He assumed his position as ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1917. Bernstorff conceded that the Ottoman policy against the Armenians was one of exterminating the race. Bernstorff provided a detailed account of the massacres in his memoirs entitled, "Memoirs of Count Bernstorff". In his memoirs, Bernstorff recounts a conversation that he had with Talat Pasha after the massacres were concluded: "When I kept on pestering him about the Armenian question, he once said with a smile: 'What on earth do you want? The question is settled, there are no more Armenians.'"