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How Christian Armenians Came to Leave their 2,500 Year-Old Homeland: Part Two
The political sociology scholar Vahakn N. Dadrian* argues that the 1894-1896 Hamidian massacres of Armenians (see Part One at http://www.semp.us/biots/biot_207.html) were a form of “limited ethnocide,” which, because the Allied Powers (England, France, and Russia) failed to mobilize and apply retributive justice to the perpetrators of the massacres, paved the way for the World War I Armenian genocide. (p. 93) Whereas the Hamidian massacres were “mainly an assault on the economic, cultural, and religious infrastructure of the nation [i.e., ethnocide], the latter [was] an attempt at the destruction of the nation itself, along with all the artifacts of its ancient culture and civilization [i.e., genocide]. The goal was an “ethnically homogenized Turkey , by force and violence if necessary.” (p. 94)
Henry Morgenthau, Sr. (1856-1946) was American Ambassador at Constantinople from 1913 to 1916, before the US entered World War I. Because of US neutrality toward Turkey until 1917, Talaat Bey (born in Adrianople , Bulgaria ), Minister of the Interior and chief architect of the Armenian genocide, befriended Morgenthau, who wrote about his experience in “Ambassador Morgenthau's Story” (1918).** “For ten years the Turkish Empire had been undergoing a process of dissolution, and had now reached a state of decrepitude that had left it an easy prey to German diplomacy. In order to understand the situation, we must keep in mind that there was really no orderly, established government in Turkey at that time. For the Young Turks were not a government; they were really an irresponsible party, a kind of secret society, which, by intrigue, intimidation, and assassination, had obtained most of the offices of state.
“When I describe the Young Turks in these words, perhaps I may be dispelling certain illusions. Before I came to Turkey I had entertained very different ideas of this organization. As far back as 1908 I remember reading news of Turkey that appealed strongly to my democratic sympathies. These reports informed me that a body of young revolutionists had swept from the mountains of Macedonia , had marched upon Constantinople , had deposed the bloody Sultan, Abdul Hamid, and had established a constitutional system. Turkey , these glowing newspaper stories told us, had 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 commonwealth. That a party of Turks had for years been struggling for such reforms I well knew, and that their ambitions had become realities seemed to indicate that, after all, there was such a thing as human progress. The long welter of massacre and disorder in the Turkish Empire had apparently ended; "the great assassin", Abdul Hamid, had been removed to solitary confinement at Saloniki, and his brother, the gentle Mohammed V, had ascended the throne with a progressive democratic programme. “Such had been the promise; but, by the time I reached Constantinople , in 1913, many changes had taken place. Austria had annexed two Turkish provinces, Bosnia and Herzegovina ; Italy had wrenched away Tripoli ; Turkey had fought a disastrous war with the Balkan states, and had lost all her territories in Europe except Constantinople and a small hinterland. The aims for the regeneration of Turkey that had inspired the revolution had evidently miscarried, and I soon discovered that four years of so-called democratic rule had ended with the nation more degraded, more impoverished, and more dismembered than ever before. Indeed, long before I had arrived, this attempt to establish a Turkish democracy had failed. The failure was probably the most complete and the most disheartening in the whole history of democratic institutions. “I need hardly explain in detail the causes of this collapse. Let us not criticize too harshly the Young Turks, for there is no question that, at the beginning, they were sincere. In a speech in Liberty Square , Saloniki, 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, "To-day arbitrary government has disappeared. We are all brothers. There are no longer in Turkey Bulgarians, Greeks, Servians [sic], Rumanians, 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. The races which had been maltreated and massacred for centuries by the Turks could not transform themselves overnight into brothers, and the hatreds, jealousies, and religious prejudices of the past still divided Turkey into a medley of warring clans. Above all, the destructive wars 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, but it is hardly necessary to discuss them at this time.
