens relations between Turkey and Armenia and increases tensions in a volatile region. It also crops up periodically in other parts of the world, where members of the Armenian diaspora push for recognition of the Armenian genocide by their respective parliaments and the Turkish government threatens retaliation.
Vestnik Kavkaza publishes chapters from the book by Guenter Lewy "The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: a Disputed Genocide," revealing the essence of the issue.
By 1894, tensions between Armenians and Turks in eastern Anatolia had reached a dangerous point. Armenian revolutionaries were active in all of the provinces, while Turkish authorities were displaying increased severity. There were mass arrests and new reports of the use of torture in the prisons. The Kurds felt encouraged in their new role as irregular soldiers of the sultan; former consul Graves called them "licensed oppressors of their Christian neighbors in the Eastern provinces."1 Events in the district of Sassun in the vilayet of Bitlis, mentioned briefly in the previous chapter, set off a round of massacres all over Anatolia that were to echo around the world.
CARNAGE IN THE WAKE OF AN ATTEMPTED REFORM
The report of the Turkish commission of inquiry set up after the bloodshed in the summer of 1894 in the Talori region of the district of Sassun blamed the entire episode on Armenian provocation. Hunchak organizers were said to have incited an uprising on the part of the villagers that required the dispatch of regular troops. Heavy fighting lasted over twenty-three days before the disturbance was put down. Muslim villages were said to have been burned by the Armenian bandits, and their inhabitants slaughtered. No more than 265 Armenians had been killed.2 European consuls, however, denied that there had been an uprising. The villagers had refused to pay double taxation and had taken up arms to defend themselves against attacking Kurds. Turkish troops and Hamidiye regiments had massacred those who had surrendered and many others, including women and children. The total number of Armenian dead was reported to have reached several thousand.3 Missionary accounts speak of women being "outraged to death and describe atrocities such as Armenian villagers being burnt alive in their houses and "children {being} placed in a row, one behind another, and a bullet fired down the line, apparently to see how many could be dispatched with one bullet. Infants and small children were piled one on the other and their heads struck off."4
After considerable delay, in July 1895 the three European delegates ttached to the Turkish commission of inquiry issued their own report, in which they complained about the difficulties put in their way by Ottoman authorities when they had tried to interview Armenian survivors. The delegates conceded that there had been isolated acts of brigandage by an Armenian band and resistance to the troops, but they denied the charge of an open revolt. The three delegates failed to agree on the number of Armenians killed (their views ranged from nine hundred to four thousand), but they were unanimous in reporting widespread massacres. 5 More recently Dadrian has acknowledged that "the Hunchakists... exacerbated the situation by their intervention in the conflict when two of their leaders, through agitation, tried to organize an armed insurrection." But this agitation, by all accounts, had only limited success and certainly does not justify the massacres of villagers that appear to have taken place. 6
The events of Sassun, as one writer puts it, "opened the floodgates to a torrent of Turcophobia in Europe and the United States."7 Just as after the Bulgarian atrocities of 1876, there was an outcry of protest, and the press of Britain and America demanded action. The ambassadors of Britain, France, and Russia now began to pressure the sultan to accept political reforms for the six eastern provinces of Anatolia. According to the plan, there was to be an amnesty for Armenian political prisoners, one-third of all administrators were to be Armenians, the gendarmerie was to be mixed, and the Kurdish Hamidiye regiments were to operate only in conjunction with regular army units. The appointment of governors was to be subject to confirmation by the European powers, a control commission was to be established, and a high commissioner was to implement the plan. Many of the Armenians as well as Britain had hoped for more far-reaching reforms, but Russia was adamantly opposed to any scheme that might eventually lead to Armenian independence or to the use of military pressure to gain acceptance of the plan.8
