Armenian Genocide: Truth or Fiction??..

[The Noble Lord]

Due to the advice by the moderator and request by one of the members we are opening up this thread about Armenian Genocide because it's more suitable to be in the VV section of D&D.
This thread is the continuation of the Mudpit's thread "Parliament of Sweden approved resolution recognizing Armenian Genocide". That thread would be closed shortly. Thank you all for your kind participation.

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Originally Posted by TheDarkLordSeth
Except Ottoman Empire was in no condition comparable to Nazi Germany. Germany was strong and the prosecution of Jews started before Germany got into a real fight. Ottoman Empire was an empire only in name and was a thousand times weaker then Nazi Germany.

It's true that Ottoman Empire was not strong as Germany in 1939 but that argument doesn't mean anything really. After all in 1915 Ottoman Empire was a state, a national-political entity. It was a state, and it turned against the Armenians who were probably the most loyal and industrious of all the other Ottoman citizens. Same like in 1939, Germany turned on its citizens, same with the Ottoman Empire in 1915. Same thing really, state with all its apparatus and capabilities turning on a group of people that are its citizens, that all it was, it's not hard to understand!

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All of them are Christians who view Muslims as inferior and most of them hardly left their post having their only source as the Armenians.

That doesn't really make a good argument, why is it so important they were all Christians. At that time there was no worldwide Christian conspiracy against the Turks. In reality, Henry Morgenthau was Jewish and German ambassador Baron von Wangenheim was pro-Turkish 110%. Other members of Constantinople diplomatic corp were saying that he was more Ottoman than Enver and Talaat. And Austro-Hungarian ambassador was Ottoman ally and had no love lost for the Armenians really. As for the missionaries, they were there and they reported what they saw, if they were so anti-Turkish then they would not have helped Turkish Red Crescent and thousands of Turkish and Kurdish peasants that were suffering from famine, pestilence and epidemics. And missionaries, German officers and certain members of foreign embassies were in Anatolia and other parts such as Van, Diyarbakir, Erzerorum and others, and they saw themselves what was going on.

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Henry Morgenthau is famous for his anti-Turkish stand.

Henry Morgethau only developed anti-Turkish views after 1915 and that was because he saw what was happening. Before that he was considered somewhat of the Orientalist and that is why he was send to an ambassador to Turkey in 1913.

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Even the Germans were not that fond of Turks and they were first Christians which enabled them to ignore the suffering Muslims and focus on Armenians.

C'mon mate, Germans couldn't care less about Armenians or anybody else for that matter in 1915, they were only concerned on how to have Turkey as an ally and how to win the war. In true spirit of Prussian militarism their only obsession was on how to make Germanic empire that would involve subservient Turkey and that was it. Furthermore, they didn't give a heck for religion at that time, their ambassador and majority of their stuff were atheists much like the CUP leadership. Again, they just reported what they saw happening all around them and that was it, there was no hidden agenda or conspiracy to undermine their ally!

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As any intelligible person can see all the accounts are simply emotional and biased statements given by Christians.

As I said, those statements were made by the first-hand observers and religion factor didn't play the role there. In Belgium there were terrible accounts of German war crimes against the Belgian civilians and they were also reported by first-hand observers. So Christians reported other Christians therefore you can't reason that people did it because of their religious affiliation!

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The statements of Talat Pasha and Bedri bey hardly shows that they ordered the killings.

Talaat Pasha was number one person ruling Turkey together with Enver Pasha and Bedry Bey was the chief of Constantinople Police and one of the key people in the CUP leadership. The triumvirate of Talaat, Enver and Djemal were the government and just below them were people like Bedry Bey.

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The Armenians have been a problem not just in the WWI but just before WWI too.

They were never really a problem before 1895-97 and Hamidiye massacres. In reality they were the most productive, industrious and loyal of all the Ottoman subjects. All the major industries, commerce and so many other things were build and run by the Armenians and they were huge contributors to the Imperial treasury. I mean, huge. But in 1895 for reasons known to him, Sultan Abdul Hamid started massacres against them and probably up to 150.000 were killed. Then you had Adana massacre in 1909 and large number of them was also decimated. So they had to resist. And when the CUP first took power it was all energetic and it sincerely wanted to make things better and it wanted to make empire to be inclusive of all and to be progressive. When they deposed Abdul Hamid, the CUP genuinely wanted Ottoman empire to become a democracy, with a parliament, a responsible ministry, universal suffrage, equality of all citizens before the law, freedom of speech and of the press, and all the other essentials of a free, liberty-loving state. And they were truthfully sincere in their intention to transform Turkey.

