From: han@anadolu.michigan.com (hasan.b.mutlu)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish,talk.politics.mideast,talk.politics.soviet,soc.culture.soviet,soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.europe,soc.history,soc.culture.german
Subject: 'Milson' Is Combining Moral Arrogance With Historical Ignorance.
Date: 11 Apr 92 19:36:00 GMT


<1992Apr10.152618.14509@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca>
milson@gauss.math.mcgill.ca (Rob Milson)

>What are the conclusions which I drew from reading Rawlinson's book?
>The Armenians and the Muslims of the region were engaged in a bitter
>sectarian struggle.  The Armenians wanted revenge for what the Turks
>had done to them during WWI.  The muslims hated the Armenians.  

The only conclusion that can be gained here is that this type of
thinking has been the norm for 'a revisionist.' In all seriousness,
a brief research on the genocide of 2.5 million Muslims by the 
Armenians pinpoints you as the guilty candidate. Let me guess,
you are an intellectual sociopath, indifferent to truth, perhaps
just another propagandist frozen in the 1970s like a fly in amber,
combining moral arrogance with historical ignorance.

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.

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, even before the deportation orders were issued, 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, only a day after the deportation orders had been issued in
 Istanbul and long before news of them could have reached the east, 
 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."

>.....................  The muslims were not the defenseless victims
>Mutlu makes them out to be.  

Let us ask 'Dunn' - shall we?

Source: "World Alive, A Personal Story" by Robert Dunn. Crown Publishers, 
Inc., New York (1952), p. 363 (first paragraph). 
(Memoirs of an American officer who observed the Armenian genocide of 
2.5 million Muslims)

 '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."

Hasan B-) Mutlu

                     'Kill Turks and Kurds wherever you find them 
                      and in whatever circumstances you find them. 
                      Turkish children also should be killed as 
                      they form a danger to the Armenian nation.' 
                                     (Hamparsum Boyadjian - 1914)