Excerpt from Dr. Hovannisian's Armenia on the Road to Independence 1918

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When reports of massacre reached Henry Morgenthau, the American Ambassador to Constantinople, he tried to mitigate the suffering of the Armenians. Enver and Talaat initially denied the validity of the news, but finally Talaat admitted that action against the Armenians stemmed from a carefully planned policy of Ittihad ve Terakki. He accused the Armenians of enriching themselves at the expense of the Turks, aspiring to establish a separate state, and actively assisting the enemies of the Empire. He concluded :

It is no use for you to argue, we have already disposed of three quarters of the Armenians; there are none at all left in Bitlis, Van, and Erzerum. The hatred between the Turks and the Armenians is now so intense that we have got to finish with them. If we don't they will plan their revenge.⁵⁹

Ottoman officials seemed surprised that Morgenthau, a Jew, should concern himself with the problems of Christians. In response to one of the Ambassador's appeals, Enver answered, ". . . in time of war, we cannot investigate and negotiate. We must act promptly and with determination. He added that the deportations, thoroughly legitimate and justifiable, had been ordered by decision of the entire cabinet.⁶⁰

Within a year, attempts to intercede were of little practical value, for few Armenians remained in their native provinces. Whereas most Armenians of Cilicia and western Anatolia perished along the deportation routes or after reaching the Syrian desert, the majority in the eastern provinces were massacred outright and thus spared the prolonged agony.⁶¹ The only major exception was Van. Among the government's initial measures was the segregation of the Ottoman Armenian soldiers, who were serving on several fronts. Forced to relinquish their weapons, these men were driven into special military labor battalions, assertedly created to facilitate communication and transportation. The disarmed soldiers were then slaughtered.⁶²

If the apologists for Turkish policies have shaped a credible case against the Armenians, the critics have refuted the arguments point for point and have concluded that the deportations and massacres were calculated, irresponsible, and brutal crimes. Utilizing scores of documents and the testimony of many European witnesses, these critics have insisted that the overwhelming majority of the Armenians fulfilled every obligation of Ottoman citizenship during the first months of war. Exhortations of the Patriarch, the revolutionary organizations, and many other societies urging the Turkish Armenians to maintain a correct attitude have been cited. Moreover, the dedication of Armenian soldiers was acknowledged by Enver himself, who, upon returning from the Sarikamish debacle, informed the Patriarch and other high-ranking clergy of the unsurpassed bravery of these troops.⁶³

The gravest Turkish accusation involved Armenian rebellion during time of war; the "Revolt of Van" became the classic charge. The Lepsius-Toynbee school of critics labeled the indictment as fabrication. The city rose in self-defense only after the deportations and massacres had begun in Cilicia and after Jevdet Bey, brother-in-law of Enver and Armenophobe vali "("governor") of Van, had ordered the destruction of Armenian villages in the outlying districts.⁶⁴ If, as Turkish sources claim, the revolt were premeditated, why would Ishkhan, popular leader of the Van Armenians, leave the city at the behest of the vali to restore peace between feuding Moslems and Christians in an isolated upland of the vilayet? Only after the treacherous murder of Ishkhan, the imprisonment of Arshak Vramian, a member of the Ottoman parliament, and the siege of the Armenian quarter by Jevdet's forces did Van rise in self-defense, barricade the streets, and inauguratein the last half of April, 1915, the month long obdurate resistance. This sequence of events was substantiated by testimony of American eyewitnesses.⁶⁵

Turning from the question of Van, the castigators of Turkish policies then negated the other contentions. The hopeless battles in the interior of Turkey at Shabin Karahisar, Urfa, and Cilicia were not indications of an Armenian revolution fermenting throughout the Empire, but simply reflected the resolution of a condemned people to fall fighting rather than be slaughtered. That the Armenians possessed weapons was not astounding; they had carried arms for decades to defend their homes and fields from depredation. Among the photographs published by the Ittihadist government were pictures of bombs and grenades, but these explosives belonged to the era when both Turkish and Armenian opposition groups were struggling against Abdul Hamid II. Since the attempted Hamidian coup of 1909, when Ittihad leaders had requested that these weapons be used against the forces of reaction, they had not been touched by the Armenians.⁶⁶ To the charge that Ottoman subjects, as volunteers in the Russian Army, viciously attacked the Empire, Arnold Toynbee drew an analogy to the Polish units, which, joining the Austro-Hungarian forces, battled against the tsarist armies. If the entire Armenian nation could be condemned for the activities of several hundred or even several thousand men, then should not Russia, on the same basis, annihilate the millions of Poles within its borders?⁶⁷

Analyzing the real motivations for Ittihad measures against the Armenians, Johannes Lepsius first summarized the Ottoman charges:

1. Garegin Pasdermadjian (Armen Garo), member of the Ottoman parliament, had deserted to Russia and joined the volunteers.
2. English and French naval commanders had sent agitators into Cilicia where the population was engaged in sabotage and espionage.
3. Armenians in Zeitun had resisted the commands of the military authorities.
4. Turkish opponents of the Ittihadists had contrived against the government and used as accomplices several members of the Hnchakist party.
5. The Armenians of Van had taken up arms against the government.
6. The combatants of Shabin Karahisar had barricaded themselves in the ancient citadel and fought against Turkish troops⁶⁸

Even if the accusations were true, exclaimed Lepsius, to construe an Armenian revolution from them was fantastic. Not Armenian treachery but the ideology adopted by the Ittihadists was the foundation for the government's action. Nationalism as understood by the "Young Turks" on the eve of the World War necessitated the "Turkification" of all elements of the Empire. As long as there were Armenians, foreign intervention, as experienced during the latest episode of the reform question, would pose a constant threat to the sovereignty of Turkey. Moreover, eradication of the Christian Armenian element from Anatolia and the eastern provinces would remove the major racial barrier between the Turkic peoples of the Ottoman Empire, Transcaucasia, and Transcaspia.⁶⁹ Enver's dream of a Pan-Turanic empire would be a step closer to realization.⁷⁰

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