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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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Armenian suspicions increased when rumours of Georgian and Moslem collaboration with the enemy spread. Actually, Georgian émigrés in Germany and Turkey had offered to form volunteer units to fight for the liberation of Georgia from Russian domination. The action was somewhat parallel to the institution of Armenian units against Turkey. Georgian volunteers expected from the Central Powers the restoration of a national government with jurisdiction over the territories included within the eighteenth-century realm of Irakli II as well as the surrounding provinces. However, the Georgian contingent participated in few campaigns, was distrusted by the Turkish command, and was ignored by almost all Georgians, whose loyalty to the multinational Russian homeland was impeccable. 44 Moslem sympathy for Turkey was more natural. While the Turkish First Expeditionary Force occupied Persian Azerbaijan during the first months of 1915, Halil Pasha, commander of the group and uncle to Enver, conferred with Aslan Khan Khoisky, nephew of a later premier of the Azerbaijan Republic. The military accord they concluded entailed a Moslem insurrection in North Persia and Transcaucasia against Russia in return for Ottoman assistance in creating an independent Azerbaijan, which would encompass Persian Azerbaijan in addition to the guberniias of Yerevan, Baku, and Elisavetpol. Enver sanctioned the project, with nonetheless remained unexecuted. 45 Russian pressure in North Persia and Armenian armed activities at Van, to the rear of Halil's division, compelled the Ottoman commander to evacuate Persian Azerbaijan, thus severing the direct link between the Moslems of Transcaucasia and the Turkish forces. 46

Deportation and Massacre of the Western Armenians

Several authors assert that Armenian resistance at Van constituted a key factor in the Turkish evacuation of Persia and motivated the Ittihadist leaders to annihilate the Western Armenians. The question of responsibility for the massacre or deportation of nearly all Ottoman Armenians has evolved into polemic. Hundreds of books, articles, and documents have been published to describe the horrifying scenes of violence and death. Many writers, such as the British Bryce and Toynbee, French Pinon, German Lepsius, American Morgenthau and Gibbons, have insisted that the massacres were premeditated and ruthlessly executed. They have refuted the Ottoman government's official publications and justifications by substantiating that anti-Armenian measures were deliberated by Ittihadists even before the outbreak of war. 47 The fact remains that an estimated eight hundred thousand to over a million Armenians perished within a few months, and several hundred thousands more succumbed in the following years to ravages of disease, famine, and refugee life. Unknown numbers of women and children were converted forcibly to Islam, possessed by Turkish men, or adopted by Moslem families.

That the disaster occurred is indisputable, but reasons for it remain as controversial as ever. In 1959, the press attaché of the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C., wrote: "Turkish response to the Armenian excesses was comparable, I believe, to what might have been the American response, had the German-Americans of Minnesota or Wisconsin revolted on behalf of Hitler during World War II." And Further: "The non-Turkish elements of the empire continued to press for separatism and sought the support if the major powers. They were apprehensive that a real reformation might delay the division of the spoils, and turned a cold shoulder to the overtures of the earnestly pro-Western ‘Young Turks'." 48

Talaat Pasha, one of the originators of the cataclysm, stated in his memoirs: "I admit that we deported many Armenians from our eastern provinces, but we never acted in this matter upon a previously prepared scheme. The responsibility for these acts falls first pf all upon the deported people themselves… These preventive measures were taken in every country during the war, but, while the regrettable results were passed over in silence in the other countries, the echo of our acts was heard the world over, because everybody's eyes were upon us." 49

Most Turkish sources claim that deportations were wartime measures necessary for the security of the state, and that they were adopted only after evidence of Armenian treachery was conclusive. Proof of malevolence included the formation of volunteer units in the Caucasus, the participation of Turkish subjects in these groups, threats and antagonism expressed in Armenian journals abroad, and preparations for armed insurrection. During the course of the war, the Ottoman government issued several publications that included secret conspiratorial correspondence of Armenian revolutionaries as well as numerous photographs of arms caches and confiscated weapons. The Armenians were charged with a nationwide plot. 50 Turkish authors have particularly stressed that no official action was taken against the Armenians until they had rebelled. Thus when on April 24, 1915, Armenian civic, political, and intellectual leaders in Constantinople were arrested, deported, and subsequently executed, a revolt allegedly had already begun. 51 On May 26, Minister of Interior Talaat Pasha sent to the Grand Vizier a communiqué concerning Armenian deportations: "Because some of the Armenians who are living near the war zones have obstructed the activities of the Imperial Ottoman Army, which has been entrusted with defending the frontiers against the country's enemies; because they impede the movements of provisions and troops; because they have made common cause with the enemy; and especially because they have attacked military forces within the country, the innocent population, and the Ottoman cities and towns, killing and plundering; and because they have even dared to supply the enemy navy with provisions and to reveal the location of our fortified places to them; and because it is necessary that rebellious elements of this kind should be removed from the area of military activities and that the villages which are the base and shelter for these rebels should be vacated, certain measures are being adopted, among which is deportation of the Armenians from the Van, Bitlis, Erzurum vilayets; the livas (counties) of Adana, Mersin, Kozan, Jebelibereket, except for the cities of Adana, Sis, and Mersin; the Marash sanjak, except for Marash itself; and the Eskanderun, Beylan, Jisr-I Shour, and Antakya districts of the Aleppo vilayet, except for the administrative city of each. It is being announced that the Armenians are to be sent to the following places: Mosul vilayet except for the northern area bordering the Van vilayet, Zor sanjak, southern Ourfa except for the city of Ourfa itself, eastern and south-eastern Allepo vilayet, and the eastern part of the Syrian vilayet." 52