In a speech in Liberty Square, Thessaloniki, in July 1908, Enver Pasha, who was popularly regarded as the chivalrous young leader of this insurrection against a century-old tyranny, had eloquently declared that, "Today arbitrary government has disappeared. We are all brothers. There are no longer in Turkey Bulgarians, Greeks, Armenians, Romanians, Mussulmans, Jews. Under the same blue sky we are all proud to be Ottomans." That statement represented the Young Turk ideal for the new Turkish state, but it was an ideal which it was evidently beyond their ability to translate into a reality. Above all, the destructive wars in the Balkans and Libya (1912-1913) and the loss of great sections of the Turkish Empire had destroyed the prestige of the new democracy. There were plenty of other reasons for the failure too but the Young Turks had disappeared as a positive regenerating force, but they still existed as a political machine. Their leaders, Talaat, Enver, and Djemal, had long since abandoned any expectation of reforming their state, but they had developed an insatiable lust for personal power.

So what am saying is that CUP didn't come to power with the intention to commit the Armenian Genocide, quite the opposite. They genuinely wanted to make things better, but once they failed in democracy experiment and started loosing territory and war after war, then they decided on blaming everything on this section of population (Armenians) and they decided to strike in 1915 which they did!

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I bet you have no knowledge on Orhan Pamuk and Taner Akçam other than one is a writer and one is a historian who supports the genocide claim.

My knowledge on them two is sufficient enough to include them in this discussion.

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Orhan Pamuk simply made a comment to get his books sold.

Well the guy is a Nobel Prize winner and recipient, and he is not some upstart trying to make a name for himself! Please don't tell me know that he got his Nobel Prize because he is pro-Armenian! He merely said that maybe acts against Armenians in 1915 were more than just deportations and casualties of war!

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fact that ASALA assassinated 42 Turkish diplomats and their families

Look, ASALA is clearly a terrorist organization and all its acts are terrorist and criminal! I condemn all acts against Turkish diplomats, their families and Turkish civilians. Importantly, this discussion about the Armenian Genocide can't be influenced by ASALA or any other terrorist or paramilitary organization!

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Another question to both you and Noble Lord: Why would Armenian forge documents?

Well if Armenians succeeded in forging all the documents then what about all the foreigners and all the foreign documents, eye-witness accounts, first-hand stories, diplomatic reports, etc. Don't tell me they were all forged.

[maerd2003]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...armenian+issue

here is previous discussions..

[hellheaven1987]

Na, it was just a forced relocation, just like what Americans did on Native Americans.

[husker9.2]

Na, it was just a forced relocation, just like what Americans did on Native Americans.

technically we put them on "reservation". just too be politically correct. There's a difference there.....at least according too Washington in the 1800's.

[Erebus Pasha]

Due to the advice by the moderator and request by one of the members we are opening up this thread about Armenian Genocide because it's more suitable to be in the VV section of D&D.
This thread is the continuation of the Mudpit's thread "Parliament of Sweden approved resolution recognizing Armenian Genocide". That thread would be closed shortly. Thank you all for your kind participation.


It's true that Ottoman Empire was not strong as Germany in 1939 but that argument doesn't mean anything really. After all in 1915 Ottoman Empire was a state, a national-political entity. It was a state, and it turned against the Armenians who were probably the most loyal and industrious of all the other Ottoman citizens. Same like in 1939, Germany turned on its citizens, same with the Ottoman Empire in 1915. Same thing really, state with all its apparatus and capabilities turning on a group of people that are its citizens, that all it was, it's not hard to understand!

Yes the argument doesn't mean anything really but not for the reason you have given. In the other thread I stated that we have to be careful about making comparisons as several people have made the mistake in getting carried away about comparisons with Nazi Germany. Really what happened with the Jews at the hands of the Nazi's prior to and during WW2 and those Armenians living in Eastern Anatolia during WW1 cannot be compared. Nazi Germany wanted to exterminate all Jews living in Germany and Eastern Europe and actively went out doing so but the Ottomans had no such objectives as regards to the Armenian population living within the boundaries of their empire.

The Nazi Party made the Jews the scapegoat of Germany's past misfortune treating them as second class citizens, refusing to let them live on equal terms with other Germans, branding them, forcing them to live in ghettos, and putting them on trains for 'deportation' or 'relocation' when in reality they travelled to concentration camps to be exterminated. Those Jews living in Eastern Europe suffered the same fate or they were rounded up and shot by the SS. Can you honestly say that the Ottomans had a similar fate in mind for their Armenian subjects? No the Ottomans forcibly relocated those Armenians living in Eastern Anatolia away to other areas of the empire, but here they were to be re-settled and not to be actively slaughtered in concentration camps. The Armenians were not subjected to a policy of deliberate genocide by the Ottoman government. If so then why did those Armenians living in Western Anatolia and Istanbul not suffer the same fate? And why, with the retreat of the Russian forces from the Caucasus in 1917, did the Ottomans(as they advanced through the Caucasus) not pursue a similar policy with those Armenians that were living in ex-Russian territory?

That doesn't really make a good argument, why is it so important they were all Christians. At that time there was no worldwide Christian conspiracy against the Turks. In reality, Henry Morgenthau was Jewish and German ambassador Baron von Wangenheim was pro-Turkish 110%. Other members of Constantinople diplomatic corp were saying that he was more Ottoman than Enver and Talaat. And Austro-Hungarian ambassador was Ottoman ally and had no love lost for the Armenians really. As for the missionaries, they were there and they reported what they saw, if they were so anti-Turkish then they would not have helped Turkish Red Crescent and thousands of Turkish and Kurdish peasants that were suffering from famine, pestilence and epidemics. And missionaries, German officers and certain members of foreign embassies were in Anatolia and other parts such as Van, Diyarbakir, Erzerorum and others, and they saw themselves what was going on.