Sensing the lack of unanimity on the part of the Europeans, the sultan raised objections to many of the reform provisions. Diplomatic exchanges continued all through the summer of 1895 while tensions between Christians and Muslims increased steadily. The Armenian revolurionanes were reported to threaten an insurrection; Muslim conservatives organized to prevent the implementation of the reforms, which they regarded as another example of European imperialism that would eventually lead to Armenian independence and the destruction of the Ottoman Empire. One group of Muslims in Bitlis, the British consul in Erzurum reported on July TO, had vowed "to shed blood in case the Sultan accepts the scheme of reforms." The Turkish ambassador to Great Britain told the foreign secretary on August n that "knowledge of the encouragement given in England to the Armenians taken in connection with the outrages committed by them, might excite the Mussulman population to acts of retaliation, which would lead to a very serious state of affairs."9
On September 30, 1895, the Hunchaks organized a demonstration in Constantinople that was to support the reform proposals of the European powers. A petition was to be presented to the grand vizier, but many of the approximately four thousand demonstrators were armed with pistols and knives. Several hundred yards from the government offices police and troops blocked the procession, shots were fired, and in the resulting skirmish sixty Armenians and fifteen gendarmes were killed and many more wounded. An outbreak of mob action all over the city ensued, in which Armenians were hunted down and hundreds brutally killed. It is not clear who fired the first shots, but European diplomats believed that the authorities had a hand in the violent repression that followed the demonstration. The German ambassador reported to his government on October 4 that the police had equipped the mob with thick cudgels.10 Some two thousand Armenians took refuge in various churches of the city. When they were eventually allowed to leave, more than ten percent were found to have arms.11
Both sides, it appears, had prepared for a violent collision. A few days later an attempt in Trebizond (today's Trabzon) on the life of Bahri Pasha, a former governor of Van, led to another round of killings. The attackers apparently were members of a revolutionary committee; and the attack, coming in the wake of the events in Constantinople, led to furious retaliation. On October 8 large numbers of rowdies attacked the houses and shops of Armenians; police and soldiers participated in the looting and killing. The work of butchery went on for five hours; estimates of the number of killed in Trebizond and the nearby villages were as high as eleven hundred.12 Turkish officials told the American George Hepworth that "the Armenians had brought the calamity on themselves by their ambition for autonomy"; but while Hepworth acknowledged that that there had been "great provocation" he also noted the "inexpressly cruel" mode of retaliation of the Turks that punished the innocent as well as the guilty. 13
With renewed pressure from the European ambassadors, under whose eyes the killings in Constantinople had taken place, the sultan October 17 finally agreed to issue a decree that embodied most of the reform proposals.14 He refused to release the actual text, however, arguing that publication would inflame his Muslim subjects. The effect was an explosion of violence all across Anatolia. Rumors had it that the sultan had agreed to Armenian autonomy, and Muslim conservative elements retaliated by organizing widespread massacres. "The provocations of the revolutionaries (real or imagined), paled beside the reprisals of Turks and Kurds," writes one student of the subject.15
One of the first of many such outbursts of large-scale killings took place in Bitlis, a stronghold of Muslim fanaticism. On Friday, October 25, while Muslims were attending services in the mosque, a shot was fired. Assuming that it came from an Armenian, Muslims, many of them armed, poured out of the mosque and attacked every Armenian in sight. According to information obtained by the British vice-consul in Mush, between five hundred and eight hundred Armenians were killed that day and their shops pillaged. "The Kurds," he reported on October 29, "are profiting by the situation and commit outrages in every direction."16 Armenian villages were being attacked and their men murdered. The authorities were unable or unwilling to control the mobs. A similar report was received from Van, where the Kurds had pillaged villages and killed the men.17
Erzurum exploded on October 30. Tension had been building up steadily during the month of September, with Armenian revolutionaries becoming more active and Muslims accusing the Armenians of wanting to create an independent state. Marauding bands of Kurds and Lax were attacking Armenian villages. "The feeling of enmity between the Turk and the Armenian had been fermenting for a long while," wrote Hepworth, "and it only needed a proper occasion to give itself vent. "18 That occasion was the news that the sultan had agreed to farreaching reforms. According to Consul Graves, the massacre apparently 3 been carefully planned, "for before it began hundreds of Turkish women flocked into town carrying sacks in which to remove the loot the Armenian quarter. The killing of Armenian men in the streets j started by a bugle-call and ended four or five hours