Fall of Armenia: Chapter 6
Fall of Armenia Chapter 6: The Cilician Genocides and the Civil War
45 days after April 1, 1909, the Young Turks under Talaat and Enver organized anti-Armenian massacres in Adana. The anti-Armenian violence spread into the surrounding areas. The Young Turks sent “peace-keeping” forces, but again on April 12, the massacres continued intensely. 30,000 Armenians had lost their lives in this short amount of time.
Grigor Zohrab, an Armenian who was a member of the Ottoman Parliament, demanded that an investigation be carried out. Hilmi Pasha responded that he had received reports of what was happening and was outraged that such atrocities could occur in a country with a constitution. Fayik Bey, Hakob Babikian, and Yusuf Kemal, three deputies, were going to be sent to Adana.
More reports reached the capital. This time, the reports stated that ten Armenians who were carrying arms (Armenians were not allowed to have arms, while Kurds and Turks were allowed to) had attempted to defend themselves from the mobs and were going to be sent to the gallows.
Meanwhile, chaos engulfed Constantinople when from April 13-27, Abdul Hamid II attempted to overthrow the Young Turks. Talaat Pasha was able to hide for the duration of this revolt in an Armenian club. Khalil Bey hid in the home of Grigor Zohrab. Abdul Hamid II seemed close to absolute victory when Young Turk forces under Mahmud Shevket Pasha counterattacked. Armenian civilians aided the Young Turks forces in directing their bombardments for maximum effect against the Sultan’s troops. By April 27th, Shevket had defeated Abdul Hamid II, and the latter was exiled to Salonika, and subsequently Magnesia.
Fayik Bey, Hakob Babikian, and Yusuf Kemal returned to Constantinople with their reports. Fayik Bey and Yusuf Kemal blamed both sides for the violence. A few days before Babikian was to present his report, he died. The official explanation of his death was a heart attack, but many people were suspicious that the Young Turks took him out because of what his reports stated:
“Before the massacres, the Turkish authorities incited the mob against the Armenians by spreading false rumors that the Armenians were arming to massacre the Moslem inhabitants of the city [Adana]; that the Armenians had abducted and raped their Moslem women; that Armenian youths had ‘sinful’ relations with Moslem girls; and that they had defiled holy Moslem shrines.
During the Hamidian Massacres, women and children were sometimes spared. In Adana, women and children were not only not spared, but they were burned alive along with the sick and wounded, as in the case of the immolation of 150 wounded Armenians who had taken shelter in the Abgarian School.”
Babikian went on to state that Young Turk officials of the Ittihad ve Terakki had been factors in the organization and incitement of the massacres. Babikian’s report can be corroborated with other evidence from more neutral sources, like the American historian Dr. Herbert Adams Gibbons, who witnessed the Adana massacres:
“In April 1909, I was in Adana when the loyalty of the Armenians was compensated with the massacre of thirty thousand in Cilicia and Northern Syria.”
Denis Chochin of the French Chamber of deputies concluded:
“All the information confirms the European press reports that the Ottoman Army took part n the slaughter of Adana. The second carnage, on April 25, was perpetrated by troops which, coming from Dedeaghaj, were supposedly supposed to stop the massacres.”
Andranik, in Egypt at the time, heard about the massacres that had taken place in Cilicia. He knew that even after these atrocities of the Young Turks, the Armenians would not stop being loyal to them. Andranik pleaded to Aknuni (an ARF official):
“You can be sure that the Young Turks will do the same thing to you one day.”
Andranik was right. The ARF became a little suspicious of the Young Turks and what they really had in mind for the Armenians. The Young Turks sensed the suspicion and wrote to them:
“The roots of the new order are not very deep yet, and the influence of the conservatives is still too strong on the mob.”
Other than Andranik, Tigran Amirjanian and Arshak Chobanian foresaw the coming doom of the Armenians at the hands of the Young Turks. Chobanian even stated that after the Young Turks were firmly in power, they would not tolerate any non-Moslem minorities in Anatolia.
The Armenian poet Siamanto also was disheartened by the massacres. However, in 1910, Siamanto wrote poetry about the new peaceful order established by the Young Turks, stating:
“From the day you were born until now,
This year is the first year
When the red grapes of Armenia’s
Vineyards -tell your brother-
Reddened without blood.”
Siamanto was eventually murdered in 1915 by the Young Turks.
Andranik, in late 1909, returned to Varna, Bulgaria, where he repaired shoes for a living.
Stay tuned for the next chapter which will detail those fateful years before 1915: The Balkan Wars, the Revival of the Armenian Question, and the Final Debacle of the ARF Bureau.
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Originally Posted by karo