I would agree in respect that there was no worldwide Christian conspiracy against the Muslims as some of the Great Powers couldn't afford such a policy. France and Britain had many Muslims living within their empires that needed to be kept 'on side', especially those Muslims from North Africa and India that fought in their armed forces during WW1. As for Germany, well the Kaiser made himself a patron of the Muslim world and encouraged the spread of a jihad on the Turks behalf, hoping to stir up a whole lot of trouble amongst Britain's Muslim subjects.

But still in spite of this I do think there was an underlying sense of phobia towards the Turks which is still I think prevalent today in the western world. Most of the great powers wanted the Turk removed from Europe but were never sure on the best way of doing it. The Ottomans only survived as long as they did mainly because the great powers spent a great amount of time frustrating each other's ambitions in regards to the dismemberment of the Turkish empire. Britain and Austria-Hungary especially spent a great deal of time trying to scupper Russian plans in the Balkans.

Germany was an ally of the Ottomans during WW1 but they had little respect for the Turk and saw them as a people to be exploited. There is no doubt in my mind that if the Central Powers had emerged victorious from the Great War that the Ottomans would've become little more than a German vassal. Mustapha Kemal and other like minded Turkish military officers saw this as the Germans became more and more involved in Ottoman military policies and directives. Though it has to be considered that Kemal shared these views when he was becoming frustrated by being less and less involved in military planning when Falkenhayn was put in effective control of the Turkish armies on the Palestine Front in 1917.

As for the first hand accounts from military officers, diplomats and missionaries - well yes I think there were certainly an element of bias within their accounts but there are also plenty of commentaries that put forth information regarding possible atrocities meted out on Turkish civilians by Armenian regulars too. Not only did Turkish civilians suffer death from disease and starvation but from acts committed on them by Armenian irregulars.

As I said, those statements were made by the first-hand observers and religion factor didn't play the role there. In Belgium there were terrible accounts of German war crimes against the Belgian civilians and they were also reported by first-hand observers. So Christians reported other Christians therefore you can't reason that people did it because of their religious affiliation!

A different kind of propaganda my friend. German atrocities in Belgium were used by especially by Britain to demonise the German worldwide.

Talaat Pasha was number one person ruling Turkey together with Enver Pasha and Bedry Bey was the chief of Constantinople Police and one of the key people in the CUP leadership. The triumvirate of Talaat, Enver and Djemal were the government and just below them were people like Bedry Bey.

But still their statements and memo's don't show that they ordered any kind of atrocities on the Armenian population.

So what am saying is that CUP didn't come to power with the intention to commit the Armenian Genocide, quite the opposite. They genuinely wanted to make things better, but once they failed in democracy experiment and started loosing territory and war after war, then they decided on blaming everything on this section of population (Armenians) and they decided to strike in 1915 which they did!

They neither made a scapegoat of the Armenians for the empire's misfortunes and neither did they order the mass extermination of the Armenian populace living within the bounds of the empire. They ordered the removal of Armenians living in Eastern Anatolia because they saw Armenian civilians as a support mechanism to those irregulars that were operating against Ottoman lines of communication and rear areas, and because of the real ethnic tensions between Turk, Kurd and Armenian that the fighting in the Caucasus and Eastern Anatolia had brought about.

[Crimson Scythe]

Talaat Pasha was number one person ruling Turkey together with Enver Pasha and Bedry Bey was the chief of Constantinople Police and one of the key people in the CUP leadership. The triumvirate of Talaat, Enver and Djemal were the government and just below them were people like Bedry Bey.

Correction: Ottoman Empire.

There are plenty of records showing Talat's concern at how poorly the deportations were being conducted. An example reproduced from the Ottoman Archives in Dadrian's Warrant for Genocide, p. iv (found in Guenter Lewy's The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide):

It has been reported to us that the Armenians of the province of Diyarbekir, along with other Christians, are being massacred, and that some 700 Armenians and other Christians, were recently slaughtered in Mardin like sheep after having been removed from the city through nightly operations. The number of people thus far slain through such massacres is estimated to be 2,000. It is feared that unless these acts are stopped definitely and swiftly the Muslim population of the region too may proceed to massacre the general Christian population. The political and disciplinary measures...adopted against the Armenians are absolutely not to be extended to other Christians as such acts are likely to create a very bad impression on public opinion. You are ordered to put an immediate end to these acts lest they threaten the lives of the other Christians indiscriminately... Keep us informed of the true state of the matter.

Note the bolded section.