later with another, the plundering of Armenian shops and houses was carried out systematically, the lives of women and children being spared."19 Foreign observers noted that soldiers had actively participated in the looting and killing. The number of Armenians killed was said to have been several hundred, all of them men.20 Similar massacres took place in other Anatolian towns and villages. In each of these incidents, notes a balanced scholar, "the local government stepped aside and let them run their course until they could safely step back in and restrain the Muslims. No attempts were made to introduce troops into the area, which could have garrisoned the cities and suppressed the Kurds, until the winter, when most of the activity had subsided anyway."21
In two instances Armenian revolutionaries decided to strike first. In the mountain town of Zeitun, located about 170 miles north of Aleppo and inhabited by strong-willed Armenians with a long history of militancy, Hunchak organizers had passed the word that the British and French fleets would come to the aid of an uprising. In late October the Zeitunis overwhelmed the local garrison and for several weeks successfully defended their stronghold against a large Turkish force that soon arrived on the scene and laid siege to the town. The rebellion finally ended with an amnesty, arranged with the help of European consuls.22 In Van, a center of Armenian nationalist feeling, revolutionaries barricaded themselves in the Armenian quarter. Here, too, a siege-was resolved through the mediation of foreign consuls.23
During the winter of 1895-96 Armenian widows and orphans who had survived the wave of killing suffered from want of food and shelter, and large numbers died of cold, hunger, and exposure. Meanwhile, the British ambassador reported on December 19, " accounts from the Asiatic provinces show that rhe ravages of the Kurds remain unchecked. The perpetrators of the massacres remain unpunished, while innocent Armenians are committed to prison on frivolous charges."24
With the reform proposals effectively stalled, the leadership of the Dashnaks decided upon a dramatic act that would bring the Armenian problem back on the European agenda. In the early afternoon of August 26, 1896, a group of revolutionaries, armed with firearms and dynamite, seized the Imperial Ottoman Bank in Constantinople and threatened to blow up the bank if their demands for the introduction of reforms in Armenia were not granted. The demands included the appointment of a European high commissioner for the Armenian provinces and a general amnesty for Armenians convicted on political charges. Bombs were also thrown in several other parts of the city.25
It appears that both the Turkish police and the Armenian comity knew of the audacious plan before it took place. Many well-to-,UArmenian families had left the city on the morning of the attack.
The authorities may have thought that the seizure of the bank would discredit the bomb-throwers in the eyes of Europe and that they could Ich the Armenians a lesson by organizing a brutal retaliation. At x o'clock the same evening, bands of Muslims, chiefly lower-class Kurds and Laz armed with iron bars and wooden clubs, appeared in the streets and began to kill all the Armenians they could find. It was clear to observers on the scene that this was not a spontaneous reaction on the part of the Turkish population but a carefully prepared mob. "It is fairly certain," concludes Langer, "that the government had learned of the revolutionaries' plans some days before they were put into execution, and that these Turkish bands had been organized and armed. The clubs were mostly of one design and the men who wielded them were rarely residents of the neighborhood in which they operated."26 Few soldiers participated in the orgy of killing, but neither did they try to stop it. The mob was in control of the city until the evening of the next day. It is estimated that five thousand to six thousand Armenians lost their lives, most of them poor porters. Again, as in the earlier massacres in Anatolia, very few women or children were killed—another indication that this was not a blind outburst of popular fury but a planned massacre with carefully chosen victims.27
If the revolutionaries had hoped finally to bring about a decisive intervention of the European powers, they were again disappointed. Through the mediation of the first dragoman (interpreter) of the Russian embassy the survivors of the attack on the Ottoman Bank were able to obtain nothing more than a promise of safe passage to France, and by midnight of August 26 they had quietly left the bank. The European diplomats submitted notes of protest; the European press published lurid accounts of the killings, illustrated with gruesome pictures; and in the capitals of the continent there were numerous meetings demanding help for the persecuted Christians-but that was all. Once again the Armenian revolutionaries had brought about nothing tit more suffering for their unfortunate and innocent compatriots.
