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Despite the loss of its European conquests in the outcome of the Balkan War, the Turkish administration failed to realise that the strength of the empire could only lie in the satisfaction and freedom of its subjects. Obstinately, they pursued the plan of homogenisation of the non-Turkish population, with particular emphasis on the Arab and Armenian communities. An oppressive and aggressive regime, reminiscent of the overthrown command of Sultan Abdul Hamid, came to the fore in Western Armenia . Turkish officials began once again to manipulate nomadic Kurdish tribes to plunder and confiscate the Armenian farmlands, and drive the Armenians away from their homes. 6



The Turkish authorities, fearing the deprivation of the non-Turkish parts of the empire in Asia Minor, in the wake of the loss of Macedonia and western Tracia in 1912, could no longer distinguish between their enemies and those who were loyal to them. Their slogan read: "Compulsory turkification of the Arabs and then the Kurds in Asia, and the eradication of the Armenians and the Greeks at all costs." 7

The Reform Plan of 1913-1914

Caught in the new turn affairs, the Armenians had no alternative but to revert to paragraph 61 in the Berlin Treaty. As mentioned above, paragraph 61 entailed the implementation of reforms in Western Armenia to be undertaken by the Ottoman administration, under the guarantee of the European major powers that was never ratified. As Arnold Toynbee 8points out "the Armenians, among the subjects of the Ottoman Empire, were the only people who assisted the new Turkey, but in response to the treatment that the Armenians later received from the Turks, which became more and more hostile, there was no alternative but to cling to the question regarding the reforms".

The circumstance seemed favourable for the Armenians. Russia was enjoying the most liberal government seen under any tsar. France and England, who had lent support to the new Turkish government in the hope of resurrecting the Ottoman Empire, were becoming disillusioned. To these two nations, it appeared that the Turks were distancing themselves, displaying germanophilic tendencies, and still treating the Armenians in a hostile manner. Only Germany, intent on the expansion of the former Ottoman Empire with the hope of one day gaining Germanic control over the region, was completely opposed to the implementation of reforms in Western Armenia. 9 It became clear subsequently that certain German personalities regarded the former Ottoman Empire as a potential colony and did not wish Armenia to become independent. Others took a neutral position; Dause, for instance, wrote: "One should consider the Armenian Question as the efforts of an oppressed people yearning for independence over several centuries, which it deserves completely, both in regard to its competence and its nature but also in regard to its historical background." 10

The Turkish design to plant the seeds of disagreement and division among the members of the "Triple Alliance" was eventually discovered by the English intelligence service, and culminated in failure in Anatolia.

Eventually, Germany realised the need for reform in the Armenian provinces in order to defend the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. In the face of the strong opposition of the countries in the "Triple Alliance" to the arrival of the military delegation led by General Lihman von Sanders to Constantinople, Turkey was forced to make some concessions in regard to the Armenian Question.