Another excerpt from the Posthumous Memoirs of Talat Pasha as reproduced in Guenter Lewy's book:

I admit that the deportation was not carried out lawfully everywhere. In some places unlawful acts were committed. The already existing hatred among Armenians and Mohammedans, intensified by the barbarous activities of the former, had created many tragic consequences. Some of the officials abused their authority, and in many places people took the preventing measures [the deportations, I assume] into their own hands and innocent people were molested. I confess it. I confess, also, that the duty of the Government was to prevent these abuses and atrocities, or at least hunt down and punish their perpetrators severely.

This realization was likely what prompted the Ottoman courts martial of 1916-1917, and the bolded part probably prompted the executions and lengthy prison sentences.

But to give another perspective on your claim that Morgenthau's perceptions changed after 1915, I suggest you read this paper: http://www.eraren.org/index.php?Lisa...k&IcerikNo=207

It shows not only Morgenthau's general cultural bias PRE-1915 (i.e., in 1914), but also his personal dislike of Talat Pasha. The author walks the reader through the slanders heaped on Talat, and even shows how these start before the war even starts (i.e., July 1914).

They were never really a problem before 1895-97 and Hamidiye massacres. In reality they were the most productive, industrious and loyal of all the Ottoman subjects. All the major industries, commerce and so many other things were build and run by the Armenians and they were huge contributors to the Imperial treasury. I mean, huge. But in 1895 for reasons known to him, Sultan Abdul Hamid started massacres against them and probably up to 150.000 were killed. Then you had Adana massacre in 1909 and large number of them was also decimated. So they had to resist. And when the CUP first took power it was all energetic and it sincerely wanted to make things better and it wanted to make empire to be inclusive of all and to be progressive. When they deposed Abdul Hamid, the CUP genuinely wanted Ottoman empire to become a democracy, with a parliament, a responsible ministry, universal suffrage, equality of all citizens before the law, freedom of speech and of the press, and all the other essentials of a free, liberty-loving state. And they were truthfully sincere in their intention to transform Turkey.

The reasons for the Hamidian massacres were hardly known only to the Sultan alone. Ottoman records indicate a rebellion broke out in Sasun in 1894, stoked by Hunchak (from what I understand, the Dashnaks were still more or less loyal at this point in time) extremists. Even Dadrian says "the Hunchakists ... exacerbated the [existing] situation by their intervention in the conflict when two of their leaders, through agitation, tried to organize an armed insurrection." (Nalbandian, Armenian Revolutionary Movement, p.172, as quoted in Guenter Lewy's The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide, p. 21). It would seem that what started as an Armenian protest against taxation reforms exploded into a full-blown insurrection, with both Armenian extremists and Ottoman irregulars pouring fuel on the flames. The Armenian extremists' attack on the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul in August of 1896 made things worse. And finally, given that outright war broke out between the Ottoman Empire and Greece in 1897, there was probably a military crackdown, so as not to have chaos behind the lines, as it were.

As for the Adana massacres, you'll not that these occurred at almost exactly the same time as the 1909 Counter-revolution, during which the Young Turks were forced from power by Abdulhamid's loyalists. The local Muslim population, already worried about the state of affairs in the Empire, acted on rumours of another Armenian rebellion and acted accordingly. Ottoman regulars, what few there were in the region, were actually charged with keeping the two sides apart, as noted by a number of foreign observers. Given the lack of a government in Istanbul to give them orders, however, many of these troops joined the local Muslims in attacking what were probably innocent Armenian citizens. Many of these people were put on trial once the political situation in Istanbul settled down, with more than 100 Muslim perpetrators being executed for their actions. Put in its historical context, the Adana massacres were part of the justification for the CUP staging a counter-counter-revolution soon afterward.

In a speech in Liberty Square, Thessaloniki, in July 1908, Enver Pasha, who was popularly regarded as the chivalrous young leader of this insurrection against a century-old tyranny, had eloquently declared that, "Today arbitrary government has disappeared. We are all brothers. There are no longer in Turkey Bulgarians, Greeks, Armenians, Romanians, Mussulmans, Jews. Under the same blue sky we are all proud to be Ottomans." That statement represented the Young Turk ideal for the new Turkish state, but it was an ideal which it was evidently beyond their ability to translate into a reality. Above all, the destructive wars in the Balkans and Libya (1912-1913) and the loss of great sections of the Turkish Empire had destroyed the prestige of the new democracy. There were plenty of other reasons for the failure too but the Young Turks had disappeared as a positive regenerating force, but they still existed as a political machine. Their leaders, Talaat, Enver, and Djemal, had long since abandoned any expectation of reforming their state, but they had developed an insatiable lust for personal power.

Don't confuse the Young Turks with the CUP, a mistake commonly made by those attempting to show a consistent pattern of genocidal intent. They're related, but quite distinct from one another. Just as the Triumvirate is distinct from the CUP. Furthermore, the Triumvirate's authoritarianism is a result of the succession of wars (Tripolitanian, 1st, then 2nd Balkan Wars) that militarized the Ottoman government. Enver's successful defence of the Çatalca Line in 1912 further reinforced this belief that a strong military government was important. Ironically, it was this success that prompted his undeserved confidence in his military leadership skills, resulting in the disaster at Sarikamis.

