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8169 | dbpedia | 1 | 16 | https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/models/claudia-jordan-net-worth/ | en | Claudia Jordan Net Worth | [
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] | 2021-01-04T19:05:32+00:00 | Claudia Jordan Net Worth and Salary: Claudia Jordan is an American actress, model, television, and radio personality with a net worth of $1.5 million. Known | en | Celebrity Net Worth | https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/models/claudia-jordan-net-worth/ | What is Claudia Jordan's Net Worth and Salary?
Claudia Jordan is an American actress, model, television, and radio personality with a net worth of $1.5 million. Known for her appearances as a model in the US version of "Deal or No Deal" and "The Price Is Right," Claudia Jordan has also competed on season two and six of "Celebrity Apprentice." She held the Miss Rhode Island Teen USA title in 1990 and represented Rhode Island at the 1997 Miss USA beauty pageant.
Early Life
Claudia Jordan was born on April 12th of 1973, in Providence, Rhode Island. She was born to an Italian mother and an American father. Claudia's parents met while her father served in the US Air Force, stationed in Brindisi, Italy. Jordan went to high school in Providence and was a sprinter, earning all-state honors in track and field. Claudia attended University in Ohio, majoring in broadcasting and journalism and obtaining All-American status as a 400-meter sprinter.
In 1990, Claudia Jordan represented Rhode Island in the Miss Teen USA beauty pageant. She won the title of Miss Rhode Island USA in 1997, placing in the top 10 of the Miss USA pageant that year.
Career
Following her success in beauty pageants, Jordan appeared in multiple music videos for artists such as the Backstreet Boys, Ginuwine, Fabolous, Charlie Wilson, Joe, Chico DeBarge, D'Angelo, Coolio, Ludacris, and Kenny Lattimore. She also began to appear in national television commercials for Coors Light, Sears, Pepsi, Visa, and Mountain Dew.
From 2001 to 2003, Claudia was one of Bob Barker's "beauties" on the CBS game show "The Price Is Right." In 2005, Jordan was hired for the American version of "Deal or no Deal," holding the briefcase #1 for four seasons.
In 2003, Claudia began her first hosting job as a red-carpet correspondent for the Fox Sports West show, "54321." She also began to appear on "The Best Damn Sports Show Period." From there, Jordan joined E! and The Style Network for two seasons as the co-host of "The Modern Girl's Guide to Life."
In 2009, Claudia appeared on the second season of "Celebrity Apprentice." During the series, Jordan and the other celebrities raised money for a charity of their choice, and Jordan selected the North American Psychoanalytic Confederation as her charity. That same year, in the Bahamas, Claudia co-hosted the 2009 Miss Universe pageant alongside Billy Bush.
Jordan was a standout on Jamie Foxx's satellite radio show "The Foxxhole," and she began to co-host on Tameka Cottle's talk show "Tiny's Tonight," aired in December of 2012. That year, Claudia also hosted the AT&T travel show "The Summer of Adventure." In 2013, Jordan returned to the "Celebrity Apprentice" to compete on the show's All-Star version. In October of 2014, Claudia announced she was joining the cast of "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" for the seventh season as one of the primary housewives. During the filming of "The Real Housewives of Atlanta," Jordan was simultaneously working as a co-host on the "Rickey Smiley Morning Show."
In 2018, Claudia led her morning show in Dallas called "The Morning Rush," which ran for one year and was the top-rated R&B Morning show in Dallas. Jordan hosts a talk show on the American internet streaming service Fox Soul Platform. The show, entitled "Out Loud," features Jordan and a rotating cast of Black Americans whom she invites to speak on a wide range of topics, to empower men and women in the Black community. Her show airs every Tuesday through Friday.
Additionally, Claudia has worked as a journalist for the Providence American newspaper and in television production. | |||||
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Bringing Arts & Music to the Community
NORTH SMITHFIELD, R.I. (R.I.W.B.L.) — Every year, Providence’s Jeffrey Osborne asks some of his most trusted friends to visit Rhode Island and celebrate the journey to promote the fine and performing arts to children and their families. For Osborne, who grew up on Olney Street in the Mount Hope section of Providence, the goal is to help raise money to support local community organizations.
For both Jeffrey and E. Justin, an unwavering love for educating children and providing them a safe space to create what is in their heart is what keeps them going each and every day. It is what binds them together as artists. On August 11-12, the Rhode Island WIFFLE® Ball League is partnering with the Jeffrey Osborne Foundation to make Rhode Island a better place, to continue the push for music and arts to children and their families, while benefitting those who provide a safe haven for families in need. Osborne, 70, feels that, “giving to people in any number of ways is extremely important. So as long as I can do it, I will.
| |||
8169 | dbpedia | 0 | 21 | https://boo.world/database/profile/29321/claudia-jordan-personality-type | en | Claudia Jordan's Personality Unveiled: MBTI, Enneagram and More | [
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Claudia Jordan is an ENTP, Aries, and Enneagram Type 8w7.
What is Claudia Jordan's personality type? | ||||
8169 | dbpedia | 1 | 82 | https://www.tiktok.com/%40thecarlosking_/video/7387069826130480430 | en | Make Your Day | [] | [] | [] | [
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8169 | dbpedia | 2 | 96 | https://people.com/who-is-juanita-vanoy-michael-jordan-ex-wife-7966972 | en | Who Is Michael Jordan's Ex-Wife? All About Juanita Vanoy | [
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"Alex Gurley",
"www.facebook.com"
] | 2023-10-04T14:59:31.642000-04:00 | Michael Jordan was married to his first wife Juanita Vanoy from 1989 to 2006. Here's everything to know about Michael Jordan's ex-wife. | en | /favicon.ico | Peoplemag | https://people.com/who-is-juanita-vanoy-michael-jordan-ex-wife-7966972 | Michael Jordan had just begun his prolific NBA career when he met his first wife Juanita Vanoy.
When the pair first crossed paths at a restaurant in 1985, Jordan was only one season into his career with the Chicago Bulls. Over the next few years, their relationship quickly progressed, and by 1988, Vanoy was pregnant with their first child. While there was nearly a paternity suit concerning Jordan’s involvement in the baby’s life, the pair eventually decided to tie the knot in September 1989, almost a year after their son Jeffrey was born.
Jordan and Vanoy said “I do” in a middle-of-the-night ceremony at the Little White Chapel in Las Vegas. The couple then went on to welcome two more children: their second son Marcus was born in 1990 and their daughter Jasmine arrived in 1992. As Jordan rose to fame, Vanoy stuck by his side — and became the “head of the household” while the basketball star was busy on the court.
“[She’s] very nice, very demanding. Very caring, good mother. Learning to cook. I love her to death though. I mean she’s got a sense of humor just by hanging around,” Jordan said during a 1993 interview on “Eye to Eye with Connie Chung.”