On October 1 the sultan appointed a commission of inquiry into the disturbances in Constantinople, which included three European officers. The Prussian general Kamphovener Pasha resigned ten days later because he was unwilling to participate in an inquiry, which, he believed, was designed to whitewash the police.28 Meanwhile the news from Constantinople sent new tremors through the provinces. Consul Graves in Erzurum described the atmosphere of panic that ensued:
“At Erzerum the events of Constantinople had a disastrous effect, the surviving Armenians being more terrified than ever, while Moslem fanaticism was stirred to its depths by exaggerated accounts of Armenian seditious activity, to which colour was given by the foolish and criminal attempt on the Ottoman Bank. Incendiary placards appeared on the walls, calling for vengeance on the enemies of the religion and the state, and a further migration of Armenians from the frontier districts into Russian territory took place, while the work of our relief agents became more and more difficult and dangerous.”29
The events of 1895—96 took a heavy toll in human lives. Estimates of Armenian deaths range between twenty thousand (a figure given by a Turkish diplomat and historian in 1985) and three hundred thousand (the number of victims claimed by two members of the Armenian Academy of Sciences in Erevan in 1965). 30 Figures produced closer to the time of the events in question reveal a somewhat smaller disparity. The Ottomans gave the figure of 13,432.31 Hepworth speaks of fifty thousand dead. 32 On December 11, 1895, the German ambassador reported an estimate of sixty thousand to eighty thousand killed. 33 In the absence of reliable inquiries there is of course no possibility of reconciling these conflicting figures; as Jeremy Salt puts it, "the sensible reader may well arrive at the conclusion that more Armenians died than the Ottomans were prepared to admit but fewer than Armenian propagandists would like the world to believe."34
Whatever figure is accepted, there can be little doubt that the events of 1895—96 created misery on a vast scale. Thousands of houses and shops were plundered and destroyed, many Armenians were forced to convert or made to flee for their life, and in the aftermath of the massacres hunger and disease added to the human toll. The loss of life, one should add, would have been even higher if (as several sources indicate) many Armenians had not been protected by their Muslim neighbors. 35
WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MASSACRES?
Given the similarity with which the disturbances played themselves out in the various locations it is tempting to consider the killings the result of a centrally planned plot, the personal responsibility of the sultan. The massacres, noted Eliot, "were executed with military precion. Each lasted only a short time, generally twenty-four or fortyeight hours and often began and ended with the sound of the trumpet. The authorities did not interfere, and in some cases encouraged the mob The victims were only Gregorian Armenians; other Christians, and even Catholic Armenians, remaining as a rule untouched."36 The American missionary Bliss reported that special care was taken everywhere to avoid injury to the subjects of foreign nations and to kill men only.37 Small wonder, therefore, that the European press everywhere placed the blame for the massacres on Abdul Hamid, an autocratic ruler known for giving minute attention to the internal affairs of his empire. Prime Minister Gladstone called him the "Grand Assassin" and "the unspeakable Turk."38 The "Red Sultan," wrote ambassador Henry Morgenthau in 1918, had wanted to get rid of the Armenians and had to desist from complete annihilation only because of the protests of England, France, and Russia. 39 A more recent author speaks of "a conscious plot to wipe out a race of people... and that is what leads us to label it as genocide."40 Dadrian refers to a "continuum of a genocidal policy" that links the actions of Abdul Hamid and those of the Young Turks in 1915.41 Still another writer calls the massacres "a dress rehearsal for the 'final solution' of 1915."42
And yet the evidence for the personal responsibility of Abdul Hamid is weak, and the accounts of observers on the scene make other explanations more plausible. Eliot did not think that "orders were issued for a deliberate and organized slaughter of Armenians."
