From: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish,talk.politics.mideast,talk.politics.soviet,soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.europe,soc.history
Followup-To: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Re: Apparently, we have another "weineramus" to contend with.
Date: Thu, 05 Nov 92 20:40:27 EST
Reply-To: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Distribution: world

In article <1992Nov3.193633.3990@newstand.syr.edu> crdunlea@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Christopher R. Dunlea) writes:

>Yeah. What a great historian you are! Too arrogant to even define an uncommon
>term. I haven't had a conversation like this since I left fourth grade,
>"dildo".

It does not show up in your diploma, "duldul". Now, when you have finished 
laughing I'd suggest you answer the points I've raised in my articles.
Just for the sake of discussion, I will omit all other massacres and
atrocities committed by the Armenians against the Turkish civilian
population during the numerous wars and war-like activities between
1914-20 and limit my comparison only to the activity of the Armenian
government between the Armistice and the last Turco-Armenian War in
1921 to that little more than two-year period when Armenia was a
recognized independent sovereign state and a state of peace between
Turkey and Armenia was existing.

I will leave aside all the savagery and massacres of Armenians, Armenian
irregular bands, and the Armenian Army, but will just mention to you the
greatest of all their endless crimes.

The two years of their independence was the only time in which they had
complete political control upon their alien population. The entire Turkish
population of Armenia (which they called Tartars) constituted at least about
40% of the total population of Armenia was deliberately exterminated. (For
the population statistics, please look to the book of Richard Hovannessian,
"Armenia on the Road to Independence.") I listed three books earlier of such
a monstrous crime by the writings of one Armenian, one American, and one
British. They are: "Men Are Like That" by Leonard A. Hartill; "Adventures
in the Near East, 1918-22" by A. Rawlinson; "World Alive, A Personal
Story" by Robert Dunn. Also, I personally have copies of documents of this 
crime by the writings of two Armenians and also one American. The official 
British report about this massacre mentioned in one of these documents 
(Lord Curzon-Aharonin interview) is the report of the British High 
Commissioner to Caucasia, Sir Oliver Wardrop.

By Rachel A. Bortnick 

"A more appropriate analogy with the Jewish Holocaust might be the
 systematic extermination of the entire Muslim population of the 
 independent republic of Armenia (which lasted from 1918 to 1921),
 which consisted of at least 30-40 percent of the population of that
 republic. The memoirs of an Armenian army officer who participated 
 in and eye-witnessed these atrocities was published in the U.S. in
 1926 with the title 'Men Are Like That.' Other references abound."

 1."Men Are Like That" by Leonard A. Hartill, Bobbs Co., Indianapolis, 
   1926

   Memoirs of an Armenian Army Officer translated to English and
   published by a member of American "Near East Relief Organization."
   Gives the whole account of the genocide of all Turkish and Moslem
   people in Armenia organized and executed by Armenian Government and
   Army. Also gives account of countless other massacres and atrocities
   against the Turkish people in Armenia.

 2."Adventures in the Near East, 1918-22" by A. Rawlinson,
   Dodd, Meade & Co., 1925

   Eyewitness account of the same genocide by a British Army Officer.

 3."World Alive, A Personal Story" by Robert Dunn,
   Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, 1952

   Another eyewitness account of the same genocide by an American 
   Officer.

 4."From Sardarapat to Serves and Lousanne" by Avetis Aharonian,
   The Armenian Review Magazine, Volume 15 (Fall 1962) through 17 
   (Spring 1964)

   Memoirs of the chief Armenian delegate to the Paris Peace Conference
   were published in the Armenian Review Magazine in 13 articles from
   Volume 15 (Fall 1962) to Volume 17 (Spring 1964). These memoirs 
   include an interview between Aharonian and British Foreign Minister 
   Lord Curzon in which above-mentioned genocide was discussed. The 
   official report mentioned by Lord Curzon is the report of British 
   High Commissioner to Caucasia, Sir Oliver Wardrop.

>>>>substantial evidence with respect to any connection between 
>>>>present-day Greece and ancient Greece. The prominent German
>>>>historian Jacop P. Fallmerayer published a treatise in 1830
>>>>and made the assertion that during the Middle Ages slavik
>>>>tribes poured into Greece and annihilated the entire Greek
>>>>population. Truly, can anyone see any resemblance between 
>>>>that beacon of ignorance and the ancient Greeks who created 
>>>>a civilization?
>>
>>>Why should that impress anyone? Nobody quotes any historian from the 
>>>1830's anymore, that is, nobody who values their reputation as an historian.
>>
>>Dr. Pierre Oberling does. See, you are a self-admitted liar.

