From: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,soc.culture.turkish,talk.politics.mideast,talk.politics.soviet,soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.soviet,soc.rights.human,soc.culture.yugoslavia
Followup-To: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Re: Why was it easy to organize a genocide against 2.5 million Muslims?
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 92 11:52:12 EST
Reply-To: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Distribution: world

In article <1992Nov21.175250.14011@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> J.Theodore.Schuerzinger@dartmouth.edu (J. Theodore Schuerzinger) writes:

> >> All reliable Ottoman historians describe how Armenians ruthlessly
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >> exterminated 2.5 million Muslim women, children and elderly people of 
> >> Eastern Anatolia 

>When talking about wars and alleged massacres, there aren't many
>reliable reporters, especially when you're reporting on what your
>enemies are doing.  Perhaps a better term would be "All reliable
>Ottoman propagandists...."

A typical revisionist. Here, you descend into total inanity.
If you study the available historical records, you will save
yourself from both embarrassment and surprise.

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."

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: F. Kazemzadeh, "The Struggle for Transcaucasia," (New York, 1951),
pp. 69-77.

  This three-day massacre is recorded in history as the 'March Events' and 
  20,000 Turks, old people, women and children lost their lives.

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."

What is more, the activities of the Armenian revolutionaries seem to have been
efforts aimed at eradicating a race (the Turks) or aimed at carrying out a
one-sided feud, instead of being a struggle for liberation. From the outset,
the efforts of the Armenian revolutionaries within the Ottoman borders took
the form of terrorist and destructive actions aimed at mass murder, cruelty
and genocide, so that no other interpretation of them is possible. Armenian
activities started during the reign of Abdulhamid II as individual acts of
terror, and then developed into assassinations and surprise attacks. The element
of brute force in these activities increased steadily, culminating in mass
rebellions and widespread fighting during the First World War. Furthermore,
when the Ottoman army withdrew from Eastern Anatolia after the 1915 Sarikamis
defeat, Armenian revolutionaries initiated a series of cruelties in this area.
Although the Russians occupied Eastern Anatolia as an enemy, nevertheless they
were constrained by the rules of war. However, when they returned to their
country in 1917 after the Revolution, Armenian revolutionaries were unchecked
in this area for about a year until the Ottoman forces returned to Erzurum
in 1918. During this period, Armenian revolutionaries executed massacres on
the local people which is recorded in historical documents.[1]

For example, let us look at a report dated 21 March 1918 which the Commander
of the Third Army submitted when he entered Erzurum and Erzincan: "They were
completely and systematically destroyed and burned down by Armenians,
even the trees were cut down, and they are like a building entirely
consumed by fire in every sense of the word." As for the people who
had been living in Erzurum and Erzincan:

"Those who were capable of fighting were taken away at the very beginning
 with the excuse of forced labor in road construction, they were taken
 in the direction of Sarikamis and annihilated. When the Russian army
 withdrew, a part of the remaining people was destroyed in Armenian
 massacres and cruelties: they were thrown into wells, they were locked
 in houses and burned down, they were killed with bayonets and swords, in places
 selected as butchering spots, their bellies were torn open, their lungs
 were pulled out, and girls and women were hanged by their hair after
 being subjected to every conceivable abominable act. A very small part 
 of the people who were spared these abominations far worse than the
 cruelty of the inquisition resembled living dead and were suffering
 from temporary insanity because of the dire poverty they had lived
 in and because of the frightful experiences they had been subjected to.
 Including women and children, such persons discovered so far do not
 exceed one thousand five hundred in Erzincan and thirty thousand in
 Erzurum. All the fields in Erzincan and Erzurum are untilled, everything
 that the people had has been taken away from them, and we found them
 in a destitute situation. At the present time, the people are subsisting
 on some food they obtained, impelled by starvation, from Russian storages
 left behind after their occupation of this area."[2]
 
Foreign observers who witnessed the events, including Russian Officers
who did not desert their lines, submitted detailed reports proving the
genocide to Ottoman commanders who received them as prisoners of war.
What is most important is that they stated in their reports 'the 
massacres did not happen by chance but were planned.'[3]

