For Nelidof , the urgency of the situation came from the threat to Russia's prize, the Straits of the Bosporus, which could possibly fall into foreign hands.
Eventually, Nelidof persuaded his government to increase the armaments of its fleet in the Black Sea and to concentrate its forces on the Crimea Peninsula, ready to put them ashore in necessary locations in case of an intervention from the major powers, which appared almost imminent, and thus be in a position to protect its interests. 225
Sultan Abdul Hamid II, informed of these preparations, took fright and halted the massacres of the Armenians, but still refused the implementation of paragraph 61 of the Berlin Treaty.
Thus the first attempt to annihilate the Armenian people on a large scale ended with the massacres of 1894-1896.
In his speech on September 21, 1897, Gladstone described the massacres: "100 000 Armenians were murdered, no guaranties were given for the prevention of the repetition of this tragedy, the murders provided a huge capital profit and all this happened because of the cooperation of the European countries with the Ottoman Empire, in other words, their mistrust and hate of each other." 226
The Position of the Major Powers During the Massacres of 1894-1896
The major powers did indeed hold great responsibility for these events, which were the result of the refusal to implement paragraph 61 of the Berlin Treaty, despite the fact that the major powers had signed and guarantied the implementation of this paragraph. 227
Thus, though intervention in the domestic issues of the Ottoman Empire, to all appearances, was one of the rights of Europe, 228 there was a surprising and unexpected defence of the absolute power of a government over its domestic matters, including the rights to assault and propagate violence against oppressed people, and to annihilate its own subjects. There was an acceptance of non-intervention policy in the internal issues of other countries.
The only intervention that took place was the humanitarian and just action which the European major powers were forced to take under the pressure of public opinion in their own countries. The existence of the primitive Ottoman Empire, with such a tendency to violence, jarred among the civilised nations, and prompted certain actions at different occasions during the 19th century. This intervention, because of the internal situation in the country, resulted in the liberation of the Balkans from Turkish oppression, and also afforded better living conditions for countries such as Lebanon and Crete, which were still under Ottoman rule. 229
In the case of the events of 1894-1896, however, this humanitarian intervention was not provided, prevented mainly by the improper policy of the Russian Tsar and the Germany of Wilhelm II.
|