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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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Unfortunately, the representatives of the major powers, due to their lack of knowledge about the geography of this part of the world, instead of naming specific provinces in paragraph 61 where the reforms and the improvements should be implemented, contented themselves with the ambiguous formulation "the Armenian populated provinces." 40 As Armenians inhabited not only the Armenian highland, but also areas throughout Asia Minor (Sivas, Malatya, Kharpout and Diyarbakir) and Cilicia and even in Armenia Minor (Tokat, Amasia, Yuzget and Angora), this phrase encompassed half of Asia Minor. Thus the Turks and their protectors refused to implement the agreed reforms on the basis that if such reforms were to be implemented, the power of the Ottoman Empire over its Asian provinces would be endangered. 41

Paragraph 61 in the Berlin Treaty, though placing the Armenians at a clear disadvantage 42, nominally decreed that justice for the Armenians was a duty for the Turks and Europeans alike. The redundancy of this paragraph, which became "the juridical foundation for the Armenian Question and the indisputable headline in accordance with the Armenian demands" 43 trapped the Armenian Question in a vacuum, for almost forty years until 1914.

Other paragraphs from the San Stefano Treaty were altered in the Berlin Treaty to Turkish advantage, as Disraeli pursued his policy of safeguarding the fortress en route to India. It was for this reason that the Ottoman Empire gained most of the Balkan Peninsula, and why millions of people continued to live under Turkish oppression.

It soon became clear, as Asquith observed, that the Berlin Treaty was a masterpiece in political powerlessness and blindness. 45 This treaty solved no problem decisively and almost all of its clauses created uncertainties and difficulties in certain areas (Pomeli, Macedonia, Crete, Armenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina) which deepened the international political crisis, and was undoubtedly an accessory to the emergence of the 1914 catastrophe. 46

As a great French politician said: "Diplomacy, which by nature demands, and as a result of its constant need ends, in half-finished works, had never before accomplished anything as incomplete and untenable."

The Policy of the Major Powers from 1878 to 1894

At this point it is necessary to review the policy of each one of the European great powers during the period from 1878 to 1894, and the position each held towards the Ottoman Empire and the Armenian Question. 47

During this period there was a wider trend: an alteration in the position of England and Russia on the Oriental Question.

This change was based on several different factors, including the change of leaders (Gladstone came to power in 1880 in England and the coronation of Tsar Alexander III in Russia) , and England's occupation of Egypt. However, the decisive factor in this question was the prevailing mood in the Christian countries in the Balkans, which despite the changes in the court in St Petersburg, rather than gathering around Russia, were not at pains to conceal their dissatisfaction towards the ‘big brother' in the north.