But more importantly, people confuse the Young Ottomans with the Young Turks, the former being the latter's 19th century predecessors.

So what am saying is that CUP didn't come to power with the intention to commit the Armenian Genocide, quite the opposite. They genuinely wanted to make things better, but once they failed in democracy experiment and started loosing territory and war after war, then they decided on blaming everything on this section of population (Armenians) and they decided to strike in 1915 which they did!

You're correct with regards to the CUP, but by the time the Triumvirate had taken control, reforms of Ottoman society and government had been put on the back burner in favour of maintaining the territorial integrity of the Empire. The loss of the traditional 'heart' of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkan Wars was a severe shock many in the Ottoman Empire, prompting a more repressive measures to keep the remaining parts of the Empire together.

My knowledge on them two is sufficient enough to include them in this discussion.

Your knowledge may be enough, but THEIR knowledge isn't. Orhan Pamuk is just a writer, with no training whatsoever in history. His Nobel Prize is in LITERATURE. The man isn't even an academic.

Taner Akcam, at least, is an academic, but in the wrong field. He's not a historian either, but rather a sociologist, who doesn't know HOW to evaluate historical sources. He couldn't tell a good source from a bad one (academically speaking), ignoring the fact that he probably wouldn't care to distinguish between them owing to his personal biases. Would you let a psychiatrist perform heart surgery just because he's also a medical doctor? Akcam simply doesn't have the relevant skill set necessary to be useful in this discussion.

By comparison, take Justin McCarthy as an example. He's an Ottoman historian whose specialization is in demographics, i.e., he studies populations of the Ottoman Empire. He's uniquely qualified to address this question.

Well the guy is a Nobel Prize winner and recipient, and he is not some upstart trying to make a name for himself! Please don't tell me know that he got his Nobel Prize because he is pro-Armenian! He merely said that maybe acts against Armenians in 1915 were more than just deportations and casualties of war!

He didn't win the Nobel Prize for any work on the issue at hand, either. He won it for an artistic book (the prize is in LITERATURE remember?).

And don't twist his words. He didn't say anything to the effect of "acts against Armenians in 1915 were more than just deportations and casualties of war". He merely said that a lot of Armenians died and that he was the only one willing to speak about it in Turkey. He also said: "What happened to the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 was a major thing that was hidden from the Turkish nation; it was a taboo. But we have to be able to talk about the past." His whole point was to get people in Turkey to talk about these issues, not to take the Armenians' interpretations at face value. He was criticizing the lack of will, until recently, to discuss the past at all in Turkey, something that has changed quite a bit in recent years. But notice how that willingness has also turned into a challenge to Armenians to discuss common events in tandem?

Look, ASALA is clearly a terrorist organization and all its acts are terrorist and criminal! I condemn all acts against Turkish diplomats, their families and Turkish civilians. Importantly, this discussion about the Armenian Genocide can't be influenced by ASALA or any other terrorist or paramilitary organization!

Except that ASALA's and JCAG's aims were to force Turkey to accept the Armenian allegations of genocide. Therefore, if Turkey and Turks DO accept the allegations, they'll be bowing to pressure by terrorist organizations. See the problem? ASALA and JCAG's attacks on Turkish people abroad basically guaranteed that Turkey and Turks will never accept the Armenian point of view.

Well if Armenians succeeded in forging all the documents then what about all the foreigners and all the foreign documents, eye-witness accounts, first-hand stories, diplomatic reports, etc. Don't tell me they were all forged.

If you dig into the archives' details, the 'first-hand' accounts are often anything but. They often contradict physical possibility, as in the cases where so-called 'witnesses' were never in the regions where they 'saw' atrocities. The Malta tribunals are full of such false evidence. These come from Istanbul Armenians, missionaries (who were often just reporting what they had heard, but calling it their own), and consular officials (much the same as the missionaries). If one compares the actually verifiable reports, one often sees that the events are confused, at best.

There are plenty of reports by foreigners that contradict the Armenian interpretation of events, or simply illustrate that the suffering wasn't one-sided. Take the reports of Emory N. Niles and Arthur E. Sutherland (American officers charged with organizing relief for eastern Anatolia), or those of Maj. Gen. James G. Harbord (head of the American military mission in 1920 - who reflected on the continuing violence between Muslims and Armenians), or those of Felix Guse (a German staff officer attached to the Ottoman military in eastern Anatolia), or those of Henry Riggs (an American missionary in Harput - modern Elâzığ, Turkey). The list goes on and on. And yet such reports are unknown to many, if not most scholars who aren't specialists in this field (and even some that are, unfortunately). Armenian and pro-Armenian scholars rarely refute or discredit these sources, but rather merely ignore them altogether. Is that good scholarship? Or is it the politicization of what should be a historical discussion?

EDIT: As to the title of the thread, I think the issue here is not that the Armenian allegations are truthful or fictional, but rather that they are incomplete. There's a lot of information that is left out of the Armenian conclusion, which demonstrates while not a genocide, the events of 1915 were indeed a terrible chapter of human history, because of the suffering of all involved.

