The majority of the current generations of Armenians know or they should know that the Ittihadist Young Turk party leaders, Talaat Pasha, Kemal Pasha and Djemal Pasha , premeditated and planned the execution of the Armenian Genocide several years before the abdication of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, from his throne in 1909.
The object of this column is to analyze the principal reasons that led to the perpetration of the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey at the end of the critical period between1908 to1915. There are only few Armenian historians and writers who have attempted to analyze the controversial role played by the three Armenian political parties in the period between 1908 to 1915. Certainly, of particular importance are the plans and close relationships of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) with the Young Turk Party leaders who controlled the government apparatus in Ottoman Turkey, following the abdication of Sultan Abdul Hamid II from his throne in 1909.
Similarly, in the last quarter of the 19th Century, and in the first fifteen years of the 20th Century the ARF had become the biggest and most important Armenian political party in Western Armenia and in the Caucasus. Its policies and activities had a valuable input in the development of the Armenian armed struggle against the Kurdish and Turkish armed bands that made the living conditions of the unarmed Armenian peasants intolerable in the Western provinces. Thus, by the end of the 19th Century, the ARF had become the uncontested political leader of the Armenian people in Western Armenia.
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I was born in Athens, Greece in 1934. My parents were survivors of the Armenian Genocide. As I grew up I began to learn, from my parents and in the Armenian primary school, about the tragic fate that had befallen on my people on April 24, 1915. My grandmother survived the Genocide with her youngest son Yegishe, who had the foresight and bravery to escape from his army barracks and to hide in Smyrna in his aunt’s home till the end of World War I. Following the end of the war, he returned to his native town, where he was told the heart-breaking news about the murder of his two beloved brothers, Emmanuel and Hetum by the Turks in Caucasus.
Before the outbreak of World War I, the Second Ottoman Constitution had been proclaimed with big fanfare by the Young Turk Government in 1909. It promised freedom, democracy and equality for all Turk citizens, regardless of race and religion. Therefore, it caused great expectations, jubilation and euphoria in the Christian communities of Turkey. Alas, the promises of the Young Turk leaders were “a la Turka,” fake. Within a few months they lost their enthusiasm for democratic reforms. In place of a democratic constitutional state, they revived the idea of pan-Turkism; in place of equal treatment for all subjects living in Turkey, they decided to establish a country inhabited exclusively by Turks.
Apparently, the Young Turk leaders had come to the conclusion that the Armenians, just like the Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbians, would, sooner or later, demand their independence, and there was a high probability that Russia, France and England would help them achieve their goal. For the nationalist Turks an independent Armenia was, and it is still today, a curse; because, it cuts them off from their Muslim cousins living in the South Caucasus and on the plains of Central Asia, undermining their dreams of creating a Pan-Turanic empire stretching from the Dardanelles to China in order to replace the empire they lost in Europe, the Balkans and the Middle East. If there were no Armenians left on the Anatolian Plateau to demand independence from Turkey, then the Armenian question would cease to exist. These were the principal reasons for which the Ittihadist Young Turk government decided to uproot and to exterminate the Armenians in April 1915. But, they kept their inhuman, murderous plans secret, waiting for the right opportunity to put them into effect.
In the meantime, incredible as it may seem to us today, the Armenian political party leaders, as well as the Armenian community and religious leaders whose vast majority resided comfortably in Constantinople, continued to believe in the Ittihadist Young Turk party leaders’ fake promises of justice, equality and brotherhood, and they made every effort to remain loyal, law abiding citizens of Ottoman Turkey in spite of the shocking news about the 1909 Adana and Cilicia massacres whose horrifying details spread swiftly in the Armenian communities in Ottoman Turkey. Moreover, very ominous news circulated in Constantinople about the rapidly worsening living conditions of the people in the Western Armenian provinces. But, none of the Armenian political parties or the other Armenian organizations had the capacity to do something to improve the living conditions of the Armenians in the provinces.
However, a minority of the members of the ARF who lived in the Western Armenian Provinces openly voiced their mistrust in the 1909 Ottoman Constitution and the Ittihadist Young Turk government’s promises of equality, justice and brotherhood, and they advocated the armed struggle as the only viable way of improving the living conditions of the Armenian people. The best well-known amongst these dissident ARF freedom fighters was Antranig, who had been fighting with his followers against the Kurd and Turk armed bands, and often the Turk Army unit too, on the mountains and the plains of Western Armenia for 35 years. But the Turks never succeeded to capture him. General Antranig repeatedly and publicly advised his followers and his friends in the ARF to distrust the promises of the Ittihadist Young Turk leaders because he sincerely believed that they were dishonest and liars. But the well-educated younger leaders in the A.R. Federation, such as Vramian, Vratsian, Agnouni, Armen-Garo, Zartarian, Rostom , and others, did not pay attention to Antranig’s warnings. Also, some of the ARF’s top members, such as Sebouh, who fought alongside Antranig in several battles, were jealous of Antranig’s huge popularity in the Western Armenian provinces where he was regarded as a National Hero. Again, other persons in the upper echelons of the ARF considered Antranig an uneducated peasant, although not one of them dared to say it publicly.