Over the next decade, the family lived in a Chicago mansion while Jordan continued his basketball career and eventually retired. Then, shortly after Jordan’s decision to unretire from the sport in 2002, Vanoy filed for divorce. While the couple temporarily reconciled, their divorce was imminent, and in 2006, they split for good.
So who is Michael Jordan’s ex-wife? Here’s everything to know about Juanita Vanoy.
Vanoy was born and raised in Chicago
Vanoy was born on June 13, 1959, in Chicago, Ill. She was raised on the city’s South Side, as the fifth of six girls in her family. As a teenager, she attended Fenger Academy High School where she played on the girls’ basketball team.
“I've always loved basketball. I mean, even in my high school days I was on the girls basketball team,” Vanoy shared during an interview in 1991.
She worked various jobs before meeting Jordan
After graduating high school, Vanoy worked on getting her associate’s degree from a local community college. While studying, she worked for various organizations, including the American Bar Association and the real estate investment management firm, Heitman Financial Services. When she met Jordan for the first time, she was working as a loan officer at a Chicago bank.
In the years that followed, Vanoy also worked as a newspaper cultural columnist, a magazine feature writer and even obtained her real estate license.
Vanoy and Jordan first met at a restaurant after a Chicago Bulls game
Jordan met Vanoy for the first time in March 1985 when the pair were introduced by mutual friends at a Bennigan’s restaurant in Chicago. Earlier in the evening, Vanoy had attended a Bulls basketball game where she watched Jordan from the crowd — and had no idea he would one day become her husband.
They got married in Las Vegas in September 1989
Vanoy and Jordan had their ups and downs before tying the knot. After dating for several years, Jordan popped the question on New Year’s Eve in 1987 and shortly after, the couple became pregnant with their first child. Talks of their marriage stalled though and for some time, Vanoy considered filing a paternity suit.
“Juanita felt this was something she needed to do. [Jordan] was obviously not being responsive to her needs or the needs of the unborn child. It's not something that if you ignore it, it will go away,” her attorney Michael Minton told The Chicago Tribune.
While the couple’s legal teams hashed things out, Vanoy gave birth to their son in November 1988. Then, 10 months later, the couple married in a 3:30 a.m. ceremony at the Little White Chapel in Las Vegas. At the time, Jordan said that he was concerned that his friends would oppose the marriage, so it was best if they did it privately.
“I told Juanita I was afraid that when the preacher asked if there was anyone who objected to the marriage, too many hands would go up. I didn’t trust my buddies because they saw it as the start of another stage of my life, and they knew that would limit them,” Jordan told PEOPLE.
He continued, “So I said, ‘If you want to do it, let’s do it now.’ We’d both had a couple of drinks, we’d been gambling and losing — this was like our bachelor night. That’s how we got married at 3:30 a.m. in a wedding chapel. I did say, ‘Five years from now, maybe we can do a church wedding.’ And that’s what Juanita’s banking on. She says she was robbed of those precious moments.”
They had differences from the beginning of their marriage
From the early days of their relationship, Jordan admitted that he was very different from Vanoy. Back in 1993, Jordan shared that he had more of a “Southern attitude” about life, while Vanoy was more of a city girl. He also explained that Vanoy wanted more nights out with him but he had “lost the desire to go out” and had to “force” himself because he believed she deserved his attention.
“I’m more down-home Southern, Juanita’s more city-like. When my good friends come up from North Carolina, I don’t mind having them stay over and sleep on the floor — that’s a Southern attitude. But Juanita believes that these are grown men now. She’ll say, ‘Make sure they get a hotel,’ ” Jordan told PEOPLE.
They share three children: Jeffrey, Marcus, and Jasmine
Over the course of their relationship, Vanoy and Jordan welcomed three children. Their son Jeffrey was born in 1988 before the couple tied the knot. In December 1990, they welcomed their second son Marcus, followed by their daughter Jasmine in December 1992.
As their children grew up, the couple’s three children stayed out of the spotlight. Looking back, Jasmine says it was a decision that was made primarily by her mother.
“My dad always said, ‘You go out and do what you want, if you want to have that life I support you.’ My mom was more about, ‘I’m going to raise you how I think you should be and once you become an adult you decide what you want to do.’ We were all raised in Chicago, our family would come over every weekend, and my mom made us understand where we came from, and that this life was a blessing and not to take it for granted,” Jasmine told InStyle.
Vanoy filed for divorce in 2002 but they reconciled their relationship
In January 2002, Vanoy filed for divorce after 12 years of marriage. The decision came shortly after Jordan decided to unretire in order to play for the NBA’s Washington Wizards. In the paperwork, Vanoy requested permanent custody of their children, the title to their Chicago mansion and an equitable share of their marital assets. Meanwhile, Jordan said that their efforts to save the marriage had failed and future ones “would be impractical and not in the best interests of the family.”
In the days following the news, Jordan briefly spoke to the press at basketball practice, telling reporters, “When you have personal issues, sometimes work is a great avenue to deal with it and move on. Things will work out in the long run.”
Things did end up working out for the couple, as just a month later, they announced that they were trying to reconcile and Vanoy withdrew her petition.
They ultimately filed for divorce again in 2006
Following their initial split in 2002, Jordan and Vanoy decided to stay together. The pair remained married for several years, but in 2006, they filed for divorce once again. In a statement, their lawyers shared that the split was amicable.
“Michael and Juanita Jordan mutually and amicably decided to end their 17-year marriage. A judgment for dissolution of their marriage was entered today. There will be no further statements,” their lawyers told PEOPLE.
Vanoy received a $168 million settlement following the divorce
In the wake of their split, Vancoy received one of the biggest celebrity divorce settlements in sports history. Vancoy received a $168 million payout — although Jordan was granted ownership of their Chicago mansion.
She now owns a luxury clothing boutique
In the years that followed Vanoy and Jordan’s divorce, she focused on raising her children. While she says she had dreams of opening her own business, her kids took priority at the time.
“I thought I’d open my own business. But it was important for me to remain in my kids’ lives as much as possible, even through college. And that required a lot of time,” she told Chicago Business in 2013.
Now that her children are adults, Vanoy has finally gotten the chance to open her own business. She now manages a luxury online resale boutique called Juanita World. As a “self-proclaimed shopaholic,” Vanoy sells designer clothing, handbags, shoes, belts and jewelry — including pieces from her own collection.
In 2022, Vanoy also served as a co-producer on the Broadway production of Some Like It Hot.
