DID TALAT PASHA SEND SECRET TELEGRAMMES ORDERING GENOCIDE?
Mahmut Esat Ozan
Baseless Armenian propaganda claiming that so-called genocide was an Ottoman
government policy requires proof that such a decision was in fact made. For
this purpose the Armenians produced a number of telegrams attributed to
Talat Pasha supposedly found by British forces commanded by General Allenby
when they seized Aleppo in 1918. It was claimed that they were found in the
office of an Ottoman official named Naim Bey, and that they could be
destroyed only because the British occupation came with unexpected speed.
Samples of these telegrams were published in Paris in 1920 by an Armenian
author named Aram Andonian, (38) and they also were presented at the Berlin
trial of the Armenian terrorist Tehlirian, who killed Talat Pasha.
Nevertheless, the court neither considered these documents as "evidence" nor
was involved in any decision claiming the authenticity of them. These
documents were, however, entirely fabricated, and the claims deriving from
them therefore cannot be sustained. They were in fact published by the Daily
Telegraph of London in 1922, (39) which also attributed them to a discovery
made by Allenby's army. But when the British Foreign Office enquired about
them at the War Office, and with Allenby himself, it was discovered that
they had not been discovered by the British army but, rather, had been
produced by an Armenian group in Paris. In addition, examination of the
photographs provided in the Andonian volume shows clearly that neither in
form, script or phraseology did they resemble normal Ottoman administrative
documents, and that they were, therefore, rather crude forgeries.
Following the Entente occupation of Istanbul, the British and the French
arrested a number of Ottoman political and military figures and some
intellectuals on charges of war crimes. In this they were given substantial
assistance by the Ottoman Liberal Union Party, which had been placed in
power by the Sultan after the war, and which was anxious to do anything it
could to definitively destroy the Union and Progress Party and its leaders,
who had long been political enemies. Most of the prisoners were sent off to
imprisonment in Malta, but the four Union and Progress leaders who had fled
from the country just before the occupation were tried and sentenced to
death in absentia in Istanbul. Three other Government officials were
sentenced to death and executed, but it was discovered later that the
evidence on which the convictions had been based was false.
In the meantime, the British looked everywhere to find evidence against
those who had been sent to Malta. Despite the complete cooperation of wome
enthusraztic supporters such as the Ottoman Liberal Union (38) ANDONIAN,
Aram, Documents Qfficiels concernant les Massacres Armmiens, Paris, Armenian
National Delegation, 1920. (39) Daily Telegraph, 29 May 1922. government,
nothing incriminating could be found among the Ottoman government documents.
Similar searches in the British archives were fruitless. Finally, in
desperation, the British Foreign Office turned to the American archives in
Washington, but in reply, one of their representatives, R. C. Craigie, wrote
to Lord Curzon:
"I regret to inform your Lordship that there was nothing therein which could
be used as evidence against the Turks who are at present being detained at
Malta ...no concrete facts being given which could constitute satisfactory
incriminating evidence.... The reports in question do not appear in any case
to contain evidence against these Turks which would be useful even for the
purpose of corroborating information already in the possession of His
Majesty's Government.''(40)
Uncertain as to what should be done with prisoners, who already had been
held for two years, without trial and without even any charges being filed
or evidence produced, the Foreign Office applied for advice to the Law
Officers of the Crown in London, who concluded on 29 July, 1921:
"Up to the present no statements have been taken from witnesses who can
depose to the truth of the charges made against the prisoners. It is indeed
uncertain whether any witnesses can be found." (41)
At this time the "documents" produced by Andonian were available, but
despite their desperate search for evidence, which could be presented in a
court of law, the British, never used them because it was evident that they
were forgeries. As a result, the prisoners were quietly released in 1921,
without charges ever having been filed or evidence produced.
It is useful to reiterate that the main elements in the chain of evidence
constructed in proving that Andonian's "documents" were all patent
forgeries:
1. To show that his forgeries were in fact "authentic Ottoman documents"
Andonian relied on the signature of the Governor of Aleppo, Mustafa
Abdiilhalik Bey, which he claimed was appended to several of the "documents"
in question. By examining several actual specimens of Mustafa Abdülhalik
Bey's signature as preserved on contemporary official documents, it is
established that the alleged signatures appended to Andonian's "documents"
were forgeries.
2. In one of his forged documents, Andonian dated the note and signature
attributed to Mustafa Abdülhalik Bey. Again, by a comparison with authentic
correspondence between the Governor (40) 13 July 1921; British Foreign
Office Archives 371/6504/8519 (41) British Foreign Office Archives
371/6504/E8745
Aleppo and the Ministry of the Interior in Istanbul, on the date in
question, it is proven that the Governor of Aleppo on that date was Bekir
Sami Bey, not Mustafa Abdulhalik Bey.
3. Consistently, Andonian's forgeries attest to the fact that he was either
totally unaware of, or carelessly neglected to account for, the differences
between the Muslim Rumi and Christian calendars. The numerous errors he made
as a result of this oversight are, in and of themselves, sufficient to prove
the fabricated nature of his "documents". Among other things, the errors
Andonian made in this respect served to destroy the system of reference
numbers and dates that he concocted for his "documents".
4. By way of a detailed comparison of the entries made in the Ministry of
the Interior's Registers of outgoing Ciphers, wherein are recorded the date
and reference number of every ciphered communication sent out by the
Ministry, with the dates and reference numbers placed by Andonian on his
forgeries, it is proven that his so-called "ciphered, telegrams" bear no
relationship whatsoever to the actual ciphers sent by the Ministry to Aleppo
in the period in question.