He believed that the sultan, misled by local officials, genuinely feared an uprising by the Armenian revolutionaries and therefore commanded severe measures. "Probably the orders issued to the local Ottoman authorities warned them to be on guard against any revolutionary movement of the Armenians, and, should there be any reason to apprehend one, to take the offensive without delay."43
The Turks, according to Hepworth, really feared an insurrection. Unreasonable as this fear may have been, they "really thought that the whole country was infested with rebels, that unless the most heroic measures were taken, the government "would be overthrown."
In many cases, Hepworth relates, local officials invented revolutionary plots. Told by the sultan to put these down with verity, they organized massacres, reported these as the successful oppression of a rebellion, and collected their medals.44
The German ambassador reported to Berlin on October 26, 1895, that he not think that the central government had ordered the recent outrages. It was more likely, he believed, that provincial authorities were responsible for the killings. The sultan, he added on November 13, had given orders to crush the Armenian rebels, and that had unleashed the bloody revenge against the hated Armenians.45
The crucial role played by local officials is demonstrated by the instances where no massacres took place due to the intervention of such officials.
The acting British consul in Angora noted on October 26, 1895: "The Vali [governor] has made strenuous and hitherto successful efforts to prevent disturbances of any kind."
On November 24, 1895, British consul Henry D. Barnham in Aleppo praised Lt. Gen. Edhem Pasha, the local commander, who, despite high tension and small incidents, had been able to prevent a riot.46 Similar interventions occurred in other places.
Many contemporaries who witnessed the massacres also stressed the responsibility of the Armenian revolutionaries, whose inflammatory propaganda had created an atmosphere of fear, and the empty promises of support by the European powers that had helped bring about the violent reaction of the Turks. The pamphlets of the revolutionaries, noted the American journalist Sidney Whitman, had called for an uprising to throw off the Turkish yoke. The Turks had taken these threats seriously, and this had led to the horrors and "the suffering of the innocent for the guilty."47
The revolutionaries, led by men safely ensconced in the capitals of Europe, had issued irresponsible threats of violence, wrote the British official Ardern Hulme-Beaman. They had pursued "their infamous and futile programme of attempting to force the hand of Europe by outrages on innocent people, Christians like themselves." The responsibility for the ruthless massacres therefore "rests divided between the cowardly Committees abroad and the braggart and ineffectual intervention of Europe."48
England, in particular, argued Hepworth, had promised protection for the persecuted Christians, "but her protection is a sham and a shame. She can talk eloquently about oppression, and she can play the simple and easy game of bluff; but when deeds are to be done she retires from the field."49 European intervention was constant enough to produce fury among the Turks but was never forceful and effective enough to provide meaningful protection for the Armenians who relied upon the promises of assistance.
Whoever the instigators of the massacres were, where did they find the hatchet men to do the actual killing? At a time when the Ottoman Empire was losing choice provinces in Europe, Asia, and Africa, the idea of granting the Armenians equal political rights drew widespread opposition. Muslims felt that their supremacy was at stake and that the Armenians, aided by the Europeans, would gain the upper hand unless forcefully suppressed and taught a lesson. Muslim refugees from the Balkans spread horror stories of how their homes and properties had been taken from them by the Christians and how Muslims had been butchered. After the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78 more than a half million Bulgarian Muslims alone had become permanent refugees in Anatolia and were known for their strong anti-Christian hatred. Some f these refugees are known to have been heavily implicated in the massacre of their neighbors. "The great mass had joined heart and soul in murder, pillage and outrage," wrote Bliss. "This motive has undoubtedly been mixed. Political fear, religious fanaticism, lust for booty, have all entered in varying proportions in different places."50
There was also much envy of the relative prosperity of the hardworking Armenians. A large part of the general dislike of the Armenians, noted Hepworth, probably originated "in their remarkable aptitude and their exceptional talent." Even though a large majority of the Armenian population eked out a difficult living as downtrodden peasants in the countryside, many Armenians in the towns were doctors, pharmacists, or successful traders. "The Turk had not the ability to compete with him, and was a constant loser, much to his disappointment and indignation." The feeling of enmity had been growing steadily and only needed a proper occasion to explode in violence.51 The result was an orgy of violence that shocked the civilized world.
