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The Armenian Question
"We live in an era when humanity can not live with the dead body of a nation in its mortuary." Jean Jaurès
The Treaties of San Stefano and Berlin (1878)
In the beginning of the Russian-Ottoman war of 1877-1878, the situation of the Armenians in Western Armenia was comparably difficult, even worse, than that of the Serbs in Bosnia and the Bulgarians in Rumeli and Macedonia.
Travellers passing through the Asian part of the Ottoman Empire during the decades leading to the war relate many stories about the state of affairs in that area. 1
In year 1862, unusual massacres took place in the Toros region. 2
Finally, in 1869, the Western Armenians, chose Khrimian Hayrik as their Catholicos, a stalwartly champion for their rights who, instead of trying to obtain the sympathy of the Christians in Constantinople, devoted himself firmly to his real obligations and tasks. As soon as this great religious personality took office of the Catholicos, he declared that "I do not only consider myself as the religious father of the Constantinople Armenians, but also the religious father of all Armenians in the Ottoman Empire."
He sent continuous reports about the situation of the Armenians in Western Armenian provinces to the Sublime Port 3, but his efforts were unanswered. The Turks, with the help of certain individuals in the Asian population of Constantinople, coerced this great Armenian defender into submission.
Robbery, murder and assaults proceeded to the same extent in Western Armenia, with the Armenian population subject to attacks from Kurdish nomads and the corrupt and power-hungry system of the Turkish establishment. 4 In year 1876, during an inexplicable fanatic riot in the city of Van, the Turkish inhabitants ransacked the Armenian quarters and set them on fire. 5
An international conference was held in Constantinople some months prior to the Russian-Ottoman war of 1877-1878, with the failed aim of solving the question of Bulgaria in a peaceful way. The Armenians also put forward their demands during the conference, but to no avail. 6
During the Russian-Ottoman war of 1877-1878, Armenia was once more became the scene of a number of inhuman evil deeds which the irregular groups within the Turkish Army carried out against the Armenian population. This included the murder of the majority of the Armenians in Bayazid, Vehiadin and Alashkert. 7 (in the city of Bayazid alone, 24,000 Armenians 8 were murdered, while the Armenian populations in Kars, Basen and Van suffered heavy casualties).
It is understandable, therefore, that the Western Armenian delegates should wish the Grand Duke Nicholas, commander of the Russian army in the Balkans, to guarantee the safety of the Armenians during the peace negotiations which the Ottoman government had been forced into. 9
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1) E. Smith and G. Dwight, Missionary Researches in Armenia, London, 1834, p. 77; Boré, Correspondance et Mémories d'un Voyageur en Orient, Paris, 1840, vol. II, p. 76 and 92; H. Southgate, Narrative of a Tour through Armenia, Kurdistan, Persia and Mesopotamia, London, 1840, p. 43; Suzannet, Les Provinces du Caucase, Revue des Deux Mondes, April 1841, p. 52-53
2) V. Langlois, Les Arméniens du Taurus et les Massacres de 1862, Revue des Deux Mondes, February 15, 1863
3) A. Sarkissian, History of the Armenian question to 1885, Urbana, 1938, p. 35-40, see the summary of the Armenian demands which were sent to the Sublime Port between 1870 and 1874.
4) About tese attacks see the memoirs of the Turkish general Mehmut Mokhtar Pascha, The Events in East, Paris, 1908, p. 47-48.
5) About this see the Blue Book (British Parliamentary Reports), Turkey, 1877, nr. 15, p. 8
6) See A. Sarkissian, History of the Armenian question to 1885, Urbana, 1938, p. 51-54; See also K. Achguard, Rapport du Patriarche arménien de Constantinople sur les Arméniens de Turquie, Paris, 1877
7) About the massacres see the testimonies by the New York Times reporter, C. Norman, Armenia and the campaign of 1877, London, p. 247, 260, 267, 273, 299. For additional sources to these ill deeds see the Turkish military author, General Izzet Fuad Pasha, with the title Autres Occasions perdues, Paris, 1908
8) C. Norman, Armenia and the campaign of 1877, London, p. 273
9) The history of these negotiations has been rendered by Priest Pousdjouklian, the Armenian priest in Andrinopel, in the Armenian news paper Razmig Philippopoli (1906-1907) and some of it exists described in Sarkissian's book, , History of the Armenian question to 1885, Urbana, 1938, p. 61-64
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