At the end of the war, the German author Dr. Weiss, his Austrian colleague
Dr. Stein and his Turkish colleague Mr. Ahmet Vefik visited Trabzon, Kars,
Erzurum and Batum between April 17th and May 20th 1918 to record the
cruelties. Their writings not only show the scope of Armenian activities,
but also reveal their goal and true nature.[4]

[1] (The Ottoman State, the Ministry of War), "Islam Ahalinin Ducar Olduklari
    Mezalim Hakkinda Vesaike Mustenid Malumat," (Istanbul, 1918). The French
    version: "Documents Relatifs aux Atrocites Commises par les Armeniens sur
    la Population Musulmane," (Istanbul, 1919). In the Latin script: H. K.
    Turkozu, ed., "Osmanli ve Sovyet Belgeleriyle Ermeni Mezalimi," (Ankara,
    1982). In addition: Z. Basar, ed., "Ermenilerden Gorduklerimiz," (Ankara,
    1974) and, edited by the same author, "Ermeniler Hakkinda Makaleler -
    Derlemeler," (Ankara, 1978). "Askeri Tarih Belgeleri ...," Vol. 32, 83
    (December 1983), document numbered 1881.
[2] "Askeri Tarih Belgeleri ....," Vol. 31, 81 (December 1982), document
    numbered 1869.
[3] From Twerdo-Khlebof's report dated 29 April 1918; quoted in Ermeniler ...,
    Vol. 2, p. 275.
[4] A. R. (Altinay), "Iki Komite - Iki Kital," (Istanbul, 1919), and, "Kafkas
    Yollarinda Hatiralar ve Tahassusler" (Istanbul, 1919).

>> "Finos". Amazing creatures. With your level of understanding, I thought 
>                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>Those who have no facts generally revert to ad hominem attacks.

No kidding.

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."

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.

"Knowing their numbers would never justify their territorial ambitions,
 Armenians looked to Russia and Europe for the fulfillment of their aims.
 Armenian treachery in this regard culminated at the beginning of the First
 World War with the decision of the revolutionary organizations to refuse
 to serve their state, the Ottoman Empire, and to assist instead other
 invading Russian armies. Their hope was their participation in the Russian
 success would be rewarded with an independent Armenian state carved out of
 Ottoman territories. Armenian political leaders, army officers, and common
 soldiers began deserting in droves."

"With the Russian invasion of eastern Anatolia in 1914 at the beginning of
 World War I, the degree of Armenian collaboration with the Ottoman's enemy
 increased drastically. Ottoman supply lines were cut by guerilla attacks,
 Armenian revolutionaries armed Armenian civil populations, who in turn
 massacred the Muslim population of the province of Van in anticipation of
 expected arrival of the invading Russian armies."

Source: Stanford J. Shaw, "History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey,"
        Vol II. Cambridge University Press, London, 1979, pp. 314-317.

"...Meanwhile, Czar Nicholas II himself came to the Caucasus to make final
 plans for cooperation with the Armenians against the Ottomans, with the 
 president of the Armenian National Bureau in Tiflis declaring in response:

 'From all countries Armenians are hurrying to enter the ranks of the 
  glorious Russian Army, with their blood to serve the victory of Russian
  arms...Let the Russian flag wave freely over the Dardanelles and the
  Bosporus. Let, with Your will, great Majesty, the peoples remaining
  under the Turkish yoke receive freedom. Let the Armenian people of Turkey
  who have suffered for the faith of Christ receive resurrection for a new
  free life under the protection of Russia.'[155]

Armenians again flooded into the czarist armies. Preparations were made
to strike the Ottomans from the rear, and the czar returned to St. Petersburg
confident that the day finally had come for him to reach Istanbul."

[155] Horizon, Tiflis, November 30, 1914, quoted by Hovannisian, "Road to
Independence," p. 45; FO 2485, 2484/46942, 22083.

"Ottoman morale and military position in the east were seriously hurt, and
 the way was prepared for a new Russian push into eastern Anatolia, to be
 accompanied by an open Armenian revolt against the sultan.[156]"

[156] Hovannisian, "Road to Independence," pp. 45-47; Bayur, III/1, 
pp. 349-380; W.E.D. Allen and P. Muratoff, "Caucasian Battlefields,"
Cambridge, 1953, pp. 251-277; Ali Ihsan Sabis, "Harb Hahralaram," 2 vols.,
Ankara, 1951, II, 41-160; FO 2146 no. 70404; FO 2485; FO 2484, nos.
46942 and 22083.