1. Graves, Storm Centres of the Near East, p. 142. 2. Ertugrul Zekai Okte, ed., Ottoman Archives, Yildiz Collection: The Armenian Question, Talori Incidents, p. 357. Sec also Jeremy Salt, "Britain, the Armenian Question and the Cause of Ottoman Reform: 1894—96," Middle Eastern Studies 26 (1990): 313, who largely accepts the Turkish account. 3. Memo of Ambassador Currie, November 1, 1894, in Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 3, p. 395. 4. Bliss, Turkish Cruelties upon the Armenian Christians, p. 372. 5. The text of the report can be found in Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 3, pp. 93—TT2. See also Ternon, The Armenians, p. 77. 6. Vahakn N. Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus, pp. 114—15. 7. Salt, Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians, 1878—1.896, p. 75. 8. Langer, Diplomacy of Imperialism, vol. 1, pp. 162—63; Hovannisian, Armenia on the Road to Independence, p. 27. 9. Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 4, p. 24, vol. 3, p. 261. 10. Ambassador to Berlin, October 4, 1895, in Lepsius et al., Die grosse Politik der Europdischen Kabinette 1871-1914, vol. 9, p. 68.11. Ambassador Currie report to London, October n, 1895, in Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 4, p. 298. 12. Bliss, Turkish Cruelties upon the Armenian Christians, pp. 408—9, 553. 13. Hepworth, Through Armenia on Horseback, pp. 56, 60, 63. 14. For the text see Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 4, pp. 322-37. 15. Salt, Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians, p. 101.16. Vice-Consul llampson to Consul Cumberbatch (Erzurum), October 29, 1895, in Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 4, p. 533. 17. Embassy Constantinople to London, November 2, 1895, in ibid., vol. 4, p. 426.18. Hepworth, Through Armenia on Horseback, p. 146. 19. Graves, Storm Centres of the Near East, p. 157. 20. Embassy Constantinople to London, November 2, 1895, in Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 4, p. 427; Bliss, Turkish Cruelties upon the Armenian Christians, p. 423. 21. Duguid, "The Politics of Unity," p. 151. 22. The Turkish perspective on the uprising is given by Esat Uras, The Armenians in History and the Armenian Question, trans. Siihcyla Artemel, pp. 746-47. A view tilted to the Armenian side can be found in Ternon, The Armenians, pp. 96—97. Eor a fairly balanced account by a contemporary observer, sec the report of British consul Barnham in Aleppo, November 24, in Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 4, pp. 634—35. 23. Salt, Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians, pp. 106-7; and Dadrian, History of the Armenian Genocide, pp. 131—38. 24. Eliot, Turkey in Europe, p. 409; Sir P. Currie to the Eoreign Office, December T9, 1895, in Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 4, p. 660. 25. A detailed description of the plot is given by one of the leaders, then known as Armen Garo, in Garegin Pasdermadjian, Bank Ottoman: Memoirs of Armen Garo, trans. Haig T. Partizian, pp. 96-139. 26. Langer, Diplomacy of Imperialism, vol. 1, p. 325. 27. This is also the view of Eliot, Turkey in Europe, p. 412; and of George Washburn, the president of Robert College in Constantinople, in his memoir Fifty Years in Constantinople and Recollections of Robert College, pp.246-47. 28. See his note of resignation in Lepsius et al., Die Grosse Politik der Europdischen Kabinette. vol. 12, part 1, pp. 30-37. 29. Graves, Storm Centres of the Near East, p. 161. 