“Thus 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. Instead of a nation of nearly 20,000,000, developing happily along democratic lines, enjoying suffrage, building up their industry and agriculture, laying the foundations for universal education, sanitation, and general progress, I saw that Turkey consisted of merely so many inarticulate, ignorant, and poverty-ridden slaves, with a small, wicked oligarchy at the top, which was prepared to use them in the way that would best promote its private interests. And these men were practically the same who, a few years before, had made Turkey a constitutional state. A more bewildering fall from the highest idealism to the crassest materialism could not be imagined. “Talaat, Enver, and Djemal were the ostensible leaders, yet back of them was the Committee, consisting of about forty men. This committee met secretly, manipulated elections, and filled the offices with its own henchmen. It occupied a building in Constantinople , and had a supreme chief who gave all his time to its affairs and issued orders to his subordinates. This functionary ruled the party and the country something like an American city boss in our most unregenerate days; and the whole organization thus furnished a typical illustration of what we sometimes describe as ‘invisible government.' “This kind of irresponsible control has at times flourished in American cities, mainly because the citizens have devoted all their time to their private affairs and thus neglected the public good. But in Turkey the masses were altogether too ignorant to understand the meaning of democracy, and the bankruptcy and general vicissitudes of the country had left the nation with practically no government and an easy prey to a determined band of adventurers. The Committee of Union and Progress, with Talaat Bey as the most powerful leader, constituted such a band. Besides the forty men in Constantinople , sub-committees were organized in all important cities of the empire. The men whom the Committee placed in power ‘took orders' and made the appointments submitted to them. No man could, hold an office, high or low, who was not indorsed by this committee.
“I must admit, however, that I do our corrupt American gangs a great injustice in comparing them with the Turkish Committee of Union and Progress. Talaat, Enver, and Djemal had added to their system a detail that has not figured extensively in American politics---that of assassination and judicial murder. They had wrested power from the other factions by a deed of violence. This coup d'état had taken place on January 26, 1913 , not quite a year before my arrival. At that time a political group, headed by the venerable Kiamil Pasha, as Grand Vizier, and Nazim Pasha, as Minister of War, controlled the Government; they represented a faction known as the ‘Liberal Party,' which was chiefly distinguished for its enmity to the Young Turks. These men had fought the disastrous Balkan War, and, in January, they had felt themselves compelled to accept the advice of the European powers and surrender Adrianople to Bulgaria . The Young Turks had been outside the breastworks for about six months looking for an opportunity to return to power. The proposed surrender of Adrianople apparently furnished them this opportunity. Adrianople was an important Turkish city, and naturally the Turkish people regarded the contemplated surrender as marking still another milestone toward their national doom. Talaat and Enver hastily collected about two hundred followers and marched to the Sublime Porte, where the ministry was then sitting. Nazim, hearing the uproar, stepped out into the hall. He courageously faced the crowd, a cigarette in his mouth and his hands thrust into his pockets. “‘Come, boys,” he said, good humouredly, “What's this noise about? Don't you know that it is interfering with our deliberations?' “The words had hardly left his mouth when he fell dead. A bullet had pierced a vital spot. “The mob, led by Talaat and Enver, then forced their way into the council chamber. They forced Kiamil, the Grand Vizier, to resign his post by threatening him with the fate that had overtaken Nazim. As assassination had been the means by which these chieftains had obtained the supreme power, so assassination continued to be the instrument upon which they depended for maintaining their control. Djemal, in addition to his other duties, became Military Governor of Constantinople, and in this capacity he had control of the police; in this office he developed all the talents of a Fouché, and did his work so successfully that any man who wished to conspire against the Young Turks usually retired for that purpose to Paris or Athens. The few months that preceded my arrival had been a reign of terror. The Young Turks had destroyed Abdul Hamid's régime only to adopt that Sultan's favourite methods of quieting opposition. Instead of having one Abdul Hamid , Turkey now discovered that she had