Vanoy was not included in Jordan’s The Last Dance documentary
When Jordan’s documentary The Last Dance was released in 2020, many fans noticed that Vanoy was completely absent from the film — despite being a large part of Jordan’s career. The couple’s daughter Jasmine was later asked about the situation and shared that her mother wasn’t concerned about not being included. | ||||
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8169 | dbpedia | 3 | 35 | https://facts.net/celebrity/23-fascinating-facts-about-alexis-jordan/ | en | 23 Fascinating Facts About Alexis Jordan | [
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"Paule Hanner"
] | 2023-10-23T02:01:15+08:00 | Discover 23 captivating facts about American singer Alexis Jordan and delve into her fascinating career and personal life. Explore her achievements, highlights, and surprising details in this compelling article. | en | https://facts.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/fac-icon.ico | Facts.net | https://facts.net/celebrity/23-fascinating-facts-about-alexis-jordan/ | The Early Years
Alexis Jordan, born on April 7, 1992, in Columbia, South Carolina, displayed her talent for singing at a young age. By the time she was 11, she had already won numerous talent competitions in her hometown.
Rise to Stardom
At just 14 years old, Alexis auditioned for the reality TV show “America’s Got Talent” and made it to the semifinals. Though she didn’t win the competition, her performances caught the attention of music industry executives, leading to a record deal.
Debut Single Success
In 2010, Alexis released her debut single, “Happiness,” which became an instant hit, reaching the top 10 in several countries. The song showcased her powerful vocals and infectious pop sound, propelling her into the international spotlight.
Collaborations with Superstars
Alexis had the opportunity to collaborate with renowned artists, including Sean Paul and Jay-Z. Her collaboration with Sean Paul on the hit single “Got 2 Luv U” gained massive popularity and further solidified her place in the music industry.
Global Recognition
Her debut self-titled album, “Alexis Jordan,” released in 2011, received positive reviews and charted in several countries. Alexis gained a global fan base and embarked on successful tours around the world.
Diversifying Her Career
Alexis expanded her artistic endeavors beyond music. She showcased her acting skills in the musical film “Honey 2” and gained praise for her performance. Additionally, she appeared as a contestant on the reality TV show “Dancing with the Stars.”
Entrepreneurial Ventures
Aside from her music and acting career, Alexis ventured into entrepreneurship. She launched her own line of fragrances and fashion accessories, catering to her dedicated fan base.
Charitable Endeavors
Alexis is known for her philanthropic work and has been involved in various charitable endeavors. She has supported organizations that focus on children’s health and education, using her platform to make a positive impact.
Growing Social Media Presence
With her captivating personality and talent, Alexis has amassed a significant following on social media platforms. She actively engages with her fans and shares snippets of her life and career through posts and videos.
Continuing Musical Journey
Despite taking a break from the music scene, Alexis has expressed her intentions to return to the studio and release new music. Fans eagerly await her comeback and anticipate the next chapter of her musical journey.
An Inspiration to Many
Alexis Jordan’s story serves as an inspiration to aspiring artists. Her dedication, talent, and perseverance have shown that dreams can become a reality with hard work and passion.
Recognition and Awards
Alexis Jordan has been nominated for and won several awards throughout her career, including the Teen Choice Awards and the MOBO Awards. Her talent and contribution to the music industry have been recognized by fans and industry professionals alike.
International Fanbase
Alexis Jordan’s music has resonated with a diverse audience and has garnered a loyal fanbase around the world. Her soulful vocals and relatable lyrics have connected with listeners from all walks of life.
A Dedicated Performer
Alexis is known for her energetic and captivating performances. Whether on stage or in music videos, she exudes charisma and has a natural ability to captivate audiences with her talent.
Strong Female Empowerment Message
Alexis’s music often conveys a strong message of female empowerment. Through her lyrics and performances, she encourages women to be confident, independent, and unapologetically themselves.
Crossing Genres
While initially known for her pop sound, Alexis has shown versatility by exploring different genres. She has dabbled in R&B, dance, and even reggae, showcasing her ability to adapt to different musical styles.
Influential Collaborators
Collaborating with influential artists has helped shape Alexis’s music and career. By working with established musicians, she has been able to learn and grow as an artist, expanding her horizons and reaching new audiences.
Positive Impact Through Music
Alexis’s music has touched the lives of many fans, offering messages of hope, love, and resilience. Her beautiful melodies and heartfelt lyrics have provided comfort and inspiration to her listeners.
Personal and Authentic Lyrics
Alexis’s songwriting often delves into personal experiences and emotions, allowing her to connect with listeners on a deeper level. Her authentic lyrics resonate with fans, creating a strong bond between artist and audience.
International Tours and Performances
Alexis has graced stages around the globe, captivating audiences with her powerful vocals and dynamic performances. From sold-out arenas to intimate venues, she has proven her ability to command a stage and leave a lasting impression.
Evolution as an Artist
Throughout her career, Alexis has evolved both musically and artistically. She has constantly pushed boundaries, experimenting with new sounds and styles, demonstrating her growth as an artist.
Influence on Young Artists
As a successful young artist, Alexis has inspired a new generation of musicians. Her journey serves as a reminder that age should never be a barrier to pursuing one’s passion and achieving greatness.
The Future Looks Bright
With a promising career ahead of her, Alexis Jordan continues to captivate audiences with her talent, versatility, and undeniable charm. As she prepares to embark on new projects and releases, fans eagerly anticipate what’s to come from this remarkable artist.
Conclusion
Alexis Jordan is a talented and multifaceted celebrity who has captivated audiences with her incredible vocals and charismatic presence. Throughout her career, she has achieved remarkable success and has left an indelible mark on the entertainment industry. From her early beginnings on the reality TV show “America’s Got Talent,” to her chart-topping hits and collaborations with renowned artists, Alexis Jordan continues to shine as a star. Her journey is a testament to hard work, perseverance, and a true passion for her craft. With her infectious energy and undeniable talent, it’s no wonder that Alexis Jordan remains a beloved figure in the world of music and entertainment.
FAQs
Q: What is Alexis Jordan known for?
A: Alexis Jordan is best known for her powerful vocals, emotive performances, and impressive range as a singer. She rose to fame through her appearance on “America’s Got Talent” in 2006 and has since released hit songs and collaborated with notable artists in the music industry.
Q: How did Alexis Jordan start her career?
A: Alexis Jordan’s career started when she auditioned for the reality TV show “America’s Got Talent” at a young age. Although she didn’t win the competition, her talent was recognized, and she soon signed a recording contract, leading to the release of her self-titled debut album in 2011.
Q: What are some popular songs by Alexis Jordan?
A: Some of Alexis Jordan’s popular songs include “Happiness,” “Good Girl,” “Laying Around,” and her collaboration with Sean Paul on the hit single “Got 2 Luv U.
Q: Has Alexis Jordan acted in any movies?
A: While primarily known for her music career, Alexis Jordan has also ventured into acting. She appeared in the 2012 dance film “Sisterly,” where she showcased her dancing skills alongside other talented performers.