At this point, it is worth noting that the well-known Armenian writer Arshak Chobanian who resided in Paris, shared General Antranig’s opinions about the dishonesty and treachery of the Young Turk leaders. As early as in 1903, he wrote the following in the Monthly “Anahid” which he published in Paris. “No good will come out of the Ittihad-Armenian Revolutionary Federation co-operation.”1 But the A.R.
Federation’s leaders never paid attention to his advice either; and they did the same with the advice of other knowledgeable Armenian leaders who were not members of the ARF. Ignoring the opinions of persons who were not members of the ARF was a party policy then that, unfortunately, continues to this day.
When the Turk government organized the Adana and Cilicia massacres in April 1909, exterminating more than 30,000 Armenians in a few days, the leaders of the ARF should have begun to seriously question the true intentions of the Young Turk leaders, Talaat, Enver and Djemal; but they did not. Instead, they continued to blindly trust their honesty, dependability and friendship. This, of course, was another colossal error on the part of the ARF leaders that compromised the precarious safety situation of the Armenians living in Ottoman Turkey.
Then, in July 1914, the ARF held its 8th General Conference in Erzrum (Garin). Three high-ranking members of the Turk government, Halil Bei, Najib Bei and Dr. B. Shakir, came immediately after the end of the Conference, and they asked to hold discussions with the representatives of the ARF. A meeting was held between the three Turk envoys and three of A.R. Federation’s top representatives, namely Agnouni, Vramian and Rostom, in which the Turk representatives proposed to the ARF representatives to convince their Caucasian party members to start a revolt against the Russian government in Caucasus, and in return they promised that the Turk government would give autonomy to the Armenian provinces of Kars, Van, Bitlis and part of Erzrum. “The Armenian representatives refused the proposal of the Turk envoys, but they promised that in case of war the people of the Western Armenian provinces will do their duty as Turk citizens by partaking in the conscription.”2
This commitment undertaken by the leaders of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation on behalf of the people of the Western Armenian provinces was the deadliest error ever committed in the annals of modern Armenian history, because conscription would leave the Armenian villages and towns totally defenseless, which was precisely the objective of the Turk leaders. Then in mid-Summer, the Turk government declared a general mobilization and conscribed about 250,000 able-bodied Armenian men in the Turkish army, and provided them military training for about two months. After that, the Turk government disarmed the Armenian soldiers, and placed them in the so-called “Amele-tabour” military units that in Turkish means workers’ units. The tasks of these men were to build military roads, fortifications and to carry supplies on their backs.
In the winter of 1914-1915, the Turk Government sent the Armenian conscripts to the Caucasus front where the Turkish army attempted to stop the advancing Russian army. There, on the Caucasian mountain ranges, in mid-winter, the Turks left the Christian conscripts without food and winter clothing. The majority perished of starvation and diseases. As for those conscripts who were able to survive until the Spring of 1915, the Turks forced them to dig their own mass graves, and then shot and buried them. “This was the tragic end of all Armenian conscripts, whose political, community and religious
leaders had recklessly advised them to partake in the conscription in the Summer of 1914.”3
The murder of the 250,000 Armenian conscripts was the first calculated stage of the colossal trap that had been set up by the Ittihadist Young Turk party leaders, and it paved the way for the final stage, namely the perpetration of the Armenian Genocide in April 1915. Unfortunately, the naïve and incompetent Armenian political party leaders and the equally incompetent and fearful leaders of the Armenian community and religious organizations, failed to see the rapidly developing multiple warnings of the approaching disaster which the Young Turk party leaders had been planning since 1908. When the orders of deportations and exterminations were sent to the Turk provincial governors in March, they were signed by Talaat who was the Minister of Interior and the chief responsible for the organization and execution of the Armenian Genocide. The inhuman attitude of the perpetrators of the crime of genocide is clearly shown in the following No.502 telegram which was sent to the government of Aleppo: “We recommend that the operations which we have ordered you to perform shall first be carried out involving certain people (Armenians) and that you shall subject women and children to the same fate also. Appoint trustworthy persons for the work.” September 9, 1915, Minister of Interior Talaat.” Dozens of similar telegrams were sent by Talaat Bay and his immediate colleagues in The Committee of Union and Progress, which Lord Bryce had justly described as “a gang of unscrupulous ruffians”.4
Are there any lessons Armenians can learn from the tragic events that were organized and perpetrated by the Young Turk government in Ottoman Turkey between 1908 and 1915? Yes, there are indeed. First, Armenians must never again trust the Turks. Modern historical events prove beyond any doubt that Mustafa Kemal and his Turk confreres were all dishonest and liars just like their predecessors Talaat, Enver and Djemal were. In fact, ever since the Armenian Genocide, Mustafa Kemal and his generals never forgot their supreme pan-Islamic objectives and they did everything in their power to destroy Armenia and to exterminate the remnants of the Armenian people that were still alive after the
Genocide. For example, on May 1918, the Commander of the Turk army on the Caucasus, Vehib Pasha, ordered three army divisions to occupy Yerevan in order to exterminate the remaining Armenian people, and erase once and for all the Armenian question from the annals of history. But the hungry and desperate remnants of the Armenian people put together a ragtag army of volunteers that beat the three Turk army divisions in the battles that raged for seven days on and around the hills of Sardarabad, Bash-Abaran and Garakilise, and forced the Turk armies to withdraw to the Araxes River. This glorious victory led to the declaration of Armenian Independence on May 28, 1918.
