|
© 2008 ARMENICA.ORG
|
Print
|
|
|
Analysing the real motivation for Ittihad measures against the Armenians, Johannes Lepsius first summarised the Ottoman charges:
- Garegin Pasdermadjian (Armen Garo), member of the Ottoman parliament, had deserted to Russia and joined the volunteers.
- English and French naval commanders had sent agitators into Cilicia where the population was engaged in sabotage and espionage.
- Armenians in Zeytoun had resisted the commands of the military authorities.
- Turkish opponents of the Ittihadists had contrived against the government and used as accomplices several members of the Hntchakist party.
- The Armenians of Van had taken up arms against the government.
- The combatants of Shabin Gharahisar had barricaded themselves in the ancient citadel and fought against Turkish troops. 68
Even if the accusations were true, exclaimed Lepsius, to construe an Armenian revolution from them was fantastic. Not Armenian treachery but the ideology adopted by the Ittihadists was the foundation for the government's action. Nationalism as understood by the "Young Turks" on the eve of the World War necessitated the "Turkification" of all elements of the Empire. As long as there were Armenians, foreign intervention, as experienced during the latest episode of the reform question, would pose a constant threat to the sovereignty of Turkey. Moreover, eradication of the Christian Armenian element from Anatolia and the eastern provinces would remove the major racial barrier between the Turkic people of the Ottoman Empire, Transcaucasia, and Transcaspia. 69 Enver's dream of a Pan-Turanic empire would be a step closer to realisation. 70
German implication in the Armenian tragedy is similarly subject to acrid disputation. Certainly part of the German press bewailed the suffering of the Eastern Christians. The German General Staff and members of the Military Mission to Turkey condemned the radical measures of the Ittihadist dictators, for the depopulation of vital farmland and the elimination of the most important professional and artisan classes caused immeasurable harm to the war effort of the Central Powers. 71 Nevertheless, most official publications in Germany repeated Turkish charges against the Armenians and asserted that involvement in the internal affairs of an ally during time of war was imprudent. 72 Ambassador Johann Bernstorff in Washington echoed these views and noted that the Armenians had brought the tragedy upon themselves. 73 The Germans have been accused of direct complicity in the deportations, for the Berlin government had both the influence and the force to restrain its Turkish partner. When a German economic project in southern Anatolia was threatened because if the deportations, Kaiser Wilhelm's officials exerted sufficient pressure to spare the Armenian labourers until completion of the work. The Ottoman Empire was economically and militarily dependant on Germany; the Kaiser's threats to withdraw that aid would have moderated Ottoman tempers. 74 To those who, in defence of Germany, cited the several protest notes delivered to Sublime Porte, critics retorted that the messages were too late and to formalistic to convince the Ittihadists of their sincerity. 75
Besides referring to the protests from Berlin, the exonerators of German moral integrity have documented the abnegation, perils, and deprivations suffered by many German missionaries, officials, and civilians, who, while in Anatolia and Syria, attempted to diminish the anguish of the deportees. Numerous dispatches from German consuls assailing the abhorrent Turkish action and begging for immediate relied have been published. 76 Pomiankowski, while denouncing the brutality and disastrous consequences of Ittihad tactics, lashed out at the critics of Germany and Austria-Hungary, maintaining that the deportation arrangements were so shrouded in secrecy that the diplomatic corps was ignorant of the proceedings for many days after their inauguration. The Austrian military attaché also implicated the United States, for if Ambassador Morgenthau were aware of the impending tragedy, as he claimed, his government was obligated to take stern measures. The Armenians might have been spared had the United States threatened the Turkish leaders with war, but instead, throughout the entire deportation operations, diplomatic relations were maintained with the Sublime Porte, which finally, in April 1917, took the initiative upon itself to sever the ties. 77 It has been noted already that Pomiankowski and other citizens of the Central Powers have attributed the massacres in part to Enver's defeat at Sarighamish and Halil's forced evacuation of Persian Azerbaijan. Those failures together with the "Revolt of Van" were crippling blows to the fulfilment of the Pan-Turanic mission.
|
|
69) A. J. Toynbee, "Turkey: A Past and a Future" (New York, 1917), pp. 20-27, 30-31, 36, and Arnold Toynbee, "A Summary of Armenian History up to and including the Year 1915", "Armenian Review", XII (Autumn, 1959), pp. 71-72; Great Britain, Parliament, "The Treatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Miscellaneous No. 31 (1916)" (London, 1916), pp. 633-636; Johannes Lepsius, "Der Todesgang des Armenischen Volkes" (Potsdam, 1930), pp. 217-229; Harry Stuermer, "Two War Years in Constantinople" (New York, [1917]), pp. 151-157.
70) Gotthard Jäschke, "Der Turanismus der Jungtürken: Zur osmanischen Aussenpolitik im Weltkriege", Die Welt des Islams, XXIII (bk. 1-2, 1941), p. 18, concurs with this view.
71) Erich Ludendorff, "Meine Kriegserinnerungen, 1914-1918" (Berlin, 1919), p. 136; Joseph Pomiankowski, "Der Zusammenbruch des Ottomanischen Reiches: Erinnerungen an die Türkei aus der Zeit des Weltkrieges" (Leipzig, 1928), p. 165; Carl Mühlmann, "Das deutsch-türkische Waffenbündnis im Weltkrieg" (Leipzig, [1940]), p. 277; Felix Guse, "Die Kaukasusfront im Weltkrieg bis zum Frieden von Brest" (Leipzig, [1940]), p. 101.
72) Consult, for example, C. A. Bratter, "Die Armenische Frage" (Berlin, 1915), and Emil Daniels, "England und Russland in Armenien und Persien", Preussische Jahrbücher, CLXIX (July-September, 1917), 237-267.
73) New York Times, September 28 and 29, 1915.
75) Henry Morgenthau, "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" (Garden City, N.Y., 1919), pp. 347-375; J. Ellis Barker, "Germany, Turkey, and the Armenian Massacres", Quarterly Review, CCXXXIII (April, 1920), pp. 390-392. In 1916, Gottlib von Jagow, German State Secretary for Foreign Affairs expressed the official position of the government: "Much as we deplore the fate of the Armenians from the point of view of pure humanity, our sons and brothers are nearer to us than the Armenians. They [our sons and brothers] are spilling their precious blood in terrible battles and they depend for their security upon Turkey's support. The Turks are rendering us a valuable service by protecting the flanks of our military position. You, gentlemen, will agree with me that we could not break off our alliance on account of the Armenian question."
76) Kurt Ziemke, "Die neue Türkei: Politische Entwicklung, 1914-1929" (Stuttgart, 1930), pp. 272-273; Johannes Lepsius, "The Armenian Question", Muslim World, X (1920), 352-355, and his "Deutschland und Armenien, 1914-1918: Sammlung diplomatischer Aktenstücke" (Potsdam, 1919). The latter work includes 295 documents [1915-1917] of German correspondence, consular reports, government inquiries, and protests concerning the deportations and massacres.
77) Joseph Pomiankowski, "Der Zusammenbruch des Ottomanischen Reiches: Erinnerungen an die Türkei aus der Zeit des Weltkrieges" (Leipzig, 1928), p. 164.
|