Q: Is Alexis Jordan still active in the music industry? | ||||
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"Jake Skudder"
] | 2023-08-28T23:38:27+00:00 | The journey of Claudia Jordan—from Miss Rhode Island USA to a media personality—is intricately woven, culminating in an impressive net worth. | en | HotNewHipHop | https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/706890-claudia-jordan-net-worth | In the ever-shifting landscape of pop culture and entertainment, Claudia Jordan emerges as a multifaceted force. She has left an indelible mark on television, radio, and more. As of 2023, her net worth stands at $1.5 million, according to CelebrityNetWorth. It is a testament to her diverse endeavors and ability to navigate showbiz's intriguing labyrinth.
From Humble Beginnings To The Spotlight
Anya Monzikova, Kasie Head and Claudia Jordan during Stuff Magazine Hosts The Stuff Style Awards - Red Carpet at Arclight in Los Angeles, California, United States. (Photo by L. Cohen/WireImage for Stuff Magazine)
Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Claudia Jordan's journey from modest beginnings to the entertainment industry's spotlight is a narrative with twists and turns. Her upbringing instilled a resilient spirit to serve her well in the competitive world she was destined to embrace. As a young woman, she embarked on a journey that would see her crowned Miss Rhode Island USA and eventually pave her way into the coveted universe of media and entertainment.
Career Highs: A Spotlight On Achievements
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - NOVEMBER 17: Ray J and Claudia Jordan speak onstage at the 2019 Soul Train Awards presented by BET at the Orleans Arena on November 17, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Denise Truscello/Getty Images for BET)
Claudia Jordan's career trajectory bears witness to a blend of charm, wit, and determination that swiftly made her a standout. Her appearance on the popular television game show The Price Is Right marked a turning point, garnering her widespread recognition. Yet, her tenure as a model on Deal or No Deal catapulted her into the living rooms of millions. Her engaging presence added an extra layer of excitement to the show's format.
From being a game show model to the Real Housewives reality television star, Jordan's versatility is evident in her ability to transition seamlessly between mediums, captivating audiences across platforms. Her vibrant presence and undeniable charisma have earned her recognition in the entertainment community. These contributions to the industry have not gone unnoticed, with her role on Deal or No Deal becoming a cornerstone of her career.
A Mic & More: Diving Into Radio & Television
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 09: (L-R) Vivica A. Fox, Elise Neal, guest and Claudia Jordan. Attend the 2023 ESSENCE Black Women In Hollywood Awards at Fairmont Century Plaza. On March 09, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Robin L Marshall/Getty Images for ESSENCE)
In the world of radio, Claudia Jordan's mellifluous voice found a fitting home. She co-hosted the nationally syndicated radio show The Rickey Smiley Morning Show, enthralling audiences with her candid commentary and magnetic personality. Her versatility knew no bounds, as she also delved into reality television with appearances on The Real Housewives of Atlanta and The Celebrity Apprentice. These ventures demonstrated her capacity to transition between mediums, captivating audiences across platforms seamlessly.
Further, Claudia Jordan is dedicated to positively impacting the world. Her philanthropic efforts include supporting organizations focused on empowering underprivileged youth and providing resources to communities in need. Her advocacy extends to issues such as domestic violence awareness, demonstrating her commitment to using her platform for meaningful change. | |||||
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8169 | dbpedia | 0 | 6 | https://www.nbc.com/nbc-insider/deal-or-no-deal-island-claudia-jordan-career-explained | en | Everything to Know About Deal or No Deal Island's Claudia Jordan: From Briefcase Model to Star Player | [
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"James Grebey"
] | 2024-02-28T22:08:12+00:00 | Deal or No Deal Island competitor Claudia Jordan was a briefcase model on the original Deal or No Deal Island. Here's what else she's done. | en | /sites/nbcblog/themes/custom/nbcblog/images/icons/apple-touch/apple-touch-icon.png | NBC Insider Official Site | https://www.nbc.com/nbc-insider/deal-or-no-deal-island-claudia-jordan-career-explained | The new series Deal or No Deal Island mixes up the traditional Deal or No Deal game show format. No longer are contestants just trying to pick the right briefcase; they’re also competing against a dozen other players and putting themselves through arduous physical challenges on the Banker’s private island in an attempt to win the biggest prize in Deal or No Deal history. For one contestant, though, things are especially different. For the first time, Claudia Jordan is in a position to pick a briefcase, as the former multi-season Briefcase Girl is competing to win on Deal or No Deal Island.
RELATED: Deal or No Deal Island's First Eliminated Was "Hurt Deeply" By Fellow Competitor's Fake-Out
Jordan, who also competed on two seasons of Celebrity Apprentice and was on The Real Housewives of Atlanta, is not the only contestant on Deal or No Deal Island with past reality show experience. Rob Mariano, aka “Boston Rob,” is a Survivor veteran. But Jordan is the only one who has had any experience with those iconic briefcases, even if she was on the other side of them.
What other shows has Deal or No Deal Island's Claudia Jordan been in?
Jordan was born on April 12, 1973, in Providence, Rhode Island. Her parents met in Italy when her dad, a member of the U.S. Air Force who was stationed there, met her mother, an Italian native. After graduating from Ohio’s Baldwin Wallace College, where she majored in broadcasting and journalism, Jordan represented Rhode Island as Miss Teen USA in 1991 and Miss USA in 1997. During the early ‘90s was also when she began her acting career, appearing in one-off episodes of a few sitcoms like That’s So Raven and having small parts in movies like the 2000 sci-fi film Simone.
From 2001 to 2003, Jordan was a model on Seasons 29 through 32 of The Price Is Right, serving as a “Barker's Beauty.” After she left the show, Jordan sued for wrongful termination, sexual harassment, and race discrimination, alleging that a staffer had made inappropriate sexual advances toward her. They settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
After leaving The Price Is Right, Jordan became one of the inaugural Briefcase Models on Deal or No Deal when it premiered in 2005. Although she held Briefcase #9 during the initial premiere week, for the rest of her four-season tenure on the series, she held Briefcase #1 — a big deal, but for superstitious reasons, the #1 case was among the least-chosen cases by contestants in the show’s history.
Jordan left Deal or No Deal after Season 4, and would go on to host the 2009 Miss Universe competition and compete on Seasons 8 and 13 of Celebrity Apprentice. She was the fourth contestant to be “fired” on both seasons. She was also a member of the main cast of The Real Housewives of Atlanta in Season 7 and would return as a guest for Seasons 8, 13, and 15.
RELATED: How Do Deal or No Deal Island's Challenges and Classic Briefcases Work?
She has numerous hosting gigs on her filmography as well, including The Raw Word, VH1 Couples Retreat, and more.