>Where'd you come up with that pathological piece of illogic? I admit nothing
>except that historians, like myself, do not consider 160 year old books
>worth taking on face value. Oh, I am not Dr. Pierre Oberling, so I

In other words, if you were to line up on one side of the earth every
human being who ever lived or ever will live, and you took a good look
at the whole motley crowd, you wouldn't find anybody quite like you.

>cannot be a "self-admitted liar". Buy Webster's and look up "self-admitted".
>You'd learn a lot really if you bought a book written in this century, 
>Mutlu (oops, gotta use fake names here).

Give my regards to him. Well, anyway, leading the first Armenian units 
who crossed the Ottoman border in the company of the Russian invaders 
was the former Ottoman Parliamentary representative for Erzurum, Karekin 
Pastirmaciyan, who now assumed the revolutionary name Armen Garo. Another 
former Ottoman parliamentarian, Hamparsum Boyaciyan, led the Armenian 
guerrilla forces who ravaged Turkish villages behind the lines under the 
nickname "Murad", especially ordering that 

 "Turkish children also should be killed as they form a danger to the 
  Armenian nation." 

Another former Member of Parliament, Papazyan, led the Armenian 
guerrilla forces that ravaged the areas of Van, Bitlis and Mush.

In March 1915, the Russian forces began to move toward Van. Immediately,
in April 11, 1915 the Armenians of Van began a revolt, massacring all 
the Turks in the vicinity so as to make possible its quick and easy 
conquest by Russians. Little wonder that Czar Nicholas II sent a 
telegram of thanks to the Armenian Revolutionary Committee of Van in 
April 21, 1915, "thanking it for its services to Russia." The Armenian 
newspaper Gochnak, published in the United States, also proudly 
reported in May 24, 1915 that 

"only 1,500 Turks remained in Van the rest having been slaughtered."

>>>By the way, your analogy of "beacon of ignorance" stinks. The SAT people
>>>would flunk that one. You cannot have a "beacon" of ignorance any more
>>>that you can have a lightbulb shining darkness. See the Chicago Manual of
>>>Style.
>>
>>And your lack of intelligence has to be divinely inspired. As for your
>>darkness,

>Thank you for reinforcing my point. A "lack" cannot be inspired by God. 
>Once again, you prove that English is not your proficient language, So
>perhaps you need to take another English comp course before you post more
>sophomoric missimiles. 

Tell me "duldul", were you high on "weineramus" when you wrote that?
The Dashnaktsutiun revolutionary party had embarked into action without
losing time; it had initiated massacres even before a treaty was signed
between the Ottomans and the Russians. General Tovmas Nazarbekov 
(Nazarbekian), who was responsible for the Armenian massacres of the Muslims
between 1914 and 1917, was appointed commander to the Armenian army. This
army was established with the approval of General Przhevalsky, the Chief of
General Staff of the Russian Caucasian Armies, and was composed of three
brigades. The first brigade was placed under the command of bloodthirsty
adventurer General Dro (Drastamar Kanaian) who had massacred Muslims in
1914 and 1915; the second brigade was placed under the command of Colonel
Silikian, and the third one under the command of Antranik who had slaughtered
more than 600,000 Kurds between 1915 and 1916. These armies committed massacres
against the Muslims.[1]

[1] A. N. Kurat, "Turkiye ve Rusya, 1798-1919" (Ankara, 1975), p. 364-371. 

>>Source: Hovannisian, Richard G.: Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918.
>>University of California Press (Berkeley and Los Angeles), 1967, p. 13.

>1918, huh? I can smell the must from that academic dinosaur of a book. 

Are you suffering from a severe case of myopia? "1967".

>Perhaps you don't quote more recent books because they might depict the 
>Turks as the exploiters they were. Or maybe because those were the only 
>books you could steal from the Izmir City Library.

Here, you descend into total inanity.

Source: Bristol Papers, General Correspondence: Container #32 - Bristol
to Bradley Letter of September 14, 1920.

