FOREWORD
The betrayal of the relatively prosperous Armenian people of the Ottoman Empire by their own self-seeking, self-centred and foreign- inspired leaders, and in return, the treachery of some of the Armenians against their own country, Turkey, when that country was engaged in a life-and-death struggle against its enemies during the First World War and after, have already been reflected in four fully-documented pamphlets of mine recently published in Ankara and London[1].
In this article I intend to examine a number of further documents which I have discovered in the British Foreign Office archives at the Public Record Office. All these documents add further weight to the conclusions I have, so far, arrived at in connection with the Armenian question, viz. 1. that some of the Armenians and their leaders, unashamedly and thoughtlessly, betrayed their own people, and acted treacherously towards Turkey, their own country; 2. that they skilfully used their propaganda organisations and organs all over Europe, and also in the USA, to veil the truth about the Armenian dislocations in Turkey during Turkey’s life-and-death struggle with its enemies, particularly with Tsarist Russia; and 3. that the Armenians themselves indulged in a wide campaign of terror and massacre against the Muslims, and again used their propaganda organs to persuade the Christian World that it was the Armenians who were being massacred.
Secret Ottoman Documents Connected with the Deportations, Captured by British Intelligence in Istanbul:
As usual, I spent most of my summer holiday last year, in the Public Record Office, reading the 1923 files of the British Foreign Office in the 371 series, “political-Turkey”, when I came across a number of “very revealing” Ottoman documents connected with the Armenian relocations in Turkey in the year 1915. Apparently these documents were stolen from the Ottoman Archives in Istanbul, probably by some Greek or Armenian agents working for British intelligence. We learn from a private letter, dated “Constantinople, 22nd May, 1923”, sent to Lancelot Oliphant of the Foreign Office by Nevile Henderson, then Acting British High Commissioner in Istanbul, that these “State Papers” were apparently obtained by the Military Intelligence from the sublime Porte in the early days of the Armistice of Mudros (30. 10. 1918) ; they had lain hidden in their office ever since, and had then been sent to the British High Commission. They were the original instructions issued by Talat Bey for the Armenian dislocations. (See File No. 9158, Document No. E 5523, in Fo. 371, Public Record Office).
The following quotations from the documents in the 1923 Turkey files, (photo-copies of some of which are attached to this article as an appendix), further vindicate the case of the Ottoman Government and officials in connection with the Armenian dislocations. Let us examine them.
In a secret letter No. 296, dated 28th May 1915, the Ottoman Ministry of the Interior informed the officials and officers concerned with Armenian dislocations as follows:
“.. .It is brought to our serious attention that, in article 8 of the rules concerning the installation and the maintenance of the population that is to be transported to the known localities, it has been mentioned that a person installed in the place arranged could go to another place, if desired, after getting the authorisation of the commission for emigrants and the consent of local authorities. However, no persons must change their abode until the end of the war...” The last sentence in this secret letter goes a long way İn disproving the allegations of Armenian and pro-Armenian propagandists that the Ottoman Government and officials wished to exterminate the Armenians.
The following quotations are also quite revealing:
On 5th August 1915, Ismail Hakki, the Governor of Bursa, in a confidential despatch No. 802 to the Sub-Governor of Mudanya, sent the copies of a number of despatches relative to the relocation of Armenians together with the rules to be put into force in the province, recommending that he should put into execution these dispositions, when he received the order to act. Here are some of these despatches:
“28. 7. 1915. The laws relative to the liquidation of debts and credits between relocated Armenians and official institutions or private individuals, will be sent to you shortly. In the meantime, write the particulars down in a special register, so that cases will not be lost sight of. Sgd. Talat, Minister (of the Interior)”.