"An Armenian state was organized at Van under Russian protection, and it 
 appeared that with the Muslim natives dead or driven away, it might be
 able to maintain itself at one of the oldest centers of ancient Armenian
 civilization. An Armenian legion was organized 'to expel the Turks from
 the entire southern shore of the lake in preparation for a concerted
 Russian drive into the Bitlis vilayet.'[162] Thousands of Armenians from
 Mus and other major centers in the east began to flood into the new 
 Armenian state...By mid-July there were as many as 250,000 Armenians
 crowded into the Van area, which before the crisis had housed and fed
 no more than 50,000 people, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.[163]"

[162] Hovannisian, "Road to Independence," p. 56; FOP 2488, nos. 127223 and
58350.

[163] BVA, Meclis-i Vukela Mazbatalari, debates of August 15-17, 1915; 
Babi-i Ali Evrak Odasi, no. 175, 321, "Van Ihtilali ve Katl-i Ami,"
Zilkade 1333/10 September 1915.

>> It is recorded in official Ottoman publications that even before the
>                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>There's a reliable, unbiased source for you.

Such is the case. 

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

"The addition of the Kars and Batum oblasts to the Empire increased the
 area of Transcaucasia to over 130,000 square miles. The estimated population
 of the entire region in 1886 was 4,700,000, of whom 940,000 (20 percent) were
 Armenian, 1,200,000 (25 percent) Georgian, and 2,220,000 (45 percent) Moslem.
 Of the latter group, 1,140,000 were Tatars. Paradoxically, barely one-third
 of Transcaucasia's Armenians lived in the Erevan guberniia, where the 
 Christians constituted a majority in only three of the seven uezds. Erevan
 uezd, the administrative center of the province, had only 44,000 Armenians
 as compared to 68,000 Moslems. By the time of the Russian Census of 1897,
 however, the Armenians had established a scant majority, 53 percent, in the
 guberniia; it had risen by 1916 to 60 percent, or 670,000 of the 1,120,000
 inhabitants. This impressive change in the province's ethnic character 
 notwithstanding, there was, on the eve of the creation of the Armenian 
 Republic, a solid block of 370,000 Tartars who continued to dominate the 
 southern districts, from the outskirts of Ereven to the border of Persia." 
 (See also Map 1. Historic Armenia and Map 4. Administrative subdivisions of 
 Transcaucasia).

In 1920, '0' percent Turk. 

"We closed the roads and mountain passes that might serve as 
 ways of escape for the Tartars and then proceeded in the work 
 of extermination. Our troops surrounded village after village. 
 Little resistance was offered. Our artillery knocked the huts 
 into heaps of stone and dust and when the villages became untenable 
 and inhabitants fled from them into fields, bullets and bayonets 
 completed the work. Some of the Tartars escaped of course. They 
 found refuge in the mountains or succeeded in crossing the border 
 into Turkey. The rest were killed. And so it is that the whole 
 length of the borderland of Russian Armenia from Nakhitchevan to 
 Akhalkalaki from the hot plains of Ararat to the cold mountain 
 plateau of the North were dotted with mute mournful ruins of 
 Tartar villages. They are quiet now, those villages, except for 
 howling of wolves and jackals that visit them to paw over the 
 scattered bones of the dead." 

                             Ohanus Appressian
                            "Men Are Like That"
                                   p. 202.

>> [1] "Ermeni Komitelerinin Amal...," p. 161, BBA, the Ministry of the
>>     Interior, Directorate General of Security, K: 47, 22 November 1914.
>>     It is also noted in the same file that there were wireless sets in
>>     Armenian schools (17 November 1914).
>> [2] "Ermeni Komitelerinin Amal...," p. 161; "Askeri Tarih Belgeleri,"
>>     Vol. XXXII, 83 (December 1983), documents numbered 1899-1915.

>So these are the sources?  These are about as biased as you can get. 

Just say so.

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)

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