[PointOfViewGun]

Thanks for the new thread.

It's true that Ottoman Empire was not strong as Germany in 1939 but that argument doesn't mean anything really. After all in 1915 Ottoman Empire was a state, a national-political entity. It was a state, and it turned against the Armenians who were probably the most loyal and industrious of all the other Ottoman citizens. Same like in 1939, Germany turned on its citizens, same with the Ottoman Empire in 1915. Same thing really, state with all its apparatus and capabilities turning on a group of people that are its citizens, that all it was, it's not hard to understand!

It means a lot. It shows that Ottoman Empire was hardly capable of organizing such a crime. It was lacking both resources and manpower. It's why they couldn't maintain order as ethnic violence increased in the country. Nazi Germany was strong and it's army was well-equipped. By 1914 Ottoman army was a very crude army. It's an important factor as it explains how ethnic violence increased a lot and why it was decided for Armenians to be moved.

That doesn't really make a good argument, why is it so important they were all Christians. At that time there was no worldwide Christian conspiracy against the Turks. In reality, Henry Morgenthau was Jewish and German ambassador Baron von Wangenheim was pro-Turkish 110%. Other members of Constantinople diplomatic corp were saying that he was more Ottoman than Enver and Talaat. And Austro-Hungarian ambassador was Ottoman ally and had no love lost for the Armenians really. As for the missionaries, they were there and they reported what they saw, if they were so anti-Turkish then they would not have helped Turkish Red Crescent and thousands of Turkish and Kurdish peasants that were suffering from famine, pestilence and epidemics. And missionaries, German officers and certain members of foreign embassies were in Anatolia and other parts such as Van, Diyarbakir, Erzerorum and others, and they saw themselves what was going on.

Henry Morgethau only developed anti-Turkish views after 1915 and that was because he saw what was happening. Before that he was considered somewhat of the Orientalist and that is why he was send to an ambassador to Turkey in 1913.

Christians will always be more sympathetic with other Christians and Muslims will be more sympathetic with other Muslims. It's not a worldwide conspiracy against the Turks but a simple fact.

How could Henry Morgenthau saw what happened when he never left Istanbul? There are no records of him leaving the capitol during the events of the issue. The fact that he was Jewish doesn't mean anything. He used the Armenians as a tool to get USA into war. I believe he even told this to President Wilson after 1920s.

Missionaries were there to help the Christian population. I have never heard from their accounts that they were helping the Muslim population as well. They're hardly an unbiased source.

C'mon mate, Germans couldn't care less about Armenians or anybody else for that matter in 1915, they were only concerned on how to have Turkey as an ally and how to win the war. In true spirit of Prussian militarism their only obsession was on how to make Germanic empire that would involve subservient Turkey and that was it. Furthermore, they didn't give a heck for religion at that time, their ambassador and majority of their stuff were atheists much like the CUP leadership. Again, they just reported what they saw happening all around them and that was it, there was no hidden agenda or conspiracy to undermine their ally!

As I showed from Lord Mov's own German source there are differences between reports. On one it talks about Armenians massacred and on one it talks about 150 thousand Muslims killed. One report says that there have been no massacres but in none of them there is a statement saying that Ottoman government ordered the killings. All of the accounts can simply be reports of ethnic clashes with the Armenian side favored.

As I said, those statements were made by the first-hand observers and religion factor didn't play the role there. In Belgium there were terrible accounts of German war crimes against the Belgian civilians and they were also reported by first-hand observers. So Christians reported other Christians therefore you can't reason that people did it because of their religious affiliation!

It's naive to think that Christians will report sufferings of Muslim and Christian equally. You argument does not make sense here. As you said Christians in Belgium reported Christians from Germany. There is no religion difference there so there is no religion factor. But in the case of Ottoman Empire there is. Ottoman Empire, a majorly Muslim state, in war with all Christian states. When anyone in the region witnesses an incident they will surely ignore the Muslim deaths and talk about the Christian deaths.

Talaat Pasha was number one person ruling Turkey together with Enver Pasha and Bedry Bey was the chief of Constantinople Police and one of the key people in the CUP leadership. The triumvirate of Talaat, Enver and Djemal were the government and just below them were people like Bedry Bey.

Their high level in the government doesn't make theM obliged to like Armenians. The quotes you showed have nothing to say that they ordered the killings of Armenians.

They were never really a problem before 1895-97 and Hamidiye massacres. In reality they were the most productive, industrious and loyal of all the Ottoman subjects. All the major industries, commerce and so many other things were build and run by the Armenians and they were huge contributors to the Imperial treasury. I mean, huge. But in 1895 for reasons known to him, Sultan Abdul Hamid started massacres against them and probably up to 150.000 were killed. Then you had Adana massacre in 1909 and large number of them was also decimated. So they had to resist. And when the CUP first took power it was all energetic and it sincerely wanted to make things better and it wanted to make empire to be inclusive of all and to be progressive. When they deposed Abdul Hamid, the CUP genuinely wanted Ottoman empire to become a democracy, with a parliament, a responsible ministry, universal suffrage, equality of all citizens before the law, freedom of speech and of the press, and all the other essentials of a free, liberty-loving state. And they were truthfully sincere in their intention to transform Turkey.