“30. 7. 1915. It is learnt that the private property of relocated Armenians is being sold dirt cheap to monopolists of this class of business, and thus greatly wronging the proprietors. Consequently, the following measures must be taken:
a) Forbid the entry or free circulation of all foreigners and suspects in localities which will be evacuated;
b) If there are people of this category already in the district make them to leave immediately;
c) If there are such persons who have bought goods at ridiculous prices, take steps to annul the sale, to restore prices to the right level, and to prevent illegal profits being made;
d) Authorise the Armenians to take away with them everything they wish;
e) If there is found amongst the goods not taken away stuff which has deteriorated by the weather sell, by auction, that of primary importance;
f) The merchandise not taken away can remain without deteriorating, keep it on behalf of the owner;
g) Prevent all agreement of the nature of hiring, pawning, attachment or sale or mortgage, which is likely to take away all rights of a proprietor to his property, and so sever his attachment to the country. Consider as null and void all agreements of this sort which have been made from the time the relocations commenced until now;
h) Prevent any further agreements of this sort being concluded;
i) Authorise the formalities of definite sales, but prevent foreigners from buying land and household furniture. Sgd. Talat, Minister”.
Talat was the Minister of the Interior who tried everything he could to prevent the exploitation of the Armenians who were to be relocated. He was later to receive his reward at the hands of an Armenian assassin.
“30. 7. 1915. .. Make special officials accompany the groups of relocated Armenians, and see that they are provided with food and other things that they have need of. Expenses incurred in this respect will be settled by the allotments for the emigrants. Sgd. Ali Munif for the Minister”.
On 28th August, 1915, the Ottoman Ministry of the Interior drew up a number of instructions with regard to the relocation of Armenians which were then sent in confidential despatches to the various Governors responsible for carrying them out with specific orders that they should use their best efforts and give careful attention to their implementation. Some of the instructions were as follows:
“Art 1. The convoys of those to be relocated going on foot or in carts to their place of destination, will be concentrated in the nearest station to their place of departure.
“Art 2. If amongst those to be relocated in the stations there are found official documents proving that the family supporter is a soldier, or if there are women or orphans without a supporter, or Catholics or Protestants that do not wish to go to their destination, they will be separated and distributed among the villages of the provinces and districts to which the stations belong. . .
“Art 3. The families of soldiers, Protestants and Catholics not yet relocated from the places where they have lived a long time, must be maintained in their places of residence, as well as any manufacturers who are really necessary to the country, and also any workers employed in the factories which produce goods of public utility or who are employed on the railways and in the stations. The families belonging to Armenians in this category will be equally maintained in their locality...
“Art 9. The necessary food for the emigrants while on their journey until they reach their destination must be assured. The cost of the food for the poor emigrants must be borne by the open credit for the service of the installation of the emigrants.
“Art 10. Keep under permanent supervision the concentration camps of the relocated and take the necessary measures to assure their well being, as well as order and security. Assure the proper food to the indigent emigrants and look after their health by daily visits from a doctor. Take care of the sick people and provide all that is necessary for the expectant mothers and the newly born infants. The functionaries as a whole are responsible for all negligence in the carrying out of these orders.
“Art 12. The officials of the expedition who are appointed from the provinces and the districts on which the stations depend, must execute the orders and the instructions received. The Governors, Administrators and Sub-Governors of the districts are hierarchically responsible for the execution and integral application of these instructions, as also for that of the proper carrying out of the duties which are entrusted to the officials of the expedition and the controller of service of supplies.
“Art 13. Those to be relocated between Eregli and Pozanti must be forced to leave partly by railway and partly in motor cars. The sick people, the indigent, the women and the children must be sent first by rail, and the others according to their capacity for endurance, either in carts or on mules or on foot. Each convoy must be accompanied by a detachment of guards and the food supply for the convoy must be looked after until the destination is reached.
“Art 16. The central service of expedition must be informed by telegram of the number of the persons and of the date of departure of each convoy which is sent from Eregli to Pozanti or to Tarsus or from Pozanti to Tarsus.
“Art 18. The petitions that will be presented by the emigrants to the provinces and to the districts for leave to be maintained or returned to their place of residence, which show good reason other than that of military service, protestanism or Catholicism must be sent to the Minister of the Interior with a recommendation on the subject and the officials will act in accordance with the reply received...
“Art 19. All communications from other central departments on the subject of the maintenance or of the sending back to their place of residence will be brought by telegraph to the knowledge of the Minister and the authorities will act in conformity with their instructions.
“Art 21. In cases where the emigrants will be the object of an attack, whether in the camps or during their journey, stop the assailants immediately and refer the case to the court martial with particulars.