Will Jordan’s reality and game show experience help her triumph on Deal or No Deal Island — to say nothing of her experience on Deal or No Deal itself? Find out as the season continues. | ||||
8169 | dbpedia | 2 | 63 | http://caribbean.loopnews.com/content/claudia-jordan-celebrates-50th-birthday-aruba | en | Claudia Jordan celebrates 50th birthday in Aruba | [
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] | 2023-04-17T11:15:55 | Turning 50 is a milestone that many people would like to achieve and celebrate in style.
Aruba was the place that American actress and model Claudia Jordan and a group of her closest friends and relatives chose to celebrate her golden birthday. | en | /themes/loopnews/logo.svg | Loop News | http://caribbean.loopnews.com/content/claudia-jordan-celebrates-50th-birthday-aruba | Turning 50 is a milestone that many people would like to achieve and celebrate in style.
Aruba was the place that American actress and model Claudia Jordan and a group of her closest friends and relatives chose to celebrate her golden birthday.
Jordan shared photos and videos of her crew ‘turning up’ and enjoying all that Aruba has to offer as they rang in her 50th birthday.
In one photo, the “Tea-G-I-F” host donned a shimmering bikini as she encouraged her fans not to be afraid of ageing.
“This is 50. Don’t be afraid or look down upon aging. And it’s dumb to call someone ‘old’ (as an insult) that’s actually doing what they’re supposed to be doing in this world. Aging means you’re still here and you made it thru some things. The alternative to NOT aging is no longer existing, no longer growing and no longer LIVING. Live your life loud and unapologetically,” she wrote on Instagram. | ||||
8169 | dbpedia | 0 | 95 | https://en.nguoinoitieng.tv/job/model/claudia-jordan/axeq | en | Model Claudia Jordan profile: Age | [
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8169 | dbpedia | 3 | 97 | https://biowikis.com/claudia-jordan/ | en | Claudia Jordan Bio, Wiki, Net Worth, Husband, Age, Height | [
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"Utsav Acharya"
] | 2020-09-27T15:43:45+00:00 | Who is Claudia Jordan? Know about her bio, wiki, net worth, income, including her married life, husband, age, height, weight, family, parents, and siblings. | en | Bio Wikis | https://biowikis.com/claudia-jordan/ | Claudia Jordan is a celebrity who has worked in acting, modeling, and as a host. Yes, she is widely known for running ‘The Claudia Jordan Show’ since 2009. She also rose into prominence from the Bravo reality television series The Real Housewives of Atlanta for its seventh season. She has also appeared on the U.S. version of Deal or No Deal, and The Price Is Right as a model.
Claudia Jordan was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the U.S. in 1973. On the 12th of April, she blows her birthday candles and holds the Aries zodiac sign. She has the American nationality with African-American and Italian ethnicity.
Net Worth, Salary, and Income
Claudia came into limelight by winning the Miss Rhode Island Teen USA 1990 title. Then, she represented Rhode Island at the Miss Teen USA 1990 pageant. Eventually, she became the second African-American woman to win the Miss Rhode Island USA titled in 1997. Later, Claudia was placed in the top 10 at Miss USA 1997.
Afterwar, Claudia made her appearance in music videos of Ginuwine, Fabolous, Backstreet Boys, Charlie Wilson, and many more. She also works at the Providence American newspaper as a Journalist. She also made national television commercials for Sears, Pepsi, Coors Light, Visa, Microsoft, and Mountain Dew.
Claudian made her television debut from Trippin’s and City Gus as Vanessa in 1999. To this date, she has appeared in the T.V. shows like Jack & Jill, The Price Is Right, Dog Eat Dog, Ballers, The Next: 15, Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, and Love & Hip Hop: Miami. She rose into prominence from the reality show, The Real Housewives of Atlanta of season 7.
As of 2020, Claudia’s net worth of $500 thousand.
Dating, Married and Divorce
Claudia had shared her marital life with Datari Lamont Turner, who is an American actor. They walked the aisle on the 28th of November 2009. After being together for a year, they got divorced on the 29th of December 2010, where the reason remains confined.
After having an unsuccessful marriage, Claudia moved on with her new boyfriend, Medina Islam, an actor, and rapper. In July 2016, they even got engaged. Besides that, they hadn’t shared much detail about when and how did they meet. However, they have been spotted several times kissing each other in public.
Parents, Family, and Siblings
Claudia was born in Jordan family with the middle name Angela. She is the daughter of Teresa, but her father’s name remains unknown. But her father is an African-American descent, whereas her mother holds Italian descent. She completed her education from Baldwin Wallace University.
Body Measurements: Height and Weight
The beautiful model, Claudia, has a height of 5 feet 8 inches and weighs around 59kgs. She has dark brown hair as well as eyes color. | |||||
8169 | dbpedia | 1 | 20 | https://www.passes.com/wiki/claudia-jordan | en | Claudia Jordan (@claudia | [
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8169 | dbpedia | 3 | 39 | https://www.distractify.com/p/deal-or-no-deal-island-cast | en | Everything You Need to Know About the 'Deal or No Deal Island' Cast | [
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] | 2024-03-11T17:21:54.641000+00:00 | 'Deal or No Deal Island' brings 13 players to a remote island to compete in challenges for briefcases. Read on for everything we know about the cast. | en | https://www.distractify.com/favicon.ico | Distractify | https://www.distractify.com/p/deal-or-no-deal-island-cast | In 'Deal or No Deal Island,' 13 players compete in challenges to secure briefcases, which later become values on the board.
By Kelly Corbett
Updated March 11 2024, 1:23 p.m. ET
Think Deal or No Deal meets Survivor! NBC's beloved game show Deal or No Deal is back with an exciting new spinoff: Deal or No Deal Island.
Hosted by Joe Manganiello and executive produced by Howie Mandel, Deal or No Deal Island premiered on Feb. 26. It transported 13 players to the Banker’s private island (located in Panama), where so far, they've had to plunge through mud lagoons and scale trees for arrows, among grueling challenges in order to locate the game's iconic silver briefcases.
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These briefcases are hidden around the island and are worth over $200 million in prize money, split between them. During the day, players compete for these cases, hoping to get the case with the highest value, which will give them immunity or at least one of the higher values available. This is because the contestants with the briefcases with the two lowest values will automatically land themselves in the bottom two.
The player with the highest value then decides who from the bottom two will enter the "The Banker's Temple" that night and play. If the chosen player in the game accepts a lower offer than the value in their case, they're eliminated. But, if they make a smart deal and accept an offer higher than their case value, the power is in their hands, and they get to select who to eliminate.
So, who are these 13 brave competitors? Below, we share everything we know about the Deal or No Deal Island players, including their Instagram handles.