30. Kamuran Gtirun, The Armenian File: The Myth of Innocence Exposed, p. 161; E. K. Sarkisian and R. G. Sahakian, Vital Issues in Modern Armenian History: A 30 Documented Expose of Misrepresentation in Turkish Historiography, trans. Elisha B. Chrakian, p. 18. 31. Gtirun, The Armenian File, p. 161.32. Hepworth, Through Armenia on Horseback, p. 344. 33. Lepsius et al., Die Grosse Politik der Europdischen Kabinette, vol. 10, p. 120. 34. Salt, Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians, p. 105.35. Hepworth, Through Armenia on Horseback, p. 324; Vice-Consul Hampson in Mush to Consul Cumberbatch in Erzurum, November 16, 1895, in Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 4, p. 632. 36. Eliot, Turkey in Europe, p. 408. 37. Bliss, Turkish Cruelties upon the Armenian Christians, p. 477. 38. Ernest Jackh, The Rising Crescent: Turkey Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, p. 44- 39. Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, pp. 289—90. 40. Ternon, The Armenians, p. 92.41. Vahakn N. Dadrian, "The Armenian Genocide and the Pitfalls of a 'Balanced' Analysis: A Response to Ronald Grigor Suny," Armenian Forum 1, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 75. 42. David Marshall Lang, The Armenians: A People in Exile, p. 1. 43. Eliot, Turkey in Europe, p. 407. 44. Hepworth, Through Armenia on Horseback, pp. 162, 173. 45. Lepsius et al., Die grosse Politik der Europdischen Kabinette, vol. 12, part 1, pp. 84-85, 103. 46. Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 4, pp. 409, 639-40.47. Sidney Whitman, Turkish Memories, p. 127. 48. Ardern Hulme-Beaman, Twenty Years in the Near East, pp. 304-5. 49. Hepworth, Through Armenia on Horseback, p. 157. 50. Bliss, Turkish Cruelties upon the Armenian Christians, p. 557. 51. Hepworth, Through Armenia on Horseback, pp. 295, 145-46
1. Graves, Storm Centres of the Near East, p. 142.
2. Ertugrul Zekai Okte, ed., Ottoman Archives, Yildiz Collection: The Armenian Question, Talori Incidents, p. 357. Sec also Jeremy Salt, "Britain, the Armenian Question and the Cause of Ottoman Reform: 1894—96," Middle Eastern Studies 26 (1990): 313, who largely accepts the Turkish account.
3. Memo of Ambassador Currie, November 1, 1894, in Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 3, p. 395.
4. Bliss, Turkish Cruelties upon the Armenian Christians, p. 372.
5. The text of the report can be found in Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 3, pp. 93—TT2. See also Ternon, The Armenians, p. 77.
6. Vahakn N. Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus, pp. 114—15.
7. Salt, Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians, 1878—1.896, p. 75.
8. Langer, Diplomacy of Imperialism, vol. 1, pp. 162—63; Hovannisian, Armenia on the Road to Independence, p. 27.
9. Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 4, p. 24, vol. 3, p. 261.
10. Ambassador to Berlin, October 4, 1895, in Lepsius et al., Die grosse Politik der Europdischen Kabinette 1871-1914, vol. 9, p. 68.
11. Ambassador Currie report to London, October n, 1895, in Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 4, p. 298.
12. Bliss, Turkish Cruelties upon the Armenian Christians, pp. 408—9, 553.
13. Hepworth, Through Armenia on Horseback, pp. 56, 60, 63.
14. For the text see Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 4, pp. 322-37.
15. Salt, Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians, p. 101.
16. Vice-Consul llampson to Consul Cumberbatch (Erzurum), October 29, 1895, in Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 4, p. 533.
