Batzaria also noted that Turkification alienated the Aromanians, who were thus divided and forced to cooperate with larger ethnic groups within their "millet" just before the First Balkan War, and that cooperation between them and the Bulgarians was already unfeasible before the Second War. According to Betzaria's anecdotal account, he and the Ottoman Armenian politician Gabriel Noradunkyan rescued Istanbul from a Bulgarian siege, by spreading false rumors about a cholera epidemic in the city. His explanation of World War I depicts the Central Powers alliance as a gamble by the most daring of the Young Turks. Deploring the repeated acts of violence perpetrated by the Ottomans against members of the Armenian community (Noradunkyan included), Batzaria also maintains that the Armenian genocide was primarily perpetrated by rogue Ottoman Army units, Hamidieh regiments and other Kurds. He claims to have unsuccessfully asked the Ottoman Senate to provide Armenians with weaponry against the "bandits carrying a "firman"".