On November 29, 1920, Armenia became one of the Constituent Republics of the Soviet Union, and it ensured the Armenian people eight decades of peaceful development. In that period, education, industry and the arts flourished, and the threat of security from Turkey was permanently eliminated. Also, in that period there were serious encroachments on personal liberties in Armenia, and numerous individuals paid with their lives in the settlement of political accounts. Moreover, in the beginning of the infamous Stalinist era, the dictator Joseph Stalin unjustly removed the Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhichevan autonomous Oblasts off the jurisdiction of Armenia, and placed them under the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan, although the majority of their population consisted of Armenians.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the enmity between Armenia and Turkey resurfaced, when Azerbaijan, a protégé of Turkey, sent its army to crush the declaration of independence of Nogorno-Karabakh’s population; but the Nogorno-Karabakh defence army beat the invading Azerbaijani army and occupied a significant section of Azerbaijani territory that is held by Karabakh to this date as a buffer zone. Turkey, a staunch ally of Azerbaijan, in retaliation blocked the land routes leading to and from Armenia in order to destroy the economy of the land-locked Armenian Republic and force the Armenian government and Karabakh into submission. But in spite of the economic hardships caused by the illegal blockade, Armenia’s economy survived, and no Armenian government will ever be forced to abandon the people of Karabakh at the mercy of barbarian Azerbaijanis and the Turks.
Therefore, we are in an undeclared war with the Turks that began when the Government of Ottoman Turkey uprooted in April 1915, 2.5 million Armenians from their homelands where their ancestors lived from times immemorial, exterminated 1.5 million of them, while the survivors dispersed all over the world. It is precisely the reason why we are in an undeclared war with the Turks who vehemently deny that their parents and grandparents perpetrated the Armenian Genocide. Judging from the performance of the current Turk political and intellectual leaders, the current Turk generations are as dishonest and as big liars as their parents and grandparents were; and there are ample, trustworthy documentations, such as eyewitness accounts, photographs, the WW1 archives, newspaper accounts and history books that confirm that the leaders of the Ittihadist Turk government planned and perpetrated the Armenian Genocide.
Time is working against the extremist nationalist Turk elite leaders now. Turkey is surrounded by enemy and potential enemy countries. Moreover, 30 million Kurds living in Turkey have finally realized that they have been taken for a ride for 800 years by their treacherous Turk masters, and they have taken up arms with the assistance of their kin, who live in Northern Iraq and Northern Syria, and they demand their independence. The megalomaniac and deceitful character of the nationalist Turks will preclude them from finding a peaceful solution of the Kurdish problem. Therefore, we can predict that the current conflict will inevitably become more vicious in the distant future, and it may even cause a deadly civil war in Turkey.
In the meantime, Armenia’s sworn enemy, Turkey, and its junior ally, Azerbaijan, will spare no efforts to achieve their age-long objective of destroying Armenia. Fortunately, Russia, Armenia’s powerful ally provides a measure of security for the Republic of Armenia, but not for the Republic of Garabakh. Apparently, Russia is playing a nasty and dishonest game in Southern Caucasus which may hurt the security of Armenia and Garabakh. Therefore, it is the duty of all Armenians living in Diaspora to put aside our pitiful differences, and to unite in a single organization that must mount a supreme effort to help our brothers and sisters in Armenia and Garabakh in order to boost their morale, defensive needs, love for the fatherland and install in them the will to wait patiently for the right opportunity to realize our National Dream that has eluded us because of bad luck, inexperienced and naïve leaders, deadly and treacherous foes and unfaithful and self- serving allies.
Empty rhetoric, of any kind, will not do any more. The time has come for Diaspora’s political, social and religious organizations, as well as concerned individuals, to cooperate in the formation of a Pan-Armenian Diaspora Organization that would co-ordinate our efforts to support our fatherland.
If there is a will, there is always a way.
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1.Antranig Chelebian, General Antranig and the Armenian Revolutionary Movement. P.260.
2. Antranig Chalebian, General Antranig and the Armenian Revolutionary Movement, PP.278-279. Quoted from S. Vratsian’s book Gianki Oughinerov, PP.12- 13 -14.
3. Linda V. Avakian, The Cross and The Cresent, P27. Quoted by Antranig Chelebian in “General Antranig and The Armenian Revolutionary Movement. P.337.
4. Arnold J.Toynbee, Armenian Atrocities, P.35
Antranig Tatosian is a Montreal resident, author of a novel and several investigative publications.