5. Again, by comparing the Turkish "originals" of Andonian's " ciphered
telegrams" with actual examples of contemporary Ottoman ciphered messages,
it is shown that the number groupings he employed bear no relationship to
the actual ciphers the Ottomans were using in that period. Thus, in his
attempt to make his forgeries appear credible, he created a whole series of
unusable, non-existent ciphers. Further, from the dates he affixed to his
forgeries in this category, the Ottomans would have had to use the same
ciphers over a six-month period which was impossible. By publishing a series
of documents instructing officials to change the ciphers they were using, it
is shown that, in fact, the Ottomans were changing their cipher codes on
average once every two months during the war years.
6. By comparing the manner in which the common Islamic injunction, Besmele,
was written on Andonian's two forged letters with numerous examples of the
way in which it appears on authentic contemporary Ottoman documents, it is
suggested that Andonian's clumsy forgery of this term may well have stemmed
from the fact that non-Muslims, even those who knew Ottoman Turkish, did not
employ this injunction.
7. A number of examples from Andonian's forgeries show that it is simply
inconceivable that any Ottoman official could have used such sentence
structures and make such grammatical errors. In the same vein, a host of
expressions; allegedly uttered by prominent Ottoman officials are used,
which no Ottoman Turk would ever have used. Andonian's intention in these
instances was clear: he wanted nothing less than the Turks themselves to be
seeming to confess to crimes which he had manufactured for them.
8. The forged documents, with two exceptions, were written on plain paper
with none of the usual signs found on the official paper used by the Ottoman
bureaucracy in this period. The fact that one of the forged Turkish
originals was written on a double-lined paper, which the Ottomans did not
even use for private correspondence, constitutes an even more serious error
on Andonian's part. Even the two forgeries which appear at first glance to
have been written on some kind of official Ottoman stationery are actually
written on blank telegraph forms, which anyone wishing to send a telegram
could pick up in any Ottoman post office.
9. At a time when the British were frantically searching the world's
archives for anything to be used as "evidence" against the group of Ottoman
officials whom they were holding for trial as being "responsible for the
Armenian incidents", their failure to utilize Andonian's "documents" which
were readily available in their English edition, strongly suggests that the
British Government was fully aware of the nature of these forgeries.
10. Had documents of the nature of those concocted by Andonian ever actually
existed, their confidential nature would have dictated that they be sent by
courier for security reasons; rather than through the easily breachable
public telegraph system. Likewise, had such documents really ever been
written; it is inconceivable that they could have lain around in a file for
three years, instead of being destroyed as soon as they had been read.
11. There are also numerous differences between the French and English
editions of Andonian's book. Indeed, these variations are of such
significance that it is absolutely impossible to ascribe them to printing
errors, or errors in translation.
12. Finally, the fact that even some authors with close links to Armenian
circles, who serve as spokesmen for Armenian causes, have indicated their
own doubt as to the veracity of Andonian's "documents" should not be
overlooked. In short, from start to finish the so-called "Talat Pasha
Telegrams" are nothing more than crude forgeries, concocted by Andonian and
his associates. Moreover the Ottoman archives contain a number of orders;
whose authenticity can definitely be substantiated, issued on the same
dates, in which Talat Pasha ordered investigations to be made to find and
punish those responsible for the attacks which were being made on the
deportation caravans. It is hardly likely that he would have been ordering
massacres on one hand and investigations and punishments for such crimes on
the other.
A letter forged by Aram Andonian with the date, February 18, 1331 (March
2,1916) opens with a "bismillah" (blessing), which would never have been
written by a Moslem. The forger, Andonian, made his most fatal mistake with
the date, however. He was obviously not well enough versed in the tricks of
converting to the Rumi year of the Ottomans, where a difference of thirteen
days between the Rumi and Gregorian calendars must be taken into account.
The date he put on the letter was off by a full year. Instead of 1330
(1915), he wrote 1331 (1916). The contents of the letter are supposed to be
evidence of the long advance planning of the resettlement operation of
1915.(42) (42) Feigl, Erich. A Myth of Terror, 1991, Edition
zeitgeschichten-Freilassing- Salzburg, p. 85
An American aid organization called "the Near East Relief Society" was
allowed by the Ottoman Government to stay and fulfill its functions in
Anatolia during the deportations. Even following the entry of U.S.A. into
war on the side of Entente powers against Ottoman Empire, the same
organization was permitted to remain in Anatolia. This was dealt in the
reports of the American Ambassador Elkus in Istanbul. In this case, if an
order for "massacring Armenians" had been given, would the Ottoman
Government have allowed to an American organization to be witness to the
"massacres". In other words, it is ridiculous to suppose that the Ottomans
said to America: "We are massacring Armenians. Why don't you have a look at
it." Such an allegation could never be a logical explanation of historic
facts. Finally, and in the end most important, when the war came to an end,
the Armenian population still was substantially in place in Western
Anatolia, Thrace and Istanbul. Had the Ottoman government ordered massacres,
evidently they too would have been killed. And for that matter, had the
Ottoman government wanted to eliminate all the Armenians in the Empire, it
could have done so far more easily by killing and disposing of them where
they lived, rather than undertaking a large-scale deportation of those in
the Eastern war zones under the eyes of foreign observers.
The claim, thus, that the Ottoman government ordered and carried out a
general massacre of Armenians in the Empire cannot be sustained and is
disproved by the facts.
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Originally Posted by Kansas Bear 
action speaks louder than words
Share this thread with friends: