From: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish,talk.politics.mideast,talk.politics.soviet,soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.europe,soc.history
Subject: The genocide of 2.5 million Muslims by the Armenians between 1914-1920.
Date: 1 Sep 92 23:39:07 GMT
Article-I.D.: zuma.9209022011.A3809Yb





<EDVAX.92Sep2094837@pyrite.usenet>
edvax@pyrite.SOM.CWRU.edu (Weyland Yutani Ltd)

>	Another Mutlu (Mother of All Quotations) virus has appeared.
>Get yourself immunized!

Have a nice "ya-ak yutmalar".

>	[ LOTS OF DRIVEL MANURE by sera@zum.uucp DELETED ]
>	[ YAK YAK YAK, PUKE PUKE PUKE ]

What's your problem with this?

<1991Oct3.172736.6356@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
ahmet@eecg.toronto.edu (Ahmet Parlakbilek)
Subject: Re: Encyclopedia Britannica

As this will be an indirect reply to Mr.Sommarskog and Mr. Ko"ro~si,
I am crossposting this to s.c.e.

In article <TT.91Oct2162124@euler.jyu.fi> tt@euler.jyu.fi (Tapani Tarvainen) writes:
>
>Ahmet Parlakbilek (ahmet@eecg.toronto.edu) writes:
>>I suggest you read real history books instead of "Brittanica".The same
>>"Brittanica" also mentions that 1.5 million Armenians died in East
>>Anatolia between 1914-1923 (written by an Armenian).
>
>The 15th edition of Encyclopedia Britannica (1982) says, in the
>article titled "Urartu and Armenia" that "it is estimated that about
>600,000 Armenians died"; I didn't notice any reference to 1.5 million.
>(I didn't check the cross-references to see if such might appear
>in another article, though.)
>
>--
>Tapani Tarvainen    (tarvaine@jyu.fi, tarvainen@finjyu.bitnet)

Well, as Hasan mentioned, it depends on the edition.In fact, within the
_same_ edition EB gives different numbers.

For example, in 1989 edition, the number of Armenian victims can be seen 
in three (at least) different places:

Under the title "Armenia", page 565, the following is written:
"In 1915 the Ottoman government ordered about 1,750,000 Armenians deported
to Syria and Mesopotomia.Approximately 600,000 died in the desert en route."

Under the title "Armenian", page 565, the following is written:
"In 1915, the Turks, regarding the Armenians as a dangerous foreign element,
decided to deport the entire Armenian population of about 1,750,000 
to Syria and Palestine.An estimated 600,000 died of starvation or were
killed en route."

Under the title "Armenian massacres", page 567, it is as follows:
"Armenians from the Caucasus region formed volunteer battalions to help
the Russian Army against the Turks.Early in 1915, these battalions 
organized the recruiting of Turkish Armenians from behind the Turkish lines.
The Turkish government ordered the deportation of the Armenian population
to Syria and Palestine, in the course of which more than 1,000,000 died of
starvation or were killed by Turkish soldiers and police and hundreds of 
thousands were forced into exile."

Within two pages, the number was raised from `approximately 600,000'
to `more than 1 million'.

Is this the `credible' source Mr. Sommerskog?
Is this the `single most respected general reference all over 
the world', Mr. Ko"ro~si?   

More serious conflicts may be found between the information
given in two different editions.

For example, in 1910 edition (also in 1902 edition), on page 564, 
the following was written:
"Accurate statistics cannot be obtained; but it is estimated 
that in the nine vilayets, which include Turkish Armenia, there
are 925,000 Gregorian, Roman Catholic and Protestan Armenians,
645,000 other Christians, 100,000 Jews and gypsies, &c., and
4,460,000 Muslims."

Now, let's return back to 1989 edition.Number of people
deported is given as 1,750,000.

How can Ottoman Empire, then, according to 1989 edition,
deport 1,750,000 Armenians, if there are only 925,000
Armenians in the region? ( I can understand 10-20% error, but
100% sounds too much.)

BTW, the number 925,000 is consistent with the
numbers given by Justin McCarthy (Muslim And Minorities
Table 6.1), Kemal Karpat and the leader of Armenian National
Commitee, Boghos Nubar Pasha (in a letter to French minister).

Again, `1,750,000' of EB is a `mistake', if I `put it mildly'.

I checked some editions of EB:
1902-1910-1926-1929-1934-1947-1961-1964-1970-1974-1989 and there are
other inaccuracies and conflicts, which might be found easily.
However, I am unable to find and present the edition, which is
supposed to have the number 1,5 million.Nevertheless, I believe the
above cases are strong enough to refute the credibility stories of
Mr. Ko"ro~si and Mr. Sommarskog.

The reason I insisted on the number 1,5 million was because of two
reasons:
1) An Armenian claimed that `even EB mentions 1.5 million Armenian deads'.
2) In a `propaganda booklet', I read the following:"In addition, Armenians
in the early years after the war, as well as 1918 edition of EB also gave 
the 600,000 figure.The EB figure, was later revised to 1,5 million when
the article was authored by an Armenian.In the 1918 edition of the EB, the
article was written by a British author."

The real problem of EB, however, is its heavy bias on the same issue.
For a moment, let's assume that x Armenians were killed in 1915.
What's the reason for those massacres? 
Were there any victims from the other side?

If you try to answer those questions from EB, the explanations are
as follows:
1989 Edition:
a) "Armenians were regarded as a dangerous foreign element."
b) "Armenians from the Caucasus region formed volunteer battalions to help
the Russian Army against the Turks.Early in 1915, these battalions
organized the recruiting of Turkish Armenians from behind the Turkish lines." 

1961 Edition:
"When the Turks entered World War I, the Armenian leaders assured them of
their loyalty.Harsh Turkish requisition and ill treatment of Armenian troops
in the army caused friction.On May 27, 1915, alleging Armenian lack of
loyalty, the Turkish government decided to deport the whole Armenian 
population to Syria and Mesopotamia." (IMHO, bullshit, why should the
government deport the `whole' population because of friction in the army?
and why should the Armenian troops be ill treated, while they were
fighting with Russians?)

1964 Edition:
"In 1915, the Turks, regarding the Armenians, despite pledges of loyalty,
as a dangerous foreign element with friends among the enemies who had
launched a campaign against the Dardanelles and with brothers in the Russian
armies on their eastern front, decided to deport the whole Armenian
population of 1,750,000 to Syria and Mesopotamia."

There are  contradictions and inaccuracies in those sentences, too.But,
the important point is that, they, except for 1989 Edition part b, totally 
deviate from the real reason of the deportation decision.

There is NOT a single line, even a single word, that mentions the Muslim
victims of East Anatolia and today's Armenia.Here is the great bias and
misleading information presented by EB, and the `propaganda booklets'
written by eminent historians show this bias, leaving no doubt to a
decent reader.

Let me finish my article with a few lines from `propaganda booklets',
which answers my two questions.

Source: William L. Langer, "The Diplomacy of Imperialism", New York
(Alfred A. Knopf) pp.157-160.
Concerning the reason for deportation:
"..One of the revolutionaries told Dr. Hamlin, the founder of Robert
College [in Istanbul], that the Hunchak bands would `watch their opportunity
to kill Turks and Kurds, set fire to their villages, and make their escape
into the mountains.The enraged Moslems will then rise, and fall upon the
defenseless Armenians and slaughter them with such barbarity that Russia 
will enter in the name of humanity and Christian civilization and take 
possession.'[Date: 1888]"

Source: Justin Mc Carthy, "The Anatolian Armanians 1912-1922", 1984.
Concerning the Muslim deaths and the real situation:
"To understand the end of the Armenian presence in Anatolia one must
remember that the Armenian disaster came in time of war -- World War
I and the Turkish War of Independence.The numbers used by demographers
are of limited use in describing war.They will not tell us who fired
the first shot, nor label those responsible for the bloodshed.They 
only count the dead.We now know from reliable statistics that slightly
less than 600,000 Anatolian Armenians died in the wars of 1912-22, not 1.5
or 2 million, as is often claimed.Not that 600,000 is a small number.The
Armenians suffered a terrible mortality.But when considering the number of
dead Armenians, one must also consider the numbers of dead Muslims.
The statistics tell us that 2.5 million Anatolian Muslims died as well,
most of them Turks.In the Six Vilayets, the Armenian homeland, more than 
one million Muslims died.These Muslims, no less than the Armenians, suffered 
a terrible mortality."

Prof. McCarthy's account is the one I rely on, not EB.

Regards,
Ahmet PARLAKBILEK 
PS. Mr. Ko"ro~si, I am still waiting for your response...

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)
Xref: sparky soc.culture.turkish:9401 talk.politics.mideast:19209 talk.politics.soviet:7390 soc.culture.greek:8098 soc.culture.europe:7801 soc.history:7782