From: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish,talk.politics.mideast,talk.politics.soviet,soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.europe,soc.history,soc.culture.soviet
Followup-To: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Where does "visserian"s revisionism stem from? His hate for Muslims?
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 92 21:55:06 EST
Reply-To: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Distribution: world

In article <visser.724534067@convex.convex.com> visser@convex.com (Lance Visser) writes:

>of his materials, the questions raised by his selective quoting 
>of materials or his misrepresentation of the opinions of the 
>scholars he quotes.

Where, when, how, by whom, "visserian"? So far I've introduced this
pathological liar to the bad things in life. Now, let me introduce
him to scholarly sources. By the way, they are free. Nobody ever 
complains about your picking them up. You can have all you can 
carry away. Some weed.

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: "U.S. Library of Congress:" 'Bristol Papers' - General Correspondence
Container #34.

 "While the Dashnaks were in power they did everything in the world to keep the
  pot boiling by attacking Kurds, Turks and Tartars; by committing outrages
  against the Moslems; by massacring the Moslems; and robbing and destroying
  their homes;....During the last two years the Armenians in Russian Caucasus
  have shown no ability to govern themselves and especially no ability to 
  govern or handle other races under their power."

Source: Quoted by General Hamelin in a letter to the High Commissioner,
February 2, 1919, in the official history, "Les Armees Francaises au Levant,"
vol. 1, p. 122.

 "They [Armenians] burned and destroyed many Turkish villages as punitive
  measures in their advance and practically all Turkish villages in their
  retreat from Marash."

Source: John Dewey, "The Turkish Tragedy", The New Republic, Volume 40, 
November 12, 1928, pp. 268-269.

 "that they [Armenians] boasted of having raised an army of one hundred 
  and fifty thousand men to fight a civil war, and that they burned at 
  least a hundred Turkish villages and exterminated their population."

Source: "From Sardarapat to Sevres and Lausanne" by Avetis Aharonian. The 
Armenian Review, Vol. 16, No. 3-63, Autumn, Sep. 1963, pp. 47-57.

p. 52 (second paragraph).

"Your three chiefs, Dro, Hamazasp and Kulkhandanian are the ringleaders
 of the bands which have destroyed Tartar villages and have staged 
 massacres in Zangezour, Surmali, Etchmiadzin, and Zangibasar. This is
 intolerable. Look - and here he pointed to a file of official documents
 on the table - look at this, here in December are the reports of the last
 few months concerning ruined Tartar villages which my representative
 Wardrop has sent me. The official Tartar communique speaks of the
 destruction of 300 villages."


p. 54 (fifth paragraph).

"Yes, of course. I repeat, until this massacre of the Tartars is stopped
 and the three chiefs are not removed from your military leadership I
 hardly think we can supply you arms and ammunition."

"...it is the armed bands led by Dro, Hamazasp and Kulkhandanian who
 during the past months have raided and destroyed many Tartar villages in
 the regions of Surmali, Etchmiadzin, Zangezour, and Zangibasar. There are
 official charges of massacres."


Source: "World Alive, A Personal Story" by Robert Dunn. Crown Publishers, 
Inc., New York (1952). 
(Memoirs of an American officer who witnessed the Armenian genocide of 2.5 
 million Muslim people)

p. 361 (seventh paragraph) and p. 362 (first paragraph).

 'The most are inside houses. Come you and look.'
 'No, dammit! My stomach isn't-'
 'One is a Turkish officer in uniform. Him you must see.'
 "We were under those trees by the mosque, in an open space....
 'I don't believe you," I said, but followed to a nail-studded door. The 
  man pushed it ajar, then spurred away, leaving me to check on the corpse. 
  I thought I should, this charge was so constant, so gritted my teeth and 
  went inside.

 The place was cool but reeked of sodden ashes, and was dark at first, for 
 its stone walls had only window slits. Rags strewed the mud floor around an 
 iron tripod over embers that vented their smoke through roof beams black 
 with soot. All looked bare and empty, but in an inner room flies buzzed. As 
 the door swung shut behind me I saw they came from a man's body lying face 
 up, naked but for its grimy turban. He was about fifty years old by what 
 was left of his face - a rifle butt had bashed an eye. The one left slanted, 
 as with Tartars rather than with Turks. Any uniform once on him was gone, so 
 I'd no proof which he was, and quickly went out, gagging at the mess of his  
 slashed genitals."

p. 363 (first paragraph). 

 'How many people lived there?'
 'Oh, about eight hundred.' He yawned.
 'Did you see any Turk officers?'
 'No, sir. I was in at dawn. All were Tartar civilians in mufti.'

