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The French ambassador in Constantinople, the great diplomat Paul Cambon, who at the time was the representative of the French government at the court of the Sublime Port, sent the following report to his government, dated February 20, 1891: "In 1878 the awakening of the Armenian nation had not yet taken place. The thought of an independent Armenia was yet nonexistent and even if it existed, then it was in the mind of certain refugees residing in Europe. The masses were only hoping for reforms and had no other dreams than an orderly and neutral rule within the frames of the Ottoman government. The lack of action and competence of the Sublime Port has resulted in hopelessness and unwillingness among the Armenians. The injustice and the assaults of the Ottoman governmental officials are still equally scandalous and there have not been any improvements in making sure that justice is done. The creation of the Hamidian Kurdish regiment, who are supposed to guard the provinces, is nothing better than the fact that the government is officially responsible for the plundering."



The first Armenian movement was founded in Europe in around 1885. It was necessary to present two simple and clear concepts to the Armenian masses within the Ottoman Empire: nation and freedom. The Armenian revolutionary associations took on the responsibility for spreading these two main concepts among the people. The Turks intensified these ideas by their ignorance and their assaults and ill deeds which in time became abominable and unbearable for the people who were accustomed to their rule. As if this discontent was not enough, the Turks increased it by interpreting any kind of dissatisfaction as revolution and all protests as a coup. They accused the Armenians to such an extent of staging coups that they finally became supporters of a coup. They insisted so much on the non-existence of Armenia in the Ottoman Empire that the Armenians became aware of the existence of Armenia and within a few years they had created secret associations which used the drawbacks and the mistakes of the Ottoman rule for their publicity and spread the notion of a national awakening and the achievement of independence for the whole of Armenia." 144

This was the situation in the Armenian provinces within the Ottoman Turkey prior to the events from 1894 and 1896, which became the driving force behind the awakening of the Armenian nation and the expansion of an Armenian revolutionary movement. Despite the claims of the opportunists and easterners of Armenian origin who betrayed their people, no other Armenian movement could be more just than the movement for the defence of the rights of the Armenian people.

The Armenian people wanted nothing more than to live under decent and peaceful circumstances and to make use of the most basic human rights. 145 The needs of this people, as with other peoples in the Ottoman Empire, awoke because of their subjection to injustice and oppression. 146

Moreover, one could not condemn those individuals who dreamed of the creation of an independent Armenia, after the years of slavery, as one could name more than 20 European and Oriental peoples who were entertaining the same dreams at that precise moment of time.