"I have it from absolute first-hand information that the Armenians in 
 the Caucasus attacked Tartar (Turkish) villages that are utterly 
 defenseless and bombarded these villages with artillery and they murder
 the inhabitants, pillage the village and often burn the village."

Source: W. E. D. Allen and Paul Muratoff, "Caucasian Battlefields," 
Cambridge University Press, 1953, p. 481.

"As the Armenians found support among the Reds (who regarded the Tartars
 as a counter-revolutionary elements) the fighting soon became a massacre
 of the Tartar population." 

Source: General Bronsart wrote as follows in an article in the July 24, 
1921 issue of the newspaper "Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung:"

"As demonstrated by the innumerable declarations, provocative pamphlets,
 weapons, ammunition, explosives, etc., found in areas inhabited by
 the Armenians, the rebellion had been prepared over a long time,
 organized, strengthened and financed by Russia. 

 Since all the Moslems capable of bearing arms were in the Turkish Army,
 it was easy to organize a terrible massacre by the Armenians against
 defenseless people, because the Armenians were not only attacking the
 sides and rear of the Eastern Army paralyzed at the front by the 
 Russians, but were attacking the Moslem folk in the region as well."

>[More usual genocidal rantings we've all come to expect from Sendar Mutlu]

Confused?

>>>Your use of the terms "Turkiye" and "Greece" are nationalist in tone. If you
>>>insist on using the term "Turkiye" we suggest using the native term for 
>>>Greece as well, "Hellas". This is only fair and out of respect to your
>>>appropriate subjects.
>>
>>Pieces of sanity are found washed ashore on all kinds of beaches these
>>days.
>>
>>>>Furthermore, the evolution of democracy leads one to believe that
>>>>the cradle of democracy is really in England, rather than in Greece.
>>>>The Greek version of 'democracy' was purely an accident. It was a 
>>>>product of the love of fallacy and a passion for sophistry of the 
>>>>ancient Greeks. No mechanism or method to make it worth was set 
>>>>forth, save a loose oratory. On the other hand, the British adapted 
>>>>fantasy, and made it work. Had democracy really been an inherent 
>>>>virtue of Greeks would it have dragged its feet for so long to come 
>>>>to Greece? Even today, democracy is just so much as a catchword among 
>>>>the tourism slogans of Greece - not much substance and a lot of aura.

>[Pertinent stuff deleted to quote out of context]

No kidding.

>>>Yes, and it is good that the Turkish state makes no pretense to being 
>>>anything  other than it really was throughout history: A) a xenophobic, 
>>>racially structured empire based on Janissaries and slave labor, or 
>>
>>Omy. Apparently, we have another "weineramus" to contend with. You should 
>>indeed be happy to know that you rekindled a huge discussion on distortions 
>>propagated by several of your contemporaries. If you feel that you can 
>>simply act as an Armenian/Greek governmental crony in this forum you will 
>>be sadly mistaken and duly embarrassed. This is not a lecture to another 
>>historical revisionist, but a fact. The following observations by Westerners 

>Not likely, babe. This ain't nearly as embarrassing as having my email
>account confiscated due to flooding the band with racial slurs and slanderous
>statements (which are a felony here in the States). Besides, I refuse
>to use words like "weineramus" (a thin cut of breaded veal?) that ican't
>readily give the definition to. That's just plain stupid, Mutlu Man.

As usual, all your article reflects is your abundant ignorance, "duldul".

Source: Stanford J. Shaw, on Armenian collaboration with invading Russian
armies in 1914, "History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (Volume
II: Reform, Revolution & Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808-1975)."
(London, Cambridge University Press 1977). pp. 315-316.

"In April 1915 Dashnaks from Russian Armenia organized a revolt in the city 
 of Van, whose 33,789 Armenians comprised 42.3 percent of the population, 
 closest to an Armenian majority of any city in the Empire...Leaving Erivan 
 on April 28, 1915, Armenian volunteers reached Van on May 14 and organized 
 and carried out a general slaughter of the local Muslim population during 
 the next two days while the small Ottoman garrison had to retreat to the
 southern side of the lake."

