Nikolai Troitsky, political commentator for RIA Novosti.
Saturday, April 24, marks the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire. This year marks 95 years since this bloody massacre and terrible crime began - the mass extermination of people on ethnic grounds. As a result, from one to one and a half million people were killed.
Unfortunately, this was not the first and far from the last case of genocide in modern history. In the twentieth century, humanity seemed to have decided to return to the darkest times. In enlightened, civilized countries, medieval savagery and fanaticism suddenly revived - torture, reprisals against relatives of convicts, forced deportation and the wholesale murder of entire peoples or social groups.
But even against this gloomy background, two of the most monstrous atrocities stand out - the systematic extermination of Jews by the Nazis, called the Holocaust, in 1943-45 and the Armenian genocide, carried out in 1915.
That year, the Ottoman Empire was effectively ruled by the Young Turks, a group of officers who overthrew the Sultan and introduced liberal reforms to the country. With the outbreak of the First World War, all power was concentrated in the hands of the triumvirate - Enver Pasha, Talaat Pasha and Dzhemal Pasha. It was they who carried out the act of genocide. But they did not do this out of sadism or innate ferocity. The crime had its own reasons and prerequisites.
Armenians lived in Ottoman territory for centuries. On the one hand, they were subject to certain discrimination on religious grounds, like Christians. On the other hand, most of them stood out for their wealth or at least prosperity, because they were engaged in trade and finance. That is, they played approximately the same role as the Jews in Western Europe, without which the economy could not function, but which were regularly subject to pogroms and deportations.
The fragile balance was disrupted in the 80s - 90s of the 19th century, when underground political organizations of a nationalist and revolutionary nature formed among the Armenians. The most radical was the Dashnaktsutyun party - a local analogue of the Russian Socialist Revolutionaries, and socialist revolutionaries of the very left wing.
Their goal was to create an independent state on the territory of Ottoman Turkey, and the methods of achieving this goal were simple and effective: seizing banks, killing officials, explosions and similar terrorist attacks.
It is clear how the government reacted to such actions. But the situation was aggravated by the national factor, and the entire Armenian population had to answer for the actions of the Dashnak militants - they called themselves fidayeen. In different parts of the Ottoman Empire, unrest broke out every now and then, which ended in pogroms and massacres of Armenians.
The situation worsened further in 1914, when Turkey became an ally of Germany and declared war on Russia, which was naturally favored by local Armenians. The government of the Young Turks declared them a “fifth column”, and therefore a decision was made on their wholesale deportation to inaccessible mountainous areas.
One can imagine what a massive relocation of hundreds of thousands of people, mainly women, old people and children, was like, since men were called up to active army. Many died from deprivation, others were killed, outright massacres took place, and mass executions were carried out.
After the end of the First World War, a special commission from Great Britain and the United States was involved in the investigation of the Armenian genocide. Here is just one brief episode from the testimony of miraculously surviving eyewitnesses of the tragedy:
“Approximately two thousand Armenians were rounded up and surrounded by the Turks, they were doused with gasoline and set on fire. I actually was in another church that they tried to burn down, and my father thought that was the end of his family.
He gathered us around... and said something that I will never forget: Do not be afraid, my children, because soon we will all be in heaven together. But fortunately someone discovered secret tunnels... through which we were saved."
The exact number of victims was never officially counted, but at least a million people died. More than 300 thousand Armenians took refuge in the territory Russian Empire, since Nicholas II ordered the borders to be opened.
Even if the killings were not officially sanctioned by the ruling triumvirate, they are still held accountable for these crimes. In 1919 all three were sentenced to death penalty in absentia, as they managed to escape, but then were killed one by one by vigilante militants from radical Armenian organizations.
Enver Pasha's comrades were convicted of war crimes by the Entente allies with the full consent of the government of the new Turkey, headed by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He began to build a secular authoritarian state, the ideology of which was radically different from the ideas of the Young Turks, but many organizers and perpetrators of massacres came to his service. And by that time the territory of the Turkish Republic was almost completely cleared of Armenians.