Dawson Addis
Dawson Addis is a realtor who lives with his boyfriend in Muskego, Wis. He also manages his family's bar. Dawson goes to the gym daily and has a history of game fishing, hunting, and camping that he’s hoping will come in handy on the show. You can follow him on Instagram @dawsonaddis.
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Claudia Jordan
Actress, model, and host of Fox Soul's Tea-G-I-F, Claudia Jordan, hails from Dallas, Texas. While she's new to playing Deal or No Deal Island, she was actually a briefcase model on Deal or No Deal and claims it has taught her a thing or two about how to play the game. She's also made appearances on The Real Housewives of Atlanta and The Celebrity Apprentice. Claudia is extremely competitive and won’t back down from a challenge. She will stop at nothing to ensure karma comes around to those who deserve it. You can follow her on Instagram at @claudiajordan.
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Brantzen Wong
Branzten Wong, who works as a professional poker player and vlogger, is from Tustin, Calif. You can follow him on Instagram at @branztenpoker.
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Amy McCoy
Amy McCoy is a corporate benefits manager from Oklahoma City, Okla. She calls herself the "MOMster" because she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty if it means providing for her husband and three kids. Amy claims she's a gambling pro after once winning $15,000 on a cruise. You can follow her on Instagram at @okcamy_mccoy.
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"Boston" Rob Mariano
Survivor and Big Brother alum "Boston" Rob Mariano currently lives in Perdido Keys, Fla. with his wife Amber Mariano, and four daughters. He's become a reality TV legend due to all of his competition show appearances and his epic Survivor win. You can follow him on Instagram at @bostonrobmariano.
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Miranda Harrison
Miranda Harrison is an exterminator from Fort Myers, Fla., who isn't afraid to get her hands dirty. She has been taught how to survive in any situation and possesses skills such as starting a fire with a glass bottle and identifying which plant leaves are safe to eat. Recently, Miranda has been focusing on rebuilding and supporting her community in Fort Myers post Hurricane Ian. You can find her on Instagram at @mirandaroseharrison.
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Jamil Sipes
Jamil Sipes is a healthcare recruiter and father of three from Grand Prairie, Texas. With 15 years of experience in sales and recruitment, he claims to be an expert at reading mannerisms, tone, and body language. He's also participated in several Spartan races and marathons. You can follow him on Instagram at @jamilsipes1.
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Stephanie Mitchell
Stephanie Mitchell is a mom of four and the first Black professional midwife in the state of Alabama. Currently residing in Gainesville, she's originally from Boston and is a strong advocate of women's healthcare. You can follow her on Instagram at @doctor_midwife.
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Aron Barbell
Aron Barbell is an accountant from Champaign, Ill., living in Stoughton, Mass. He overcame a speech impediment as a child, which made him a master of listening and navigating social situations. Besides being a huge sports fan, he is a pro at crunching numbers. But one thing he's not? A survivalist. In fact, he jokes that his phobia is the outdoors. You can follow him on Instagram at @dontcallmeayayron.
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Alyssa Klinzing
Alyssa Klinzing, an influencer and former pageant queen, is from Kansas City, MO. In 2019, she won Miss Kansas and placed Top 10 in the Miss USA pageant. Alyssa also worked as a princess at Disneyland for seven years, during which she perfected the art of “putting on a face.” Alyssa is also a Lagree fitness instructor, making her a physical threat in the competition. After coming out as gay, not all of Alyssa’s family was accepting of her sexuality, and she spent years navigating a new reality on her own. However, she is currently happily in love and engaged to her girlfriend. You can follow her on Instagram at @alyssaklinzing.
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Nick Grasso
Nick Grasso is a sanitation worker from Brooklyn, NY. Given his career, he knows a thing or two about working outside during snowy winters and sweltering hot summers, which he believes has given him the mental and physical fortitude to succeed in the game. Nick is also a former college athlete and is physically very in shape. You can follow him on Instagram at @nickyy__g.
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Jordan Fowler
Originally from the Bay Area, Jordan Fowler currently lives in Nashville, Tenn. She works in marketing and lives by the motto "high risk, high reward." She has no practiced survival skills but is relying on her Jamaican roots, healthy lifestyle, and glamping experience to help her ace this game. You can follow her on Instagram at @itsmejofo.
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Kim Mattina
Kim Mattina is from Anthem, Ariz., and was previously a contestant on Sequester Access. Entering the contest at 63 years old, Kim is an unapologetically cutthroat competitor and avid competitive reality TV fan. She makes it known to her competitors on the island that she's here to play.
Though she’s currently approaching retirement, Kim was in the United States Air Force for almost three years in communications, which ultimately taught her to be tough, confident in her decisions, and calm in stressful situations.
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8169 | dbpedia | 2 | 75 | https://www.ancestry.com/1940-census/usa/Alabama/Claudia-Mey-Williams_2359nc | en | Claudia Mey Williams in the 1940 Census | [
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3581 | dbpedia | 2 | 7 | https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/occupation-during-and-after-the-war-ottoman-empire/ | en | Occupation during and after the War (Ottoman Empire) | [
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] | null | [] | 2024-07-02T21:48:05+00:00 | Memories of occupation by foreign forces are not usually articulated except when prisoners of war speak of their experiences when debriefed. These are usually shameful episodes in the lives of those who survived. Collaboration with the enemy often overwhelms the saga of resistance, especially when examining World War I. Yet combined with the struggle to defy the “peace treaties”, Turkey was a unique example, however unexpected, of a country that reversed the partition plans of its heartland, not its defunct empire. This essay addresses the existential struggle of those Turks who defied the age-old Eastern Question and analyzes the conjunctures that made this success possible. | en | /wp-content/themes/encyclopedia19141918/assets/img/favicon.ico | 1914-1918-Online (WW1) Encyclopedia | https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/occupation-during-and-after-the-war-ottoman-empire/ | Memories of occupation by foreign forces are not usually articulated except when prisoners of war speak of their experiences when debriefed. These are usually shameful episodes in the lives of those who survived. Collaboration with the enemy often overwhelms the saga of resistance, especially when examining World War I. Yet combined with the struggle to defy the “peace treaties”, Turkey was a unique example, however unexpected, of a country that reversed the partition plans of its heartland, not its defunct empire. This essay addresses the existential struggle of those Turks who defied the age-old Eastern Question and analyzes the conjunctures that made this success possible.