In a speech in Liberty Square, Thessaloniki, in July 1908, Enver Pasha, who was popularly regarded as the chivalrous young leader of this insurrection against a century-old tyranny, had eloquently declared that, "Today arbitrary government has disappeared. We are all brothers. There are no longer in Turkey Bulgarians, Greeks, Armenians, Romanians, Mussulmans, Jews. Under the same blue sky we are all proud to be Ottomans." That statement represented the Young Turk ideal for the new Turkish state, but it was an ideal which it was evidently beyond their ability to translate into a reality. Above all, the destructive wars in the Balkans and Libya (1912-1913) and the loss of great sections of the Turkish Empire had destroyed the prestige of the new democracy. There were plenty of other reasons for the failure too but the Young Turks had disappeared as a positive regenerating force, but they still existed as a political machine. Their leaders, Talaat, Enver, and Djemal, had long since abandoned any expectation of reforming their state, but they had developed an insatiable lust for personal power.

So what am saying is that CUP didn't come to power with the intention to commit the Armenian Genocide, quite the opposite. They genuinely wanted to make things better, but once they failed in democracy experiment and started loosing territory and war after war, then they decided on blaming everything on this section of population (Armenians) and they decided to strike in 1915 which they did!

The Armenians started to become a problem after Berlin Conference in 1878. Hamidiye Units are an example of how Ottomans were desperate to gain some more power as they were weak. They were made from Kurdish population of Eastern Anatolia and often acted on their behalf. In both cases Armenians were hardly angels waiting in their homes to be killed. There were already many movements all around Eastern Anatolia by the Armenians.

Blame them? Maybe. But 300 thousand Armenians went untouched in the Western regions where the violence and revolt ideas were minimum.

Well the guy is a Nobel Prize winner and recipient, and he is not some upstart trying to make a name for himself! Please don't tell me know that he got his Nobel Prize because he is pro-Armenian! He merely said that maybe acts against Armenians in 1915 were more than just deportations and casualties of war!

He won the Nobel Prize and his room in Cambridge University because of his remark. I guess it was a coincidence that all that happened after his statement and that his book selling started to skyrocket.

Look, ASALA is clearly a terrorist organization and all its acts are terrorist and criminal! I condemn all acts against Turkish diplomats, their families and Turkish civilians. Importantly, this discussion about the Armenian Genocide can't be influenced by ASALA or any other terrorist or paramilitary organization!

If you people keep on saying that Turkish government is trying to silence people with threats and propaganda then you surely have to mention ASALA as well. You talk about how Hrant Dink was killed making it sound it's a common thing for Turks to kill Armenians who talk on the issue but forget to mention ASALA that killed 42 Turkish diplomats worldwide.

Well if Armenians succeeded in forging all the documents then what about all the foreigners and all the foreign documents, eye-witness accounts, first-hand stories, diplomatic reports, etc. Don't tell me they were all forged.

First you should tell me why they would forge documents.
Also you should tell me how the British commission leaded by an Armenian searched British, US and Ottoman archives and couldn't find any document to prove the involvement of the government.
There will of course be many accounts of horrible stories but you should bear in mind that there are many from such accounts from Muslims too.


Edit: My head stopped working few hours ago and Crimson made a much better job than I did. It get's hard to follow posts when they're this long.

[Schwertmeister]

What's even more interesting to me:

Jewish Genocide: Truth or Fiction??

[PointOfViewGun]

What's even more interesting to me:

Jewish Genocide: Truth or Fiction??

The amount of evidence The Holocaust has looks like infinity compared to the Armenian claims. There are documents from Nazi officials ordering the extermination of Jews, Muslims, Gypsies, Old-People and others. On the other hand, during the Malta tribunals, an Armenian scholar named Mr. Haig Khazarian was ordered to search archives of Ottoman, British and U.S. His search revealed a complete lack of evidence. Another interesting note is that Jews never forged documents to prove their argument.

[CiviC]

If there was an Armenian Genocide, the blame is not on Turks as a nation but only on the actual perpetrators, no matter if the perpetrators intended to do it for Turkey. If we call it a genocide or a tragedy, it's however regretable that most Turks feel the need to show solidarity with a bunch of people that either by direct or indirect intent or by gross negligence provoked the death of so many people.

[PointOfViewGun]

If there was an Armenian Genocide, the blame is not on Turks as a nation but only on the actual perpetrators, no matter if the perpetrators intended to do it for Turkey. If we call it a genocide or a tragedy, it's however regretable that most Turks feel the need to show solidarity with a bunch of people that either by direct or indirect intent or by gross negligence provoked the death of so many people.