Therefore, Ataturk, although he personally had nothing to do with the “final solution to the Armenian question,” categorically refused to acknowledge the accusations of genocide. In Turkey, they sacredly honor the behests of the Father of the Nation - this is how the surname that the first president took for himself is translated - and they firmly stand on the same positions to this day. The Armenian genocide is not only denied, but a Turkish citizen can receive a prison sentence for publicly admitting it. This is what happened recently, for example, with the world famous writer, laureate Nobel Prize in literature by Orhan Pamuk, who was released from prison only under pressure from the international community.
At the same time, in some European countries provides for criminal penalties for denying the Armenian genocide. However, only 18 countries, including Russia, officially recognized and condemned this crime of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkish diplomacy reacts to this in different ways. Since Ankara dreams of joining the EU, they pretend that they do not notice the “anti-genocide” resolutions of states from the European Union. Türkiye does not want to spoil its relations with Russia because of this. However, any attempts to introduce the issue of recognition of genocide by the US Congress are immediately rebuffed.
It is difficult to say why the government of modern Turkey stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the crimes committed 95 years ago by the leaders of the dying Ottoman monarchy. Armenian political scientists believe that Ankara is afraid of subsequent demands for material and even territorial compensation. In any case, if Turkey really wants to become a full part of Europe, these long-standing crimes will have to be acknowledged.
Karen Vrtanesyan
HISTORY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE 1853 – 1923
The date April 24, 1915 occupies a special place not only in the history of the Armenian genocide, but also in the history of the Armenian people as a whole. It was on this day that mass arrests of the Armenian intellectual, religious, economic and political elite began in Constantinople, which led to the complete destruction of a whole galaxy of prominent figures of Armenian culture. The lists of those subject to arrest included people of different political views and professions: writers, artists, musicians, teachers, doctors, lawyers, journalists, businessmen, political and religious leaders; the only thing they had in common was nationality and position in society. Arrests of prominent figures of the Armenian community continued in the Turkish capital with short breaks until the end of May, and no charges were brought against the detainees.
Back in February-March, information began to arrive from the provinces about the arrests and murders of Armenian leaders, but it was with the Constantinople arrests that the full-scale destruction of the Armenian elite began throughout the country. Thus, according to American reports, in April-May, Armenian professors and cultural figures were arrested in Van; In Kharput, representatives of the Armenian intelligentsia were the first to come under the blow of the genocidal machine (in June–July of the same year). The purpose of the action was to behead the Armenians, to deprive the people of even the slightest chance to organize themselves in the face of the danger of complete extermination. The scheme was simple but effective: representatives of the elite were the first to be eliminated, after which the destruction of the rest began.
In Constantinople, they tried to carry out arrests without unnecessary noise: usually a plainclothes policeman came and asked the owner of the house to go to the station “literally for five minutes to answer a few questions.” They came to others at night, lifted them out of bed, and took them straight to the city’s central prison in their pajamas and slippers. Many people who had nothing to do with politics and considered themselves loyal subjects of the Ottoman Empire could not even imagine what awaited them in the very near future. There were cases when those whom the police did not find at home came to the police themselves, wondering what the authorities suddenly needed from them
Dr. Tigran Allahverdi, arrested on April 24, for example, was himself a member of the Young Turk party. He repeatedly organized fundraising campaigns and donated them to the party treasury large sums money . Among those arrested was also Professor Tiran Keledjyan, who taught in Turkish schools all his life. educational institutions and published the Turkish-language newspaper “Sabah”. After being taken to the internment camp, Keledjian recognized the camp commander as one of his former students. He secretly warned the professor that an order had been received, signed by Talaat, to exterminate the prisoners, and advised him to get out of the camp at any cost. Later, Keledjian, who was unable to do anything to save himself, was killed on the way to Sivas, where he was sent allegedly to appear before a military tribunal. Of the 291 prisoners of the camp, only forty people survived.
Among these forty was the great Armenian composer and musicologist Komitas. According to rumors, after his arrest he was allowed to return to Constantinople thanks to the personal intervention of Prince Majid, whose wife he had once taught music. However, the shocks he experienced during his exile were not in vain: uncertainty about the future, the atmosphere of constant fear that filled the city in those days, an involuntary feeling of guilt for the friends left in the camp to certain death, loneliness - all this soon caused Komitas to become confused reason. He died in 1935 in Paris, having spent the last nineteen years of his life in psychiatric hospitals.
In just a few weeks, about 800 prominent Armenians were arrested in Constantinople alone, of whom by the end of the summer few were alive. The victims of the Young Turk terror were the writers Daniel Varuzhan, Siamanto, Ruben Zardaryan, Ruben Sevak, Artashes Harutyunyan, Tlkatintsi, Yerukhan, Tigran Chekuryan, Levon Shant and dozens of others.
A little later, deputies from the Dashnaktsutyun party in the Ottoman parliament were arrested and killed: Vardges, Khazhak, writer and publicist Grigor Zohrab... The Armenians, who sacrificed so many lives on the altar of the liberation of Turkey from Sultanic despotism, were now mercilessly exterminated by yesterday's comrades in the revolutionary struggle.
Thousands of clergy died in the flames of genocide: from ordinary priests to archbishops. “...Bishop Smbat Saadetyan from Karin, driven away with his flock towards Mesopotamia, was killed by robbers near Kamakh. Archimandrite Gevork Turyan of Trebizond, exiled by the military court of Karin, was killed on the way; ... Archimandrite Bayberd Anania Azarapetyan was hanged by decision of local authorities; Archimandrite Musha Vartan Hakobyan died in prison, beaten with sticks; Archimandrite of Tigranakert Mkrtich Chlkhatyan died in prison from torture ... ”- the patriarch of Western Armenians, Archbishop Zaven, reports on December 28, 1915 to the head of the diocese in America, Archimandrite Veguni.
The blow dealt to the Armenian people by the Young Turk regime in the spring and summer of 1915 was unprecedented in its destructiveness. That is why today Armenians scattered all over the world celebrate April 24th as a day of remembrance for the victims of the genocide. In Armenia, on this day, tens of thousands of people climb to the Genocide Memorial on Tsitsernakaberd Hill in Yerevan, and mourning services are held in Armenian churches all over the world.
List of used literature:
“The Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire” - a collection of documents and materials edited by M. G. Nersisyan, 2nd edition. Yerevan: “Hayastan”, 1983.
Kirakossian John, “The Young Turks before the court of history.” Yerevan: “Hayastan”, 1989.
Balakian, P., The Burning Tigris. The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2003.
Soulahian Kuyumjian, R., Archeology of Madness. Komitas. Second Edition. Princeton, NJ: Gomidas Institute, 2001.
Political observer on the prospects for resolving the conflict, the aggravation of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, the history of Armenia and Armenian-Turkish relations websiteSaid Gafurov talks with political scientist Andrei Epifantsev.
The problem of genocide: “Armenians and Turks behaved the same way”
Armenian genocide
— Let's start right away with the conflict topic... T Tell me right away, was there any genocide of Armenians by the Turks or not? I know that you have written a lot on this topic and understood this topic.
“What is certain is that there was a massacre in Turkey in 1915 and that such things should never happen again.” My personal approach is that the official Armenian position, according to which it was a genocide caused by the terrible hatred of the Turks towards the Armenians, is incorrect in a number of ways.
Firstly, it is quite obvious that the cause of what happened was largely the Armenians themselves, who staged an uprising before this. Which began long before 1915.
All this stretched on from the end of the 19th century and covered, among other things, Russia. The Dashnaks didn’t care who they blew up, Turkish officials or Prince Golitsyn.
Secondly, it is important to know what is usually not shown here: the Armenians, in fact, behaved like the same Turks - they carried out ethnic cleansing, massacres, and so on. And if all the available information is combined together, you get a comprehensive picture of what happened.
— The Turks have their own genocide museum, dedicated to the territory that was “liberated” by the Armenian Doshnak units with the help of English gold and Russian weapons. Their commanders actually reported that there was not a single Turk left there. Another thing is that the Dashnaks were then provoked to speak out by the British. And, by the way, the Turkish court in Istanbul, even under the Sultan, condemned the organizers of mass crimes against Armenians. True, in absentia. That is, the fact of a mass crime took place.
- Certainly. And the Turks themselves do not deny this, they offer condolences. But they do not call what happened genocide. From the point of view of international law, there is the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide, signed, among other things, by Armenia and Russia. It indicates who has the right to recognize a crime as genocide - this is the court in The Hague, and only it.
Neither Armenia nor the foreign Armenian diaspora has ever appealed to this court. Why? Because they understand that they will not be able to prove this genocide in legal or historical terms. Moreover, all international courts - the European Court of Human Rights, the French Court of Justice and so on, when the Armenian diaspora tried to raise this issue with them, they refused. Only since last October there have been three such ships - and the Armenian side lost all of them.
Let's go back to the first half of the twentieth century: even then it was obvious that both the Turkish and Armenian sides resorted to ethnic cleansing. Two American missionaries sent by Congress after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire saw a picture of ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the Armenians.
We ourselves saw in 1918 and 1920, before Soviet power was firmly established, either Armenian or Azerbaijani purges. Therefore, as soon as the “USSR factor” disappeared, they immediately received Nagorno-Karabakh and the same purges. Today this territory has been cleared to the maximum. There are practically no Armenians left in Azerbaijan, and no Azerbaijanis in Karabakh and Armenia.
The positions of Turks and Azerbaijanis are fundamentally different
— Meanwhile, in Istanbul there is a large Armenian colony, there are churches. This, by the way, is an argument against genocide.
— The positions of the Turks and Azerbaijanis are fundamentally different. At the ethnic level, at the everyday level. There is currently no real territorial conflict between Armenia and Turkey, but there is one with the Azerbaijanis. Secondly, some events took place 100 years ago, while others took place today. Thirdly, the Turks did not set themselves the goal of physically destroying the Armenians, but of calling them to loyalty, albeit through savage means.
Therefore, there are many Armenians left in the country, whom they tried to Turkify, so to speak, to Islamize, but they remained Armenians within themselves. Some Armenians survived and were resettled away from the battle zone. After World War II, Türkiye began to restore Armenian churches.
Now Armenians are actively going to Turkey to work. The Turkish government had Armenian ministers, which is impossible in Azerbaijan. The conflict is now taking place over very specific reasons - and the main thing is land. The compromise option that Azerbaijan offers: high degree of autonomy, but within Azerbaijan. So to speak, Armenians must become Azerbaijan. The Armenians categorically do not agree to this - it will again be a massacre, deprivation of rights, and so on.
There are, of course, other settlement options, for example, as was done in Bosnia. The parties created a very complex state, consisting of two autonomous entities with their own rights, army, and so on. But this option is not even being considered by the parties.
Monostates, states created on the basis of an ethnic project, are a dead end. The question is this: history is not finished, it continues. For some states it is very important to gain dominance of their people on this land. And after it is provided, it is already possible to develop the project further, attracting other peoples, but on the basis of some kind of subordination. In fact, the Armenians now, after the collapse Soviet Union, and the Azerbaijanis, in fact, are at this stage.
Is there any solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh problem?
— The Azerbaijani official line: the Armenians are our brothers, they must return, that is, there are all the necessary guarantees, let them leave us only external defense and international affairs. Everything else will remain with them, including security issues. What is Armenia's position?
Here everything comes up against the fact that Armenia and the Armenian society have the position of the historical land - “this is our historical land, and that’s all.” There will be two states, one state, it doesn’t matter. We will not give up our historical land. We would rather die or leave there, but we will not live in Azerbaijan. Nobody says that nations cannot make mistakes. Including Armenians. And in the future, when they are convinced of their mistake, they will probably come to a different opinion.
Armenian society today is, in fact, very divided. There are diasporas, there are Armenians of Armenia. Very strong polarization, more than in our society, an oligarchy, a very large spread between Westerners and Russophiles. But there is complete consensus regarding Karabakh. The Diaspora is spending money on Karabakh, there is powerful lobbying for the interests of Karabakh Armenians in the West. The national-patriotic upsurge continues, it is fueled and will for a long time persist.
But all national projects have their moment of truth. In the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, this moment of truth has not yet arrived for either side. The Armenian and Azerbaijani sides are still on maximalist positions; each of the elites has convinced its people that victory is possible only on maximalist positions, only by fulfilling all our demands. "We are everything, our enemy is nothing."
People, in fact, have become hostages of this situation, and it is already difficult to win back. And the same mediators who work in the Minsk Group face difficult task: to persuade the elite so that they turn to the people and say - no, guys, we must lower the bar. That's why there is no progress.
— Bertolt Brecht wrote: “Nationalism cannot feed hungry stomachs.” Azerbaijanis rightly say that those most affected by the conflict are simple Armenian people. The elite profit from military supplies, and life ordinary people Meanwhile, it’s getting worse: Karabakh is a poor land.
- And Armenia is not rich land. But for now, people choose guns from the “guns or butter” option. In my opinion, a solution to the Karabakh crisis is possible. And this solution lies in the division of Karabakh. If we simply divide Karabakh, although I understand that it is difficult, but nevertheless: one part for one, the other part for another.
Legitimize, say: “The international community accepts this option.” Perhaps calculate the percentage of the population at the time of 1988 or 1994. Divide, solidify boundaries and say that anyone who starts a conflict that violates the existing status quo will be punished. The issue will resolve itself.
Prepared for publication by Sergey Valentinov
The Armenian genocide was the physical destruction of the Christian ethnic Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire that occurred between the spring of 1915 and the fall of 1916. About 1.5 million Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire. At least 664 thousand people died during the genocide. There are suggestions that the death toll could reach 1.2 million people. Armenians call these events "Metz Egern"("Great Crime") or "Aghet"("Catastrophe").
The mass extermination of Armenians gave impetus to the origin of the term "genocide" and its codification in international law. Lawyer Raphael Lemkin, the coiner of the term “genocide” and the thought leader of the United Nations (UN) program to combat genocide, has repeatedly stated that his youthful impressions of newspaper articles about the crimes of the Ottoman Empire against Armenians formed the basis of his beliefs in the need for legal protection national groups. Thanks in part to Lemkin's tireless efforts, the United Nations approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948.
Most of the killings of 1915-1916 were carried out by Ottoman authorities with the support of auxiliary troops and civilians. The government, controlled by the Union and Progress political party (also called the Young Turks), aimed to strengthen Muslim Turkish rule in Eastern Anatolia by eliminating the large Armenian population in the region.
Beginning in 1915–16, Ottoman authorities carried out large-scale mass executions; Armenians also died during mass deportations due to hunger, dehydration, lack of shelter and disease. In addition, tens of thousands of Armenian children were forcibly taken from their families and converted to Islam.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Armenian Christians were one of the many significant ethnic groups of the Ottoman Empire. In the late 1880s, some Armenians created political organizations that sought greater autonomy, which increased the Ottoman authorities' doubts about the loyalty of large sections of the Armenian population living in the country.
On October 17, 1895, Armenian revolutionaries seized the National Bank in Constantinople, threatening to blow it up along with more than 100 hostages in the bank building if the authorities refused to grant regional autonomy to the Armenian community. Although the incident ended peacefully thanks to French intervention, the Ottoman authorities carried out a series of pogroms.
In total, at least 80 thousand Armenians were killed in 1894-1896.
THE YOUNG TURKISH REVOLUTION
In July 1908, a faction that called itself the Young Turks seized power in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople. The Young Turks were predominantly officers and officials of Balkan origin who came to power in 1906 in a secret society known as Unity and Progress and transformed it into a political movement.
The Young Turks sought to introduce a liberal constitutional regime, not related to religion, which would put equal conditions all nationalities. The Young Turks believed that non-Muslims would integrate into the Turkish nation if they were confident that such policies would lead to modernization and prosperity.
At first it seemed that the new government would be able to eliminate some of the causes of social discontent in the Armenian community. But in the spring of 1909, Armenian demonstrations demanding autonomy turned violent. In the city of Adana and its environs, 20 thousand Armenians were killed by Ottoman army soldiers, irregular troops and civilians; Up to 2 thousand Muslims died at the hands of the Armenians.
Between 1909 and 1913, activists in the Union and Progress movement became increasingly inclined toward a strongly nationalistic vision of the future of the Ottoman Empire. They rejected the idea of a multi-ethnic “Ottoman” state and sought to create a culturally and ethnically homogeneous Turkish society. The large Armenian population of Eastern Anatolia was a demographic obstacle to achieving this goal. After several years of political upheaval, on November 23, 1913, as a result of a coup d'etat, the leaders of the Union and Progress Party received dictatorial power.
WORLD WAR I
Mass atrocities and genocide often occur during times of war. The extermination of the Armenians was closely interconnected with the events of the First World War in the Middle East and the Russian territory of the Caucasus. The Ottoman Empire officially entered the war in November 1914 on the side of the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary), which fought against the Entente countries (Great Britain, France, Russia and Serbia).
On April 24, 1915, fearing the landing of Allied troops on the strategically important Gallipoli Peninsula, the Ottoman authorities arrested 240 Armenian leaders in Constantinople and deported them to the east. Today, Armenians consider this operation the beginning of genocide. The Ottoman authorities claimed that the Armenian revolutionaries had established contact with the enemy and were going to facilitate the landing of French and British troops. When the Entente countries, as well as the United States, which at that time still remained neutral, demanded an explanation from the Ottoman Empire in connection with the deportation of the Armenians, it called its actions precautionary measures.
Beginning in May 1915, the government expanded the scale of deportations, sending the Armenian civilian population, regardless of the distance of their places of residence from the combat zones, to camps located in the desert southern provinces of the empire [in the north and east of modern Syria, the north Saudi Arabia and Iraq]. Many escorted groups were sent south from the six provinces of Eastern Anatolia with a high proportion of Armenian population - from Trabzon, Erzurum, Bitlis, Van, Diyarbakir, Mamuret-ul-Aziz, as well as from the province of Marash. Subsequently, Armenians were expelled from almost all regions of the empire.
Since the Ottoman Empire was an ally of Germany during the war, many German officers, diplomats and aid workers witnessed atrocities committed against the Armenian population. Their reaction varied: from horror and filing official protests to isolated cases of tacit support for the actions of the Ottoman authorities. The generation of Germans who survived the First world war, had memories of these terrible events in the 1930s and 1940s, which influenced his perception of the Nazi persecution of Jews.
MASS KILLINGS AND DEPORTATIONS
Obeying orders from the central government in Constantinople, regional authorities, with the complicity of local civilian population carried out mass executions and deportations. Military and security officials, as well as their supporters, killed the majority of Armenian men of working age, as well as thousands of women and children.
During escorted crossings through the desert, surviving elderly people, women and children were subjected to unauthorized attacks by local authorities, bands of nomads, criminal gangs and civilians. These attacks included robberies (for example, stripping victims naked, stripping them of their clothing, and subjecting them to body cavity searches for valuables), rape, abductions of young women and girls, extortion, torture, and murder.
Hundreds of thousands of Armenians died without reaching the designated camp. Many of them were killed or kidnapped, others committed suicide, and a huge number of Armenians died from hunger, dehydration, lack of shelter or disease along the way. While some residents of the country sought to help the expelled Armenians, many more ordinary citizens killed or tortured those being escorted.
CENTRALIZED ORDERS
Although the term "genocide" appeared only in 1944, most scholars agree that the mass murder of Armenians meets the definition of genocide. The government, controlled by the Union and Progress Party, took advantage of the national martial law to implement a long-term demographic policy aimed at increasing the share of the Turkish Muslim population in Anatolia by reducing the size of the Christian population (mainly Armenians, but also Christian Assyrians). Ottoman, Armenian, American, British, French, German and Austrian documents from the time indicate that the leadership of the Union and Progress Party deliberately exterminated the Armenian population of Anatolia.
The Union and Progress Party issued orders from Constantinople and enforced them through its agents in Special organization and local administrative authorities. In addition, the central government required careful monitoring and collection of data on the number of Armenians deported, the type and number of housing units they left behind, and the number of deported citizens admitted to the camps.
The initiative for certain actions came from the senior members of the leadership of the Unity and Progress party, and they also coordinated the actions. The central figures of this operation were Talaat Pasha (Minister of the Interior), Ismail Enver Pasha (Minister of War), Behaeddin Shakir (Head of the Special Organization) and Mehmet Nazim (Head of the Population Planning Service).
According to government regulations, in certain regions the share of the Armenian population should not exceed 10% (in some regions - no more than 2%), Armenians could live in settlements that included no more than 50 families, as far away as from Baghdad railway, and from each other. To fulfill these demands, local authorities carried out deportations of the population over and over again. The Armenians crossed the desert back and forth without the necessary clothing, food and water, suffering from the scorching sun during the day and freezing from the cold at night. The deported Armenians were regularly attacked by nomads and their own guards. As a result, under the influence natural factors and targeted extermination, the number of deported Armenians decreased significantly and began to meet the established standards.
MOTIVES
The Ottoman regime pursued the goals of strengthening the country's military position and financing the "Turkification" of Anatolia by confiscating the property of killed or deported Armenians. The possibility of property redistribution also encouraged large numbers of ordinary people to engage in attacks on their neighbors. Many residents of the Ottoman Empire considered Armenians to be wealthy people, but in fact, a significant part of the Armenian population lived poorly.
In some cases, the Ottoman authorities agreed to grant Armenians the right to reside in their former territories, subject to their acceptance of Islam. While thousands of Armenian children died due to the fault of the authorities of the Ottoman Empire, they often tried to convert children to Islam and assimilate them into Muslim, primarily Turkish, society. Generally, the Ottoman authorities avoided carrying out mass deportations from Istanbul and Izmir in order to hide their crimes from the eyes of foreigners and to benefit economically from the activities of the Armenians living in these cities in order to modernize the empire.
Translation from Armenian
1. Persian Meshali Haji Ibrahim said the following:
“In May 1915, Governor Takhsin Bey summoned the Chebashi Amvanli Eyub-ogly Gadyr and, showing him the order received from Constantinople, said: “I entrust the local Armenians to you, bring them unharmed to Kemakh, there the Kurds will attack them and other. For the sake of appearances, you will show that you want to protect them, you will even use weapons once or twice against the attackers, but in the end you will show that you cannot cope with them, you will leave and return.” After thinking a little, Gadyr said: “You order me to take the sheep and lambs tied hand and foot to the slaughter; this is cruelty unbecoming of me; I am a soldier, send me against the enemy, let him either kill me with a bullet and I will fall bravely, or I will defeat him and save my country, and I will never agree to stain my hands in the blood of the innocent.” The governor was very insistent that he carry out the order, but the magnanimous Gadyr flatly refused. Then the governor called Mirza-bey Veransheherli and made him the above proposal. This one also argued that there is no need to kill. Already, he said, you are putting the Armenians in such conditions that they themselves will die along the way, and Mesopotamia is such a hot country that they will not be able to stand it, they will die. But the governor insisted, and Mirza accepted the offer. Mirza fully fulfilled his cruel obligation. Four months later he returned to Erzurum with 360 thousand lire; He gave 90 thousand to Tahsin, 90 thousand to the corps commander Mahmud Kamil, 90 thousand to the defterdar, and the rest to the meherdar, Seifulla and accomplices. However, during the division of this booty, a dispute arose between them, and the governor arrested Mirza. And Mirza threatened to make such revelations that the world would be surprised; then he was released.” Eyub-ogly Gadyr and Mirza Veransheherli personally told this story to the Persian Mashadi Haji Ibrahim.
2. Persian camel driver Kerbalay Ali-Memed said the following: “I was transporting ammunition from Erzincan to Erzurum. One day in June 1915, when I approached the Khotursky Bridge, a stunning sight appeared before my eyes. A countless number of human corpses filled the 12 spans of the large bridge, damming the river so that it changed its course and ran past the bridge. It was terrible to watch; I stood with my caravan for a long time until these corpses floated by and I was able to cross the bridge. But from the bridge to Dzhinis, the entire road was littered with the corpses of old men, women and children, who had already decomposed, swollen and stinking. The stench was so terrible that it was impossible to walk along the road; my two camel drivers got sick and died from this stench, and I was forced to change my path. These were victims and traces of an unheard of and terrible crime. And all these were the corpses of Armenians, unfortunate Armenians.”
3. Alaftar Ibrahim Efendi said the following: “A very harsh and urgent order the following content: to slaughter without mercy all men from 14 to 65 years of age, do not touch children, old people and women, but leave them and convert them to Mohammedanism.”
TsGIA Arm, SSR, f. 57, op. 1, d, 632, l. 17-18.
from "The Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Empire”, ed. M.G.Nersisyan, M.1982, pp.311-313