Introduction
War endings in historiography are usually confined to conferences, peace treaties, border adjustments, reparations, regime change, and reborn and/or newly born polities. Stories of occupation and resistance, however, remain confined to obscure pamphlets and memoirs. Official but secret documents await declassification. Further, state-centric approaches alone do not provide satisfactory accounts of occupation or resistance. But they do offer the context within which individuals and groups operate and exert their political will against the odds and potentially bring about change when and where it is most unexpected. This is one such saga. In 1919 British Admiral Richard Webb (1870-1950), Deputy High Commissioner in occupied Istanbul, wrote to his friend Sir Eyre Crowe (1864-1925) in Paris, “The situation in the interior, due practically entirely to the Greek occupation of Smyrna, is getting more hazy and unsettled. Were this anywhere but Turkey, I should say we were on the eve of a tremendous upheaval”.
The occupation of Izmir (Smyrna) on 15 May 1919 may have roused many a Turk from the lethargy that had accompanied defeat in the Great War, but was hardly the major reason for the “upheaval” that followed. The major shock had come with the occupation of Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire. Almost simultaneously with the occupation of the capital were occupations of vital provincial cities in the Anatolian heartland and its Mediterranean coast. During the war, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) government had made contingency plans in case of defeat and foreign occupation; withdraw to central Anatolia and continue to fight from that base. When the CUP leadership escaped the country in 1918 bearing both the burden of defeat and the 1915 Armenian massacres, institutional and family networks maintained the resistance while a new leadership took over.
This article addresses the following major questions. First, why was the capital city of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul (Constantinople), occupied by the Allies soon after the Mudros Armistice of 30 October 1918 when no other capital city of the defeated powers was occupied? Secondly, how was it possible that French, British and Greek occupations of major cities in Anatolia (Italian occupation being of an entirely different nature) first met with local resistance and then an increasingly organized military resistance? Third, what were the diplomatic implications of rivalries between the Allied powers that made it possible for the underground resistance in Istanbul to divert the energies of its most vociferous intelligentsia, veterans of multiple wars, and war material to Anatolia? Last but not least: how was it possible that Turkey ended up being the only defeated power to reverse the dictated peace and determine its own political future?
The occupation of Anatolia during the war was the Russian occupation in the northeast and eastern Black Sea coast as of February 1916, namely Erzurum, Kars, Erzincan, Muş and Bitlis, the last three of which were taken back in July and August of 1916. In March and April 1916, the Black Sea towns Rize and Trabzon were occupied, after which the Russian armies made a semi-circular route towards occupying Van. The geographical configuration matched that of the secret Sykes-Picot, alias the Asia Minor agreement of 1916, concluded with the Allies.
A large tract of territory was returned in the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution when Russia unilaterally withdrew from war with the Brest-Litovsk agreement negotiated between December 1917 and March 1918. It was, however, not possible to keep the northwestern borders intact because Armenian militants who accompanied the Russian army remained to continue fighting and perform acts of ethnic cleansing. Moreover, in 1919 the Supreme Council of the Paris Peace Conference demanded the transfer of Kars, Sarıkamış, Ardahan and Iğdır to the Republic of Armenia.
Subsequently, war with the Armenian Republic in 1920 settled the northeastern frontier in Caucasia. In 1921, diplomatic negotiations with Georgia resulted in the return of Ardahan and Iğdır to Turkey in exchange for Batumi. Apart from this geography, Arab provinces of the empire were lost to the British in war and are only referred to here in the context of an effort to establish a unified front against the British and French occupation in 1921, during the Arab resistance movements in Syria/Iraq. In essence, the Ottoman state, no longer financially or economically sovereign, was an empire in name only. Following the loss of its Balkan territories during the 19th century, Egypt was occupied by the British in 1881. Arab nationalism/intellectual awakening was already a fact before and during World War I, albeit confined to urban centers like Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad. Hence, Arab notables and intellectuals found willing allies with the British and French while Ottoman military governors attempted to suppress agents of Arab nationalism by harsh measures during the war. The war concomitant with mobilization, deaths, starvation and economic devastation had literally decimated Arab societies.
By the time Ottoman armies withdrew from or surrendered in the Mesopotamian fronts secession of the Arab provinces was a foregone conclusion. This resonated in Turkey’s National Oath, a manifesto in 1920 that areas with a majority Arab population would remain outside its borders. Therefore, foreign occupation of the Arab provinces, a topic which has its own historians is not part of this study. For the occupation of Ottoman Arab provinces and Egypt see the companion article “Occupation during and after the War (Middle East)“.
This article primarily addresses Allied (British, French, Italian, Greek, U.S. and Japanese) occupation of Istanbul, which lasted from November 1918 to October 1923. The last two had a symbolic presence in Istanbul and were there more as observers than occupiers. Secondly, this article highlights the French, British, Greek and Italian occupation of provincial cities in the southeast, south and Aegean Anatolia. These practically lasted from 1918-1919 to 1922, and in some regions even shorter. Finally, the political-diplomatic vagaries which affected the occupiers as well as the occupied concludes with the end of occupation and the path to a negotiated peace conference on near eastern affairs in Lausanne between 1922-1923. The conclusions cover the main points of this period as well as political and social changes that ten years of war (1912-1922) brought to Turkey.
Besides the frequently mentioned patriotism or nationalist awakening, one must take into account the psychological dimensions of the trauma involving the loss of the core territories in the Ottoman Empire, the Balkans and the Arab provinces. The occupations that followed the armistice that ended WWI were embedded in the Eastern Question. Further, the motivation to defend the last remaining homeland became an existential matter in addition to the leadership profiles, most of whom had been born in lost territories. The Allied forces of occupation assumed that there would not be serious resistance. Nonetheless, war weariness, rivalries, the Red scare and the priority of concluding peace in Europe were also factors that weakened the Allied position. The two-year period spanning from the beginning of occupation in 1918 to the Sèvres peace treaty imposed on the Ottoman government in 1920 provided ample time for resistance to foreign occupation to consolidate. A brief background on the factors that motivated the final resistance in a failed state follows.
The Ottoman Empire as a Failed State
The Ottoman Empire was unquestionably a failed state by the second half of the 19th century. It was bankrupt by 1875, its debts to European powers were governed by the Ottoman Public Debt Administration (Caisse de la Dette Publique Ottomane). Almost all state income went to finance debt. In 1881 came the International Tobacco Regime Company as an extension of the latter (the infamous Reji). The Ottoman state was forced to establish a 6,700-strong police force to prevent tobacco growers from smuggling their own crop. Armed conflict between this force, whose salaries were paid by the state, resulted in at least 50,000 deaths of the peasantry in the Aegean and western Black Sea coastal regions.