17. Embassy Constantinople to London, November 2, 1895, in ibid., vol. 4, p. 426.
18. Hepworth, Through Armenia on Horseback, p. 146.
19. Graves, Storm Centres of the Near East, p. 157.
20. Embassy Constantinople to London, November 2, 1895, in Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 4, p. 427; Bliss, Turkish Cruelties upon the Armenian Christians, p. 423.
21. Duguid, "The Politics of Unity," p. 151.
22. The Turkish perspective on the uprising is given by Esat Uras, The Armenians in History and the Armenian Question, trans. Siihcyla Artemel, pp. 746-47. A view tilted to the Armenian side can be found in Ternon, The Armenians, pp. 96—97. Eor a fairly balanced account by a contemporary observer, sec the report of British consul Barnham in Aleppo, November 24, in Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 4, pp. 634—35.
23. Salt, Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians, pp. 106-7; and Dadrian, History of the Armenian Genocide, pp. 131—38.
24. Eliot, Turkey in Europe, p. 409; Sir P. Currie to the Eoreign Office, December T9, 1895, in Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 4, p. 660.
25. A detailed description of the plot is given by one of the leaders, then known as Armen Garo, in Garegin Pasdermadjian, Bank Ottoman: Memoirs of Armen Garo, trans. Haig T. Partizian, pp. 96-139.
26. Langer, Diplomacy of Imperialism, vol. 1, p. 325.
27. This is also the view of Eliot, Turkey in Europe, p. 412; and of George Washburn, the president of Robert College in Constantinople, in his memoir Fifty Years in Constantinople and Recollections of Robert College, pp.246-47.
28. See his note of resignation in Lepsius et al., Die Grosse Politik der Europdischen Kabinette. vol. 12, part 1, pp. 30-37.
29. Graves, Storm Centres of the Near East, p. 161. 30. Kamuran Gtirun, The Armenian File: The Myth of Innocence Exposed, p. 161; E. K. Sarkisian and R. G. Sahakian, Vital Issues in Modern Armenian History: A
30 Documented Expose of Misrepresentation in Turkish Historiography, trans. Elisha B. Chrakian, p. 18.
31. Gtirun, The Armenian File, p. 161.
32. Hepworth, Through Armenia on Horseback, p. 344.
33. Lepsius et al., Die Grosse Politik der Europdischen Kabinette, vol. 10, p. 120.
34. Salt, Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians, p. 105.
35. Hepworth, Through Armenia on Horseback, p. 324; Vice-Consul Hampson in Mush to Consul Cumberbatch in Erzurum, November 16, 1895, in Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 4, p. 632.
36. Eliot, Turkey in Europe, p. 408.
37. Bliss, Turkish Cruelties upon the Armenian Christians, p. 477.
38. Ernest Jackh, The Rising Crescent: Turkey Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, p. 44-
39. Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, pp. 289—90.
40. Ternon, The Armenians, p. 92.
41. Vahakn N. Dadrian, "The Armenian Genocide and the Pitfalls of a 'Balanced' Analysis: A Response to Ronald Grigor Suny," Armenian Forum 1, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 75.
42. David Marshall Lang, The Armenians: A People in Exile, p. 1.
43. Eliot, Turkey in Europe, p. 407.
44. Hepworth, Through Armenia on Horseback, pp. 162, 173.
45. Lepsius et al., Die grosse Politik der Europdischen Kabinette, vol. 12, part 1, pp. 84-85, 103.
46. Simsir, British Documents on Ottoman Armenians, vol. 4, pp. 409, 639-40.
47. Sidney Whitman, Turkish Memories, p. 127. 48. Ardern Hulme-Beaman, Twenty Years in the Near East, pp. 304-5.
49. Hepworth, Through Armenia on Horseback, p. 157.
50. Bliss, Turkish Cruelties upon the Armenian Christians, p. 557.
51. Hepworth, Through Armenia on Horseback, pp. 295, 145-46
