These figures, which had been put together and revised by the Ottoman government itself, were used as a basis for its propaganda.
All the protests which the Turks and their defenders 114 have presented against the Armenian demands are based on these works, written by a foreigner paid by the Ottoman government, at a time when the Armenian Question was a scarecrow for the leaders in Constantinople.
Statistical surveys compiled by westerners, who were familiar with the situation of Turkey, present an entirely different set of figures than that presented by the Turks. 115
The Situation in Western Armenia
The political line which the Ottoman elite pursued worsened the unbearable situation in which the Armenians were living. 116
Illegal taxes, plundering, confiscation of property, assault, murder, massacre, rape and abduction 117 were the oppressive factors which characterised the regime of horror under which the Armenians lived. 118
The harassment and oppression carried out by a corrupt government lacking all sense of duty 119 towards the Armenians, a government which incited the fanaticism of the non-Christian people and used violence and manipulation of the nomadic Kurds to realise its goals, far exceeded that of the regime which the Christian people in Macedonia were exposed to, which had itself awakened the hate and the wrath of the Europeans. 120
As Lord Bryce summarised: "Chaos and disorder plus paying taxes and fees." 121
In the letter regarding the implementation of paragraph 61 in the Berlin Treaty of September 7, 1880, the representatives of the major powers decried the great "chaos and the disorder which prevails in these provinces and the considerably worsened situation which, quite possibility, would result in the annihilation of the Christian population in large regions." 122
Besides heavy taxes which the officials of the Ottoman government collected from the Armenians, the population was forced to pay illegal fees and bribes to the Kurdish clan leaders. 123 Leberb embarked that if there were two kinds of taxes in the civilized world, one direct and one indirect, then there was another set of taxes for the Armenians, namely legal and illegal. 124
In addition, the Armenian populated villages, during the winter, were forced to give free accommodation to Kurdish nomads, who at the end of autumn would leave their pasturelands in the mountains and came down to the plains. 125
This annual migration was not a new phenomenon; but the Armenian situation became unbearable when the Ottoman government, began to incite the Kurds against the Armenians, encouraging these nomads to use and then confiscate the Armenian properties and estates. 126
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