 "The lieutenant dozed off, then I, but in the small hours a voice woke me - 
 Dro's. He stood in the starlight bawling out an officer. Anyone keelhauled
 so long and furiously I'd never heard. Then abruptly Dro broke into 
 laughter, quick and simple as child's. Both were a cover for his sense
 of guilt, I thought, or hoped. For somehow, despite my boast of irreligion,
 Christian massacring 'infidels' was more horrible than the reverse would
 have been.

 From daybreak on, Armenian villagers poured in from miles around.....
 The women plundered happily, chattering like ravens as they picked over
 the carcass of Djul. They hauled out every hovel's chattels, the last 
 scrap of food or cloth, and staggered away, packing pots, saddlebags, 
 looms, even spinning-wheels.

 'Thank you for a lot, Dro,' I said to him back in camp. 'But now I must 
 leave.'...We shook hands, the captain said 'A bientot, mon camarade.' And 
 for hours the old Molokan scout and I plodded north across parching plains. 
 Like Lot's wife I looked back once to see smoke bathing all, doubtless in 
 a sack of other Moslem villages up to the line of snow that was Iran.'"

p. 354.

"At morning tea, Dro and his officers spread out a map of this whole
 high region called the Karabakh. Deep in tactics, they spoke Russian,
 but I got their contempt for Allied 'neutral' zones and their distrust
 of promises made by tribal chiefs. A campaign shaped; more raids on
 Moslem villages."

p. 358.

"It will be three hours to take," Dro told me. We'd close in on three
 sides.
"The men on foot will not shoot, but use only the bayonets," Merrimanov
said, jabbing a rifle in dumbshow.
"That is for morale," Dro put in. "We must keep the Moslems in terror that
 our cruelty beats theirs."
"Soldiers or civilians?" I asked.
"There is no difference," said Dro. "All are armed, in uniform or not."
"But the women and children?"
"Will fly with the others as best they may."

p. 360.

"The ridges circled a wide expanse, its floors still. Hundreds of feet 
 down, the fog held, solid as cotton flock. 'Djul lies under that,' said 
 Dro, pointing. 'Our men also attack from the other sides.'

 Then, 'Whee-ee!' - his whistle lined up all at the rock edge. Bayonets
 clicked upon carbines. Over plunged Archo, his black haunches rippling;
 then followed the staff, the horde - nose to tail, bellies taking the
 spur. Armenia in action seemed more like a pageant than war, even though 
 I heard our Utica brass roar.

 As I watched from the height, it took ages for Djul to show clear. A tsing
 of machine-gun fire took over from the thumping batteries; cattle lowed,
 dogs barked, invisible, while I ate a hunk of cheese and drank from a snow
 puddle. Mist at last folded upward as men shouted, at first heard faintly.
 The came a shrill wailing.

 Now among the cloud-streaks rose darker wisps - smoke. Red glimmered about
 house walls of stone or wattle, into dry weeds on roofs. A mosque stood in
 clump of trees, thick and green. Through crooked alleys on fire, horsemen
 were galloping after figures both mounted and on foot.

 'Tartarski!' shouted the gunner by me. Others pantomimed them in escape
 over the rocks, while one twisted a bronze shell-nose, loaded, and yanked
 breech-cord, firing again and again. Shots wasted, I thought, when by
 afternoon I looked in vain for fallen branch or body. But these shots and
 the white bursts of shrapnel in the gullies drowned the women's cries.

 At length all shooting petered out. I got on my horse and rode down toward
 Djul. It burned still but little flame showed now. The way was steep and 
 tough, through dense scrub. Finally on flatter ground I came out suddenly,
 through alders, on smoldering houses. Across trampled wheat my brothers-in-
 arms were leading off animals, several calves and a lamb."

p. 361 (fourth paragraph).

"Corpses came next, the first a pretty child with straight black hair, 
 large eyes. She looked about twelve years old. She lay in some stubble 
 where meal lay scattered from the sack she'd been toting. The bayonet 
 had gone through her back, I judged, for blood around was scant. Between 
 the breasts one clot, too small for a bullet wound, crusted her homespun 
 dress.

 The next was a boy of ten or less, in rawhide jacket and knee-pants. He 
 lay face down in the path by several huts. One arm reached out to the 
 pewter bowl he'd carried, now upset upon its dough. Steel had jabbed 
 just below his neck, into the spine. 

 There were grownups, too, I saw as I led the sorrel around. Djul was 
 empty of the living till I looked up to see beside me Dro's German-speaking 
 colonel. He said all Tartars who had not escaped were dead."

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)