“Art 22. The officials who receive from the emigrants bribes or gifts, or who abuse the women by promises or by menace or who establish illicit relations with them will be immediately recalled and deferred, with the particulars, to the court martial to be severely punished.
“Art 23. If the special agents employed in the service of expedition and administrative functionaries who are responsible for the supervision are negligent of their duties or careless in the exercise of their functions, they will undergo a stoppage of salaries or emoluments; in the event of a second offence their emoluments will be reduced and they will at the same time be degraded in office.
“Art 24. The Governors and Commissioners arc responsible for exercising a continued supervision on the camps and en route for taking measures, for organising in a suitable manner the service of expedition and for assuring the complete application of the dispositions of these rules. Dated 28th August 1915.
Director of service of Installation and of the Maintenance of the Emigrants in the name of the Minister of the Interior”.
After perusing the above documents, a sensible person with a searching mind will find it extremely hard to be taken in by Armenian and pro-Armenian propaganda that, early in 1915, the Ottoman Government concocted a “satanic plan” to exterminate the Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire, despite the fact that some Armenians, particularly a number of Armenian leaders, had betrayed the trust bestowed upon them by Ottoman society, by choosing the path to treachery, espionage and rebellion against their country by collaborating with its enemies, thus resulting in the measures taken by the Ottoman Government to relocate the Armenians by having to move them from places of strategic importance in order to reduce the risk of Armenian treachery.
THE ARMENIAN TREACHERY
Armenian Espionage :
The following authentic documents, exhumed from the British Foreign Office archives, constitute further proof to the treachery of a number of Armenians.
Confidential letter from Vahan Cardashian (an Armenian) to Lord Robert Cecil, dated 8th July, 1918. Cardashian, who claimed to be a counsellor-at-law, was the Turkish High Commissioner for the San Francisco Exhibition in 1915. Here is his letter:
“Fortyone days before the entry of Turkey in the war, I informed the British Embassy at Washington of the decision of Turkey to enter the war on the side of Germany, and transmitted to it the Turkish plan of campaign... In the midsummer of 1915, I directly communicated to the Foreign Office the substance of a conversation I then had with General İhsan Pasha who was captured by the Russians (he was the commander of an army corps), and having fled via Siberia, had found refuge in San Fransisco where I was then acting as Commissioner for Turkey I much regret to say. The substance of that conversation was that, in the opinion of Ihsan, the most vulnerable point of the Turkish line of defence was along the Cilician coast, since the rail that supplies the Turk armies in Palestine and Mesopotamia is 45 miles from the coast and extends to it; and again to quote Ihsan: ‘Fortunately, God has confounded the minds and blinded the eyes of the Allied strategists...’
Assim Bey, former Turk Minister for Foreign Affairs, told me several times, and Halil Bey, present incumbent of that office told me once, that in the event of a war against Britain, the Turkish objective would be Afghanistan and India via TransCaucasia”[2].
On 15th September, 1919, British Intelligence officers in Turkey, in a despatch to the Director of Military Intelligence, enclosed a report from the British Intelligence Officer at Adana on the military situation in the Aziziye district, which was prepared after “a reliable agent (Armenian, born in Persia)” was sent to Aziziye to obtain a detailed account of the situation[3]. Similarly, a number of Armenians working in the Ottoman Post Office were passing on information to Entente Powers.
Armenian Collaboration With Enemy Powers :
On 8th December, 1919, the British Minister in Athens, Lord Granville, in a cypher telegram informed British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon about the Pontus Movement of setting up a Greek republic in the Black Sea provinces of Turkey. Eight days later, George Kidston, a member of the Eastern Department of the British Foreign Office, made the following comments thereon:
“We know that they (the Greeks) have had conversations with the Armenians regarding the formation of a combined Greek and Armenian army…”[4] .