Added to financial failure were incessant wars and territorial loss: the 1877-1879 Russo-Ottoman war, whereby the latter lost all its Balkan territories except for Macedonia; British occupation of Egypt in 1881; the brief Greek-Ottoman war of 1897; internecine guerrilla warfare against armed bands of various ethnic origins in Macedonia; the 1911-1912 Italo-Ottoman war over Libya (Cyneraica and Tripolitania); and the Balkan Wars of 1912 on four fronts against a coalition of Serbs, Montenegrins, Greeks and Bulgarians. This war ended in a chaotic route of the Ottoman troops who had no contingencies for orderly retreat. The Bulgarian army would have occupied Istanbul had it not been for depletion caused by cholera and typhus. Of further significance for the proximate memory of belligerents in WWI as well as resistance fighters to occupation in its aftermath were the thousands of refugees, desperate survivors of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans who took shelter in Istanbul. Many sons of Rumelia (Rumeli, the Balkans in Turkish) were attending the Ottoman War Academy at the time or were already young officers. This experience contributed to their political socialization, along with the realization that there was no longer a home to which to return. One group was that of Mustafa Kemal (-1938), known as Atatürk, and his close friends from Salonica, ceded to Greece in 1912. They were to become the future leaders of independent Turkey.
The Eastern Question, basically how to divide the Ottoman territories between the Great Powers without inducing a European war since the late 18th century, remained on paper until 1915. The unexpected defeat of the Allies in the Gallipoli wars that year bought the Ottomans time until 1918 when there were fewer Great Powers left to carry out the mission of partition set out in the Eastern Question.
Occupation and Resistance in Istanbul
War-weary people on all sides welcomed the Mudros Armistice signed by the Ottomans and British on board the HMS Agamemnon on 30 October 1918. Although there was no stipulation in the agreement about occupation except in places where there was an imminent threat to Allied security, British troops began landing in the capital by 13 November 1918, soon to be followed by the French and other Allies. While neither Berlin, Vienna, Budapest or Sofia was occupied, why was Istanbul treated differently? In the short span between armistice and occupation, Lord Nathaniel Curzon (1859-1925), the British foreign secretary, decided on occupation and the Allies followed in tandem. Official reports do not reveal much, but a plausible analysis is found in Philip Mansel’s book in the last chapter entitled “Death of a Capital City”. According to Mansel, the overt reasons for occupation were imperialism, revenge and anti-communism. Moreover, the Allies wanted to expedite disarmament and keep the partition of territories under strict control. London and Paris were out to prove that losses incurred during the fateful Gallipoli campaign were not for naught. Besides, the Allies needed space to deploy military equipment to extend logistical support to the White Russian armies fighting against the Bolsheviks in the civil war (but not successfully at that). Curzon even proposed a very old-fashioned solution for Istanbul, namely that it should be converted into a city-state and the sultan/caliph should move to Bursa or Konya.
Mansel stated that Curzon’s actual aim was to break down the image of Istanbul as the seat of Islam in order to suppress the Khilafat movement among the Indian Muslims and sustain hegemony in India. On 13 November 1918 an Ottoman official confronted the commander of the British troops who were disembarking and told him that this was against the rules of armistice. He was, however, taken aback when the British officer told him that Istanbul was designated as military headquarters.
By 1919 the Allied governance of Istanbul was organized with British, French, Italian, U.S., Greek and Japanese high commissioners as the top echelon, although the authority among them was distributed in the order cited. The Military Command of the Allied Forces of Occupation with its British president was responsible for passport control, special elements (civil police), inter-Allied tribunals and courts martial (1920) as well as prisons. The French had one prison in Kumkapı and the British had five: Galata Tower, Arabian Han, Sansarian Han, Hotel Kroecker and Şahin Pasha Hotel. Under the high commissioners was the inter-Allied Commissions of Control and Organization, a Directing Committee of Generals that controlled sub-commissions such as disarmament, gendarmerie, censor, requisitions and saluting. Orders specified that only those residences that belonged to Muslims were to be requisitioned. The saluting commission, strange as it seems, had to enforce the rule that Turkish officers salute Allied soldiers regardless of rank but not expect to be saluted back. The latter stopped wearing uniforms in public.
The city was divided into zones of occupation: the Galata and Pera districts were under British responsibility, the old city and southwest under French, and Üsküdar (Scutari) on the Anatolian side was under Italian control. Top military command became problematic at first when General George Milne (1866-1948) was appointed as commander of the Army of the Black Sea and Admiral Arthur G. Calthorpe (1865-1937) was high commissioner in 1918-1919. Paris simultaneously sent General Louis Franchet d’Espèrey (1856-1942), commander in chief of the Allied Armies in the Orient, to assume military command of Istanbul. His position remained in flux until 16 March 1920, when London decided to re-occupy the city de jure. This was not the only action carried out under British auspices. From then on the numerous exchange of letters between London and Paris resulted in the removal of Franchet d’Espèrey and early in 1921, General Charles Harington (1872-1940) was assigned as commander in chief of the Allied Forces of Occupation, Constantinople. He remained in this position until Allied evacuation in October 1923.
Meanwhile, the Ottoman government changed numerous times depending on the collaborative actions of the Grand Viziers or the lack thereof. This was apparent in connection with the smuggling of military equipment from arsenals filled by disarmament. Governors who procrastinated to tighten control were removed, but even when collaborative viziers were in power, the smuggling of arms and men to Anatolia continued with ever growing underground forces of resistance. On the one hand, between 1920-1921 the Allies had their hands full with exerting control in a less than friendly environment (except for the majority of Istanbul Greeks and whomever they employed). On the other, they had to accommodate close to 200,000 White Russian refugees they helped evacuate from the Crimea upon Bolshevik victories in the Russian civil war. Among those were Bolshevik agents towards whom the Allies had to be vigilant. General Harington deported some people who were deemed to be Bolshevik agents. And by 1920, there was the Ankara government of the Turkish National Assembly which began to conduct a full scale resistance-turned-to-war against occupation.
How the parliament in Ankara came about has to do with resistance to occupation, first by local militia, which evolved into organized groups, and then to a legal and legitimate parliament because of British conduct in Istanbul. The Ottoman Empire had been a parliamentary monarchy since 1908 and remained so until 1920. When the Allies decided to occupy Istanbul de jure in March 1920, they had no intention of closing down the parliament. However, there were a number of nationalist deputies in the parliament from Istanbul (who were also prominent members of the underground resistance) as well as from the provinces who had allegiance to the Association for Defence of the Legal Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia (Anadolu-Rumeli Müdafa-i Hukuk Cemiyeti).
This association sprang from two congresses held in 1919 in Erzurum and Sivas respectively under the auspices of Mustafa Kemal Pasha and before long had women’s chapters. Its authority extended to umbrella organizations for local resistance as seen in the next section. The next step that the association assumed was to promulgate a parliament in Ankara on 23 April 1920, which was ironically facilitated by British action. When British soldiers walked into the Ottoman parliament and arrested patriotic deputies who sponsored reading the National Oath (that the non-Arab regions populated by Muslim majorities were to remain sovereign) written in Ankara, the parliament closed down in protest. Soon after Mehmed VI