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**Ironduke** · 01-18-2004, 19:05 PM

Quote:

Subject: It is not democidal intent.
Posted By: The Duchess of Zeon Her Grace

Posted At: 12/29/03 2:25
Reply

The Armenians were fighting against their legitimate government. The removal of the population from the war zone was the only way to eliminate the threat to the Ottoman military forces in the region. I'm sorry, but that isn't genocide, it's just common sense--WWI was a total war, and the measures taken were completely commisurate with the situation. You can't simply stand around and let guerrillas shoot at you. It was no worse, nor really any different for that matter, than the situation in the "trail of tears" in the U.S.; and the Ottomans in fact had larger mitigating circumstances.

The first duty of the Ottoman government was to defend its citizenry, and by engaging in warfare against the Ottoman government and by slaughtering Ottoman citizenry themselves (people who were quite innocent and not in uniform and this is documented), the Armenians had placed themselves outside of that realm of protection. They were a threat and an obstacle to the duty of the Ottoman government and had to be removed. The situation is utterly different from a genocide--from a situation where the innocent are slaughtered and unable to resist. Instead, the Armenians, armed by the Ottoman Empire's enemies, had begun to slaughter Ottoman citizens and had revolted against the Ottoman government and had fought Ottoman troops. The Ottomans did what was necessary in the situation and if they couldn't provide food and water, to bad.

There's no comparison to the acts of the Nazis there, and never will be.

Quote:

Subject: Sources and conclusions...
Posted By: schudak Old Friend

Posted At: 1/11/04 9:36
Reply
Hi Yahac,

sorry, but I was unable to find any sources on the alleged rebellion of the Armenians previously to mid 1915 on your site. There are MANY reports on atrocities committed by Armenians, though they report later incidents. Its not that I deny that the Muslims were victims of atrocities committed by Armenians, or that I claim the Armenians were helpless victims.
I find this kind of websites hard to navigate and hard to bear - imho the amount of hard information there is not much better then on the "Armenian genocide"-pages.
Perhaps you could point me to a page on that site in which the historical events are reported in a simple timeline - just for starters. From there on you can link the specific sources, so that they can be put into context. I did not find it (probably my mistake).

However, that said I trust books far more then websites (especially those with an axe to grind). I found a pretty comprehensive recount of the events leading to the Armenian "genocide" in Edward J. Ericksons "Ordered to Die", p94-105. I do think that he is objective. I also could talk to Bernd Langensiep on that matter, who had access to the Turkish military archives (he wrote "The Ottoman Steamship navy" and a book only available in German about the German-Turkish relations, "Halbmond und Kaiseradler". Then there are of course some well documented researches on the Lipsius papers on the Armenian genocides - he had published excerpts of the German foreign office archives in 1919 claiming innocence for the Germans. The papers made available to him had carefull ommissions. In the post WWII-times these ommissions were realized and carefully studied. The results are available on paper AND on the web, both in English and German.

Lacking more time this is what I think happened:

- The Armenians were infrequently revolting against the Ottoman empire since the eigthteenth century.
- 1894-96 around 100.000 Armenians are killed in a campaign starting at Sassun
- 1909 in the wake of a revolt around 20.000 Armenians are killed in Cilicia, mainly in Adana.
- 1910 Armenian revolutionaries launch a terror campaign in eastern Anatolia. Thousands are killed in actions and counteractions. (Similar events happened with other minorities in Albania, Kosovo or Macedonia)
- 1912/13 the Balkan wars see huge number of Muslim refugees who have to be integrated into the remaining empire
- 1913/14 Tendencies to create a homogene population situation are visible in the Ottoman policy. "Illoyal" minorites shall be kept below 10%. Influential political factions demand to enforce the Turkish language and culture on the whole population. Armenian groups contact Russia for potential support against this looming threat.
- 1914/15 Russia uses its good connections to Armenians to instigate revolts and help out with weapons. Many operations of the Armenian rebels look like they are coordinated with the Russians. Atrocities on a local scale occur by both sides.
- The Armenian main population centers lie between the 3rd Turkish army and their main supply area. In early 1915 a combined effort by the Western powers at Gallipoli and Iraq and the Russians at the Caucasus towards Erzerum and Van create a very critical situation for the Ottomans. In the case of a full scale revolt the 3rd and parts of the 4rd Turkish army will be without any supply, which would practically hand over eastern Anatolia to the Russians.
- In April 1915 the foreign press in the Allied countries exagerates the state of revolt in Armenia to muster political support. The reports of genocide there precede the actual events.
- A decision to deport only suspicious males is replaced by orders to relocate the whole Armenian population from the dangerous territories. While security and food are ordered to be provided, no resources are allocated to this end (since absolutely none were available).
- reports on a strictly verbal order to kill off the Armenians in the process are confirmed both by German and American witnesses. While the existance of such an order must be assumed, there is no confirmation on the actual source nor how far it was distributed.
- reports from many witnesses confirm that violence against the Armenian civil population started on a very wide scale once deportations started. Many of these were committed by Kurdish or Circassian groups who were almost certainly not acting on governmental orders but just preyed on their long-time "rivals", read: helpless civilians.
- In the wake of these events, countless atrocities were committed both by Armenian forces in Russian or later independent service on Muslims and of Ottoman forces on Armenians and other minorities, in retaliation for assumed or real previous massacres. I will not go into detail here, since these were the consequence, not the reason for the whole mess. Most (if not all) of the sources on Yahacs website refer to these incidents, while some may cover local incidents happening in early 1915.

In consequence I will withdraw my statement that there was no military necessity for that order. Given the specific situation of the Turkish army and previous incidents, I now agree that a military justification for the relocation order can be given. Wether this justifies the almost sure death of several hundred thousand civilians (the vast majority of these had no part in the revolts) is another matter.
I will, however, stand by my statement that SOME parts of the Ottoman government had a democidal intend, and used the situation as a pretext to fulfill their political agenda. Deportations of the male population might have been sufficient to fullfill the goal, and the majority of the Armenians stood loyal to the Empire. The "solution" created here is alike to solving the North Ireland question by relocating the whole catholic population into an area where there is no food nor aid available, read: starve them to death. That "intend" was most likely limited to a small political faction within the Ottoman empire. The rest was done by centuries old rivalry and the tendency of humans to prey upon the weak when allowed to do so.