several. Men were arrested and deported by the score, and hangings of political offenders---opponents, that is, of the ruling gang---were common occurrences.” Morgenthau described Talaat in the following passage: “Talaat, the leading man in this band of usurpers, really had remarkable personal qualities. Naturally Talaat's life and character proved interesting to me, for I had for years been familiar with the Boss system in my own country, and in Talaat I saw many resemblances to the crude yet able citizens who have so frequently in the past gained power in local and state politics. Talaat's origin was so obscure that there were plenty of stories in circulation concerning it. One account said that he was a Bulgarian gipsy, while another described him as a Pomak---a Pomak being a man of Bulgarian blood whose ancestors, centuries ago, had embraced the Mohammedan faith. According to this latter explanation, which I think was the true one, this real ruler of the Turkish Empire was not a Turk at all. I can personally testify that he cared nothing for Mohammedanism for, like most of the leaders of his party, he scoffed at all religions. "I hate all priests, rabbis, and hodjas," he once told me---hodja being the nearest equivalent the Mohammedans have for a minister of religion. “In American city politics many men from the humblest walks of life have not uncommonly developed great abilities as politicians, and similarly Talaat had started life as a letter carrier. From this occupation he had risen to be a telegraph operator at Adrianople ; and of these humble beginnings he was extremely proud. I visited him once or twice at his house; although Talaat was then the most powerful man in the Turkish Empire , his home was still the modest home of a man of the people. It was cheaply furnished; the whole establishment reminded me of a moderately priced apartment in New York . His most cherished possession was the telegraph instrument with which he had once earned his living. Talaat one night told me that he had that day received his salary as Minister of the Interior; after paying his debts, he said, he had just one hundred dollars left in the world. He liked to spend part of his spare time with the rough-shod crew that made up the Committee of Union and Progress; in the interims when he was out of the cabinet he used to occupy the desk daily at party headquarters, personally managing the party machine. Despite these humble beginnings, Talaat had developed some of the qualities of a man of the world. Though his early training had not included instruction in the use of a knife and fork---such implements are wholly unknown among the poorer classes in Turkey ---Talaat could attend diplomatic dinners and represent his country with a considerable amount of dignity and personal ease. I have always regarded it as indicating his innate cleverness that, though he had had little schooling, he had picked up enough French to converse tolerably in that language. Physically, he was a striking figure. His powerful frame, his huge sweeping back, and his rocky biceps emphasized that natural mental strength and forcefulness which had made possible his career. In discussing matters Talaat liked to sit at his desk, with his shoulders drawn up, his head thrown back, and his wrists, twice the size of an ordinary man's, planted firmly on the table. It always seemed to me that it would take a crowbar to pry these wrists from the board, once Talaat's strength and defiant spirit had laid them there. Whenever I think of Talaat now I do not primarily recall his rollicking laugh, his uproarious enjoyment of a good story, the mighty stride with which he crossed the room, his fierceness, his determination, his remorselessness---the whole life and nature of the man take form in those gigantic wrists.” Talaat's view of the situation was declared in his memoirs drafted in Berlin before his assassination in March 1921: the “ high point of the Turko-Armenian conflict” (1912-1913) occurred “when he finally concluded that the Armenian clamors for reform actually aimed at autonomy and eventual independence through Russian intervention. When he and his…cohorts tried to dissuade the Armenians through private conferences, and to persuade them to rely on projected new Turkish initiatives for reform, it became clear that the Armenians were bent on exploiting Turkey 's weakness resulting form the latter's defeats in the 1912 Balkan War.” (p. 125) Talaat especially despised what he perceived as Armenians running “from capital to capital in Europe seeking intervention in our governmental affairs.” (p. 126) Sources: * Vahakn N. Dadrian: “Warrant for Genocide: Key Elements of Turko-Armenian Conflict.” Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick and London , 1999. ** “Ambassador Morgenthau's Story” to Woodrow Wilson (published 1918). Available online at: http://www.cilicia.com/morgenthau/MorgenTC.htm . |
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