In advancing these figures, the Armenians might be charged with manipulation by excluding the predominantly Moslem southern and western border districts. Even at that, to establish an Armenian plurality it was necessary to list individually the several Moslem peoples, and only by including such heterodox Moslems as the Kizilbash in the category of "other religions" was it possible to establish a scant Christian numerical superiority. Finally, it is likely that the figures relating to the Armenians were exaggerated whole those pertaining to the Moslems were minimized.
Turkish figures seem even more distorted. They show that the Armenians constituted a minority even at the time of the Ottoman conquest of the Plateau. It is claimed that on the eve of the World War there were only 660,000 Armenians in the six eastern provinces, or less than 17 percent of the total inhabitants, as compared to 3,000,000 Moslems, 79 percent, and that in the entire Empire there were 1,295,000 Armenians, 7 percent of the entire population. 61 Thus a difference of 800,000 Armenians exists between Ottoman and Patriarchate contentions. 62 Turkish authors have attempted to substantiate their assertions by utilizing the study of Vital Cuinet, La Turquie d'Asie, which shows that only in the vilayet of Bitlis did the Armenians constitute more than 30 percent of the population. 63 The Armenians, refuting these figures, have pointed out that Cuinet's work is riddled with discrepancies and inconsistencies. For example, Cuinet gave only four thousand as the number of Armenians in the entire district of Marash in Cilicia, whereas the figure actually pertained only to those who no longer adhered to the Armenian Apostolic faith. Moreover, Cuinet himself had confessed that his statistics were unreliable and complained that Ottoman officials had refused to make available much pertinent information. 64
Obviously, somewhere between these contrasting figures lies the true ethnic distribution. It can be deduced with relative certainty that there were more than one and a half million but fewer than two million Armenians in all Turkey. Yet, even if the maximal figures of the Patriarchate are accepted as accurate, there is conclusive evidence that the Armenian population in the eastern province did not represent a majority. There were at least as many Moslems as Christians. This fact was to pose a major obstacle to the Armenian Republic, which, after World War I, strove to convince the European peacemakers that it should be awarded the entire Plateau. On the eve of the war, however, there was not the slightest indication that an independent Armenia would be established. Armenians continued to think in terms of cultural-national autonomy under the supervision of the European nations. By the compromise reform of February 8, 1914, it seemed as if realisation of this goal was at hand.
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