On 26th February, 1920, the British Foreign Office received an undated letter from Μ. Constantinis and G. Pissani, addressed to the British Prime Minister Lloyd George, saying that they had already submitted to the Peace Conference three memoranda dealing with the question of Euxine Pontus, and adding:
“Geographical contiguity and community of religion always throws Pontus into close relations with Armenia... It is in the interest of the Allies to promote the union of Armenians and Pontine Greeks in a single federal state. The harmonious cooperation of the two nations is secured. On January 16th, 1920, a formal agreement was concluded in Tiflis between the delegates of Pontus Greeks and the Prime Minister of the Republic of Erivan, Μ. Khatissian. The outlines of the constitution of the proposed federal state have been drawn and details left to future discussion. .. By promoting the emancipation of both peoples from Turks’ yoke, and encouraging their collaboration, the Allied Governmens will set up a real barrier against Mustafa Kemal and Lenin alike” [5].
Even The Times of 1st March, 1920, carried a letter to the editor by a person who used the initials D. A. K., entitled “Caucasia and Bolshevism”, saying that Pontus and Armenia, which a few months earlier could not agree to collaborate, had become finally converted to the “statesmanlike policy” of the Greek premier Venizelos, who, from the very beginning, had urged them closely to unite in view of their “common interests”. Five weeks earlier, their representatives had concluded an agreement at Tiflis, and a military convention was signed between General Tcrmenasian, representative of Armenia, Colonel Catheniotes, ex-Greek Army off icer, and Colonel Ananias, formerly of the Russian army but representing Pontus. The agreement was about measures to be taken in concert for meeting an external threat (e.g. from the Turkish Nationalists)[6].
Meanwhile, in the absence of Sir John Tilley from the British Foreign Office, Mr. Malcolm, the Armenian representative in London, brought Μ. Khatissian, who until two months earlier was the President of Armenia, to see D. G. Osborne, one of the Foreign Office staff, on the morning of 19th July, 1920. In a long interview, Khatissian thanked Great Britain whom Armenians regarded as their chief champion. He was visiting Europe as a special and fully accredited emissary of his Government to raise a loan of 20,000,000 dollars from various Armenian colonics, half of which would be devoted to the military expenses of occupying the Eastern Provinces of Turkey. He asked that Armenia be authorised at once to occupy the Turkish Provinces since an immediate advance by Armenian troops, in conjunction with the Greek operations in Anatolia, and with, if possible, the support of the British Fleet at Trabzon, would have considerable chances of success without serious resistance, he believed; but the Foreign Office, who consulted the War Office, would not authorise this[7] despite the fact that Greek premier Eleftherios Venizelos was suggesting the setting up of a Pontine State on the Black Sea shores of Turkey which could collaborate with Armenia and Georgia to form “a solid barrier against Islamism and eventually against Russian Imperialism”. He was asking for British financial assistance to help create such a state[8].
Despite the British attitude, the Armenians carried on with their treachery. On 16th August, 1920, British High Commissioner in Istanbul, Admiral Sir John de Robeck, in a cypher telegram to Lord Curzon, informed him as follows:
“I am informed that the French having being assured as to their position in Syria, now propose to send strong reinforcements to Cilicia and clear the country of the Nationalist forces. They have about 5,000 Armenians under arms, besides volunteer irregulars, for whose use Greece has just shipped from Piraeus, 5,000 rifles and 8 million rounds of ammunition...”[9].
Armenian Propaganda:
On gth January, 1920, British Member of Parliament Aneurin Williams, in a letter to Cecil Harmsworth, Parliamentary Secretary to the Foreign Office, stated that the Reverend Harold Buxton, chief agent of the Lord Mayor’s Armenian Fund in Asia Minor, had sent very alarming news that Mustafa Kemal, the Turkish Nationalist leader, would massacre from 50,000 to 100,000 Armenians if the Allies did not safeguard them. He throught that the danger was imminent. Aneurin Williams had no further information as to the whereabouts of these Armenians, except that some weeks earlier, he had heard that Mustafa Kemal had threatened to massacre all Christians within his power if Turkey were dismembered. He went on:
“Of course, Europe can't submit to threats like that. I don’t know what can be done to save those whom he threatens to kill, but at any rate, it can be made clear to him that his own head will be forfeit if he does. I daresay, the whole matter is familiar to you, but I feel bound to pass it on, and I am sure you will satisfy yourself that everything that can be done to prevent such massacres is being done”.
On 14th January, 1920, W. S. Edmonds of the Easterm Department of the Foreign Office, commented on this as follows:
“.. . The Armenians have naturally been full of the most alarmist rumours, but this particular one is probably meant to influence Paris... ”[10].
About nine months later, on 30th October, 1920, the “Union Nationale Arménienne” of Cairo, in a letter to the British Foreign Office asked for Allied military intervention “to save the Armenians in Cilicia”. D. G. Osborne of the Eastern Department, commented on this on 16th November, 1920, as follows:
“It is now an accepted canon that any misfortune that befalls an Armenian is the result of his self-sacrificing devotion to the cause of the Allies and entitles him to compensation from Great Britain. It is stated in this letter that the present situation in Cilicia ‘constitutes a singular reward to a people that has allowed itself to be massacred and deported out of attachment to the cause of the Allies’. This is going a little too far... Yesterday General Bragratouni (Armenian) informed me that the Armenians were fighting the Nationalists (Kemalists) on behalf of the Treaty of Sevres and of the Allies. I denied this and said that they were fighting for Armenia. I think we should refuse all responsibility for the Armenians in Cilicia and in reply to this memo should refer the Committee to the French Government. We might also correct the fallacy of the massacres and deportations”[11].
A week earlier, the same officer of the Eastern Department, had made the following comments in connection with the Armenian agitation in Cilicia:
“This (the agitation) is, no doubt, quite true and fully accords with the Dashnak propaganda methods. Thus Hadjin falls at the psychological moment and exaggerated reports of massacres are inserted in the press of the whole world thanks to the highly developed Armenian propaganda service”[12].
Actually, as the following documents will indicate without any doubt, it was the Turks who were being massacred by the French and the Armenians in Cilicia.
ARMENIAN ATROCITIES
The following extracts from a letter sent on 12th April, 1920, by C. F. Bates, President of Robert College, Istanbul, to A. Lybyer of the American fact-finding mission in Turkey, on the existing situation is interesting:
“.. .The policy of the French Government in bringing Armenian soldiers into Cilicia, and employing them there as gendarmes and policemen, has had a very bad effect throughout all Asia Minor. .. Many of these Armenian soldiers frankly avowed that they had come to this country for revenge... I very much fear that the announcement that an Armenian Kingdom is to be created in Asia Minor will be the signal for the breaking out of serious riots and massacres all over the country...”
Sir Ronald Graham of the British Foreign Office described these views as “sound”[13].
Even Brigadier-General A. F. Wavell of the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force admitted that many excesses were committed in Cilicia by “certain portions of the French Armenian troops”; but disciplinary action had been taken and the P'rench Armenian troops had been relieved by British troops and concentrated outside the towns. The “worst elements in these Armenian battalions” were being removed, and the situation in Cilicia, according to the general, was much improved. Commenting on this despatch, N. D. Peterson of the Foreign Office, said:
“General Allenby’s report that the French Armenians were unsatisfactory seems more than justified, and I expect that this is a very mild account of what really look place” [14].
To these accusations against the Armenians, Percy Christian, an Englishman, on 2nd May, 1920, added the following:
“Once again I feel it my duty to inform you of the critical state of the Province of Adana. Since the withdrawal of the British troops, things have gone from bad to worse and only false reports get outside the country. The Movement which is daily augmenting, is not merely brigandage, but a general uprising of the whole .Moslem population against the intolerable persecution, tyranny and unprecedented corruption : wholesale destruction of Moslem villages by bands of another creed, armed for the purpose: their homes burned, and their crops - which are exceptionally fine this year- left to rot in the fields. No Moslems are safe. Even in towns their women are unveiled and insulted in broad daylight. 40 or 50 villages in the plain between Adana, Sis and Osmaniye have been destroyed. Natives of all creeds no longer trust Europe...”[15].
About six weeks later, British ambassador in Paris, Lord Derby, sent the following interesting cypher telegram to Lord Curzon:
“Mr. Vansittart (British representative at the Peace Conference) gathers from Μ. de Caix, Berthelot and Kamner (French Officials)... that French difficulties had been much augmented by the Armenians themselves who had lost no opportunity of massacring isolated Turks"[16].
The French Charge d’Affaires in London, in a note to the British Foreign Office on 8th November, 1920, dwelt on the situation in Cilicia, adding that the Armenian agitation continued, and that its main object was a political one - the fulfilment of a progamme involving the establishment of an independent Cilicia[17]. But the true state of affairs in Cilicia was revealed by H. C. A. Eyres, an Englishman of Famagusta (Cyprus), in a confidential letter of 26th October, 1920. I append hereunder this interesting letter in toto :
“Famagusta, confidential, No. 2, 26. 10. 1920... From conversations with a large number of persons who have either left Cilicia lately or have had letters and news from there. .. when the French authorities first took over the Government of Cilicia, the natives were highly pleased. .. and quite prepared to settle down and live in amity with each other. The Turks of Adana collected a large sum of money to indemnify the Armenians and did so. They rebuilt their houses and restored their cattle and horses to such an extent that, in many cases, Armenians found themselves possessed of greater wealth than before. On the arrival of the French Colonel Bremond, he seized the remainder of this fund and confiscated it. He laid his hands on all visible assets and is said to have put everything in his pocket. In conjunction with a band of officers, who governed the town, e.g. Captain André of Osmanieh, Captain Martin at Adana, Captain Teihercn at Sis, etc., he raised bands of brigands who went about the country burning and looting the Turkish villages and the proceeds were shared by the principals. Captain André is stated to have been particularly active in this line.
In Adana itself a massacre of Turks took place one night and the people in some 60 houses were murdered and robbed. There was a British eye-witness there at the time.. it is impossible to disbelieve the tale he told me. Such a massacre could not have taken place without French connivance and assistance, though the actual per-petrators were believed to be solely Armenians... The result of this shocking misgovernment was that the Turks fled from Adana in great numbers and the villagers made for the hills. They organised resistance against the French and obtained aid in the shape of arms and ammunition from the Nationalists. . [18]”.
Even British Army officer Major Noel, who was sent to Anatolia to arouse the Kurds against the Turkish Nationalists, but was pursued by the Kemalist forces and almost captured reported, in May 1919 as follows :
“As a result of three months touring through the area occupied and devastated by the Russian Army and the Christian Army of revenge accompanying them during the spring and summer of 1916, I have no hesitation in saying that the Turks would be able to make out as good a case against their enemies as that presented against the Turks... According to almost universal testimony of local inhabitants and eye-witnesses, Russians acting on the instigation and advice of Nestorians and Armenians who accompanied them... murdered and butchered indiscriminately any Moslem member of the civil population who fell into their hands. A typical example that might be quoted is the extermination of the town of Rowanduz and the wholesale massacre of its inhabitants... A traveller through the Rowanduz and Neri districts would find widespread wholesale evidence of outrages committed by Christians on Moslems[19]”.
Mustafa Kemal, leader of the Turkish Nationalists, on 12th November, 1919, sent a telegram protesting vigorously against the occupation of Cilicia by the French, and adding.
“The massacres, oppression and atrocities, and the policy of extermination carried out in the vilayet (province) of Aidin, which was given to the Greeks to occupy with a view to opening the way to a division of Turkey, are identical with those perpetrated in the localities of Marash, Ourfa and Aintap (Antep), dependencies of the Vilayet of Adana, which the French have occupied, using the Armenians as their instruments. These acts are the last of a series of flagrant injustices of a political nature. ..”[20].
The Ottoman Government protested against the Cilicia incidents, asserting that Turkish action was due to “the unwarrantable extension of French occupation and the Armenian excesses and provocation”. W. S. Edmonds of the British Foreign Office commented as follows on these protests:
“No doubt the Armenians, whether native civilians or French mercenaries, have used many chances of working off old scores, and the attitude of the French authorities was very likely intolerable ...”
Lord Hardinge added: “The Grand Vizier was right in his accusation against the. French” [21].
TURKISH HOSTAGES
As late as April 1920, the British Foreign Office was still receiving alarming reports about the situation of the Armenians in Cilicia. On 3rd April, 1920, the Foreign Office, in an urgent cypher telegram to British High Commissioner in Istanbul, Admiral Robeck, was instructing him as follows:
“You should instruct the Turkish Government to remind Mustafa Kemal that the Allies have recently arrested several of his friends and associates (during the Allied occupation of Istanbul) who will be held as hostages for the Armenians in Cilicia”[22].
Whereas the truth was that those who were being massacred in Cilicia, as the above documents show, were the Turks.
TURKISH MAGNANIMITY
Whilst the Armenian gangsters and terrorists were doing their best to exterminate the Turkish population of Cilicia, the Turkish XVth Army Corps, under the command of Kazim Karabekir, was moving against the terrorist Tashnak Government of Erivan in a final show-down. The Times of the 4th December, 1920, carried the following headlines and story:
‘“Partition of Armenia’, ‘Turks Refrain From Massacre’ .. In addition to Kars and Ardahan, Turks take Igdir and part of Alexandropol districts... Turks appear to have behaved comparatively well towards the Armenian population, which is probably due to the character of the Turkish commander, Kazim Karabekir Pasha, who although an ardent partisan of the Committee (Committee of Union and Progress) policy of Drang nach Osten, has an unsullied reputation as a soldier[23]...”
With the signature of the Treaty of Alexandropol, and the ensuing Bolshevisation of Armenia, the Armenian question was finally settled at the Moscow and Kars Conferences.
WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT THE ARMENIANS
Sir Eyre Crowe, (Turcophobe) member of the British Foreign Office:
“We must remember that the misfortunes of their (Armenian) past history, for which Europe is in some measure to blame, have led them in self-defence, to adopt subterranean methods and to become too prone to massacring their opponents. The Armenian character is now not a more pleasing one than that of any other nationality which has for centuries had to submit to Turkish domination[24]...”.
George Kidston of the British Foreign Office:
“I fear that there is not the slightest doubt that the Armenian is at least as good a hand at massacring as his Moslem neighbour, and the Dashnak gang, who are at present in control at Erivan inspire no confidence. The Dashnaksutiun in my day at Constantinople were hand in glove with the C. U. P. and have always followed the same policy of secrecy and violence... Our friend Aharonian is a leading light of the Dashnak brotherhood, and has fallen foul of Papanjanian who is resigning. These everlasting feuds between the Dashnaks and the HintchaKs poison the whole Armenian atmosphere and make one despair of ever being able to do anything effective for these unfortunate people[25]...”.
Mary Caroline Holmes, of the American Orphanage at Urfa:
“The traits of character (of the Armenians) are far from those which make for rcightcousness, peace, or any sort of stability in society or government. What morality, if there ever was any, seems to have quite disappeared, so that lying, deceit, thieving, blackmail, etc., are as common among them as among the other races.
We heard much in America about the high standard of Christianity among them; of how they died for their faith and suffered untold agony for the name of their Lord. Some did. Many did not. They denied his name, became Moslem, even changing their names to save their skins. I personally know those who did these things. I am engaged in rescuing women and girls from Moslem homes, among other things. Quite as often as not, they do not wish to leave their Moslem men, are happy and contented and to my mind quite as well off as with men of their own race...
It is essential to remember that for 24 years the grievances of the Armenians have been systematically advertised in England and America. To the visitor the Armenian has shown himself no better than a professional beggar. To get him to do a hand’s turn to help himself is an exception, and gratitude does not seem to be part of his code. Indeed, the examples of base ingratitude, of dishonesty, of intrigue against the very individuals who are helping him, are only too numerous. On the other hand, how little is known of... the massacres by Armenians during the retreat into Armenia of the defeated Turks before the Russian advance through the Caucasus... ”[26].
Major-General James G. Harbord of the American Military Mission to Armenia:
“...The Armenian generally does not endear himself to those of other races with whom he comes into contact. The Armenian stands among his neighbours very much as the Jew stands in Russia and Poland... The popular saying in the Near East is : ‘The Armenian is never legally in the wrong, never morally in the right’. Even the American missionary does not like the Armenian as much as he does the more genial but indolent and pleasure-loving Turk. The Armenian is not guiltless of blood himself[27]”.
