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Index

Armenia

The Urartu Civilisation

Victory for Independence

Artashisian Dynasty on the Armenian Throne

Armenia caught between Rome and the Arsacids

The Acceptance of Christianity

Defending Christianity

Armenia Under the Bagratouni Dynasty

Cilicia - the New Armenia

Armenia Under Turanian Rule

The Renaissance or the Resurrection of Armenia

The Eastern Question

Russia in the Caucasus

The Armenian Question

Battle on Two Fronts

Tsarist Russia Against the Armenians

The Revolution of the Young Turks and the Armenian People on the Eve of World War I

The First World War

The Resurrection of Armenia

Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918

- Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918

Eastern Armenia

Western Armenia

"The Fateful Years" (1914-1917)

"Hopes and Emotions" (March-October, 1917)

The Bolshevik Revolution and Armenia

Transcaucasia Adrift (November, 1917

Dilemmas (March-April, 1918)

War and Independence (April-May, 1918)

The Republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia

The Suppliants (June-October, 1918)

In conclusion

Soviet Armenia

The Second Independent Republic of Armenia

Epilogue

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These figures, which had been put together and revised by the Ottoman government itself, were used as a basis for its propaganda.

All the protests which the Turks and their defenders 114 have presented against the Armenian demands are based on these works, written by a foreigner paid by the Ottoman government, at a time when the Armenian Question was a scarecrow for the leaders in Constantinople.

Statistical surveys compiled by westerners, who were familiar with the situation of Turkey, present an entirely different set of figures than that presented by the Turks. 115

The Situation in Western Armenia

The political line which the Ottoman elite pursued worsened the unbearable situation in which the Armenians were living. 116

Illegal taxes, plundering, confiscation of property, assault, murder, massacre, rape and abduction 117 were the oppressive factors which characterised the regime of horror under which the Armenians lived. 118

The harassment and oppression carried out by a corrupt government lacking all sense of duty 119 towards the Armenians, a government which incited the fanaticism of the non-Christian people and used violence and manipulation of the nomadic Kurds to realise its goals, far exceeded that of the regime which the Christian people in Macedonia were exposed to, which had itself awakened the hate and the wrath of the Europeans. 120

As Lord Bryce summarised: "Chaos and disorder plus paying taxes and fees." 121

In the letter regarding the implementation of paragraph 61 in the Berlin Treaty of September 7, 1880, the representatives of the major powers decried the great "chaos and the disorder which prevails in these provinces and the considerably worsened situation which, quite possibility, would result in the annihilation of the Christian population in large regions." 122

Besides heavy taxes which the officials of the Ottoman government collected from the Armenians, the population was forced to pay illegal fees and bribes to the Kurdish clan leaders. 123 Leberb embarked that if there were two kinds of taxes in the civilized world, one direct and one indirect, then there was another set of taxes for the Armenians, namely legal and illegal. 124

In addition, the Armenian populated villages, during the winter, were forced to give free accommodation to Kurdish nomads, who at the end of autumn would leave their pasturelands in the mountains and came down to the plains. 125

This annual migration was not a new phenomenon; but the Armenian situation became unbearable when the Ottoman government, began to incite the Kurds against the Armenians, encouraging these nomads to use and then confiscate the Armenian properties and estates. 126