>>"If Turks had behaved like Christians to use force to convert to Islam the
>>nations which they brought under their power, to which no one could have
>>opposed, today there would be no Eastern problem. But Turks did not do so. 
>>They obeyed the word of the Koran to permit everybody "to worship in their own
>>way" centuries before Frederick the Great pronounced his famous dictum. Thus,
>>in an age when the Christian Europe itself shed Christian blood and when 
>>people in Europe enjoyed inflicting inhuman tortures upon those whose beliefs
>>differed from theirs, the Ottoman Empire became the sole country where the
>>inquisition did not exist, where deaths at the stake were unheard of and 
>>where accusations of witchcraft were not made. And the barbarian (!) Turkey
>>was the only country where the Jews persecuted and chased away everywhere
>>by the Christians, could find asylum. These facts demonstrate that Muslim
>>countries provided spiritually far better living conditions than Christian
>>countries."[1]

>How touching. So the Crusades, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Seige of
>Vienna never happened! Not to mention slavery and piracy. I'm glad you
>cured up that misconception for me. Now that I think about it, I did
>notice the milk flowing from the mountains when I visited Ephesus. THat'
>explains everything.

Geeez, sounds familiar.

Source: Professor Stanford J. Shaw, 'The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the
        Turkish Republic,' New York University Press, New York (1991).

  page 188:

   <<The invading armies of Russia and Austria as well as the revolting
   nationalists and, later, successfully established independent Christian
   states, committed systematic genocide against Jews and Muslims throughout
   the nineteenth century, despite Great Power admonitions to the contrary
   in the treaties of Paris (1858) and Berlin (1878),...>>

  page 188:

  <<...As the peoples of Southeastern Europe achieved their independence,
   their Muslim and Jewish minorities were systematically persecuted and
   massacred, and those who survived were driven beyond the ever-shrinking
   boundaries of the retreating Ottoman Empire in a kind of slaughter which
   had not been seen since the dispersal of the Jews from Palestine centuries
   earlier.

   This sort of genocide had begun as long before as the late sixteenth
   century, with the Rumanian Principalities taking the lead, as united
   Rumania did subsequently during the later years of the nineteenth
   century. In 1579 the ruler of Moldavia, Peter the Lame, banished its
   Jews because of their competition with its Christian merchants. When
   Prince Micheal the Brave revolted against the Ottomans in the Rumanian
   principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia in 1593, he ordered the massacre
   of all the Jews as well as Turks in Bucharest. Many Jews immigrated to
   Rumania in the late seventeenth century as a result of the Chmielnicki
   massacres in Poland and the Ukraine, but this added to Rumanian popular
   anti-Semitism, with the encouragement of the Cossacks, who at times
   invaded the Pricipalities and murdered Jews and Muslims alike. Greek
   Orthodox churches in Rumania declared all Jews to be heretics, forbad
   all relations with them on pain of excommunication, and refused to allow
   their testimony to be accepted in courts. After the Ottomans regained
   control and turned the Pricipalities over to the Istanbul-based Greek
   Phanariotes, Jews were re-admitted with special charters, exempting them
   from taxes and providing special places for temples, cemeteries and the
   like, but this enraged the Rumanian masses even more. They became
   particularly hostile to the Jews because of their defense of the Ottomans
   who protected them. Ritual murder charges and anti-Semitic tracts led to
   anti-Jewish riots in Bucharest in 1801. When Russian forces occupied the
   Principalities in 1806-12, therefore, Jews again were subjected to intense
   persecution. The Jews of Ruscuk fled across the Danube after the Russian
   'liberators' had burned their synagogue and the rest of the Jewish quarter
   to the ground. After the Russians left, most of the refugees returned,
   only to be subjected to similar violance both by the Russian troops and
   the local Rumanian population in 1811, and again in 1828.

   This sort of slaughter continued well into the nineteenth century. When
   the Greeks revolted against Ottoman rule many Greek volunteers coming from
   Russia and the Principalities to join in the effort slaughtered and
   plundered the Jewish communities along their paths as they went through
   Moldavia and Wallachia toward Greece. During the Russian occupation
   of the Principalities between 1835 and 1856, Jews were actively persecuted
   on the Russian model, with laws denying them citizenship, forbidding them
   from settling in the countryside, leasing land, or establishing factories
   in the urban communities, all because of the prevailing belief that they
   had exploited the Rumanians during the centuries of Ottoman rule.>>

  page 191 (last paragraph):