I guess we need to be clear about something. The Three Pashas that are claimed to be perpetrators of the genocide are hated in Turkey. They're seen as the people who acted for their own personal beliefs and forced the Ottoman Empire into destruction. Their greatest crime is to pull the Ottoman Empire into war thus making everyone in the empire suffer greatly. So you would see no one defend any of those Pashas because they like them but you'd see people defending them for a crime they did not commit. In Turkish history they're regarded as traitors, not heroes.

[Crimson Scythe]

If there was an Armenian Genocide, the blame is not on Turks as a nation but only on the actual perpetrators, no matter if the perpetrators intended to do it for Turkey. If we call it a genocide or a tragedy, it's however regretable that most Turks feel the need to show solidarity with a bunch of people that either by direct or indirect intent or by gross negligence provoked the death of so many people.

Furthermore, to add to what TheDarkLordSeth said, Turks take offense more to the fact that their own ancestors' suffering is largely ignored. If anything, Turks wish that Armenians showed solidarity with them, as both communities suffered horribly during that period. To say nothing of Turkish, Circassian, Kurdish, and Tatar (many of whom exist in Turkey as ethnic minorities descended from refugees - except the Kurds) suffering in the century prior to WWI in the areas lost by the Ottoman Empire to Czarist Russia.

[chilon]

Furthermore, to add to what TheDarkLordSeth said, Turks take offense more to the fact that their own ancestors' suffering is largely ignored. If anything, Turks wish that Armenians showed solidarity with them, as both communities suffered horribly during that period.

This comment really seems to ignore history.

In Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by the respected historian Paul Kennedy, Kennedy recounts the repeated Turkish massacres of Armenians for 30-40 years before 1915.

Kennedy mentions at one point (between 1870-1900) when the Turkish massacre of Armenians in the capital city was so horrific that every major European ambassador at the time wrote home and the former Concert of Europe powers insisted on Ottoman empire reform (which was marginally successful). This is why historians are in generally consensus about the Armenan Genocide. All former Concert powers (Germany, UK, France, Austria and Russia) have statements from their own ambassadors that attest to Turkish atrocities. When all the ambassadors accounts are in agreement, its hard to avoid the reality about the atrocities the Ottoman turks committed.

From just about every neutral historical perspective, it is acknowledged that the Ottoman turks committed horrible atrocities that were witnessed by representatives of all the Concert of Europe and is recorded in many nations history books (not just Armenian supporters).
It really comes off as disingenuous and not historically accurate to claim that Armenians should have shown "solidarity" with the very nation that was oppressing them and massacring them.


oh and I should quote this for truth since I was going to bring it up but NobleLord mentioned it already:

" The term Genocide was coined in 1933 (Full 6 years before the start of the WWII and open Nazi attempt to destroy the Jewish people) by Raphael Lemkin whose inspiration for the name derived from the terrible things and tragedy that happened to Armenian people in Ottoman Turkey. So full 6 years Raphael Lemkin had only one inspiration in history that name Genocide can derive from and that was the tragedy that happened to the Armenians and that is why it deserved to be called Genocide!"

[PointOfViewGun]

Well, as the thread is rather going silent I'd like to add a little information here:

Edward J. Erickson is a retired US Army officer that was recalled for Iraqi invasion. He is also a Ph.D with an expertise on Ottoman military during the World War I. In the article below he refutes the arguments of Vahakn Dadrian about the role of Major Stange and "Special Organization":
http://www.meforum.org/991/armenian-...rcut-old-blame

[Erebus Pasha]

I would like to add to the link that TDLS has provided by providing a link to another article that Erickson wrote a few years back about the Armenians and Ottoman Military Policy in 1915.

http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2...-military.html

The introduction to the article by Mr. Erickson:

Mainstream western scholarship maintains that the Armenian insurrection of 1915 was never an actual threat to the security of the Ottoman state in the First World War and that the relocation of the Armenians of eastern Anatolia was unnecessary. In truth, no study of the Armenian insurrection and its effect on Ottoman military policy has ever been conducted. This article examines the Ottoman army's lines of communications . . architecture and logistics posture in eastern Anatolia in 1915. Armenian threats to the logistics and security of the Ottoman armies in Caucasia and Palestine are overlaid on this system. Evolving and escalatory Ottoman military policies are then explained in terms of threat assessments and contemporary counter-insurgency strategy. The article seeks to inform the reader why the Ottomans reacted so vigorously and violently to the events of the spring of 1915.

[PointOfViewGun]

I would like to add to the link that TDLS has provided by providing a link to another article that Erickson wrote a few years back about the Armenians and Ottoman Military Policy in 1915.

http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2...-military.html

The introduction to the article by Mr. Erickson:

I thought you'd like his works as he's an expert in Ottoman military.

But why the calm in the wind in this thread?

[Erebus Pasha]

I thought you'd like his works as he's an expert in Ottoman military.

But why the calm in the wind in this thread?

What do you mean my friend?

[PointOfViewGun]

What do you mean my friend?

You liking Edward J. Erickson's work or the calm weather part?

[Erebus Pasha]

You liking Edward J. Erickson's work or the calm weather part?

The calm weather part.

[uzi716]

don't hate for this but I do believe something did happen but over time it was greatly over exaggerated