  <<Persecution of Jews was most virulent during the later years of the
   nineteenth century in Rumania, which had a population of 134,168 Jews
   in 1871, in a predominantly Orthodox country. Jews as well as Muslims
   were massacred, persecuted and driven out as part of the process by which
   independence was achieved [22]. Jews were forbidden to own property and
   to acquire nationality, though they were at times able to get around
   these rules through bribery and the use of third parties. Jews unable
   to find work were often expelled from one town after the other until
   they finallly were huddled together into dirty and insanitary ghettos
   in the larger towns and cities, where they were despised by the Rumanians
   as dirty and unsanitary menaces to public health. In 1866, during the
   course of anti-Semitic demonstrations organized by the police, the
   principal Jewish synagogue in Bucharest was demolished and the Jewish
   quarter plundered by Rumanian nationalist mobs. The new Rumanian
   constitution restricted citizenship to Christians. Thousands of Jews
   were expelled from villages, and Jews who were not citizens were expelled
   from the country. Large number of Jewish refugees from Russia,
   particularly from the southern provinces and Crimea, came to Rumania
   in 1865 as a result of persecutions resulting from the Crimean War.
   In 1867, as a result of this new Jewish emigration, local police
   arrested Jews in the streets, dragging them off to prison in chains.
   Self-organized popular courts organized house-to-house searches, tried
   and sentenced their jewish captives and deported them. The anti-Semitic
   press, for the most part operated by unemployed Rumanian teachers,
   incited the Orthodox masses against the Jews, saying that the latter
   had stolen their property, with British protests against these outrages
   being rejected by Prince Carol and the government, which stated blandly
   that there were no such persecutions.>>

  page 194:

  <<The Rumanian reaction to the Treaty of Berlin was far stronger, and
   its anti-Semitism far more severe and lasting. After 1885 Rumanian
   Jews were excluded from the professions. In 1893, Rumanian Jews were
   expelled from all public schools, and many Jewish political leaders
   and journalists were summarily expelled from the country, even those
   who had participated actively in the Rumanian War for Independence.
   They were not allowed to be lawyers, teachers, chemists, railroad
   officials, doctors in state hospitals, army officers or stock brokers
   and they were forbidden from selling commodities controlled by government
   monopolies, such as tobacco, salt and alcohol, causing 41,754 jews, out
   of a total of 262,348, to emigrate between 1899 and 1905 [25].>>

  page 210:

  <<..It was Jews and Muslims against the Christians, with the Jews extremely
  grateful for the protection provided by the Ottoman government.
  The AIU [Alliance Israelite Universelle, Paris] reported in 1893:

     'There are but few countries, even among those which are considered
     the most enlightened and the most civilized, where Jews enjoy a more
     complete equality than in Turkey. H.M. the Sultan and the government
     of the Porte display toward Jews a spirit of largest toleration and
     liberalism. In every respect, Abdul-Hamid proves to be a generous
     sovereign and a protector of his Israelite subjects...The unflinching
     attachment of Jews to His Person and to the Empire is the only way
     in which they can express their gratitude. Thus, the Sultan as well as
     his officials know that Jews are among the most obedient, faithful and
     devoted subjects of Turkey.' [49]>>

  page 211:

  <<....Abdul Hamid II admitted large numbers of Jewish refugees from
  Rumanian persecution [54] and Russian pogroms [55] almost as soon as
  the latter began on a large scale in 1881, and continued to admit them
  in large numbers during the remaining years of his reign, showing very
  clearly that whatever were his reasons for opposing Jewish settlement
  in Palestine, anti-Semitism as such was not among them.>>


[22] Rumanian persecution of its Jews is described in detail in Carol Iancu,
    Les Juifs en Roumanie, 1866-1919 (University of Provence, France, 1978).

[25] BAIU [Bulletin de l'Alliance Israelite Universelle] no.29, Annee 1904,
    (Paris, 1904), pp.53-55.

[49] BAIU no.18 (1893), pp.38-39.

[54] Fresco (Istanbul) to AIU (Paris), 1 August, 19 August and 30 August
    1900 (AIU Archives II-C-8). El Tiempo, 20 May 1900.

[55] AIU Archives I C 7.

Serdar Argic

                     'This war quickly developed into one of extermination. 
                      We closed the roads and mountain passes that might 
                      serve as ways of escape for the Tartars [Turks] and 
                      then proceeded in the work of extermination.'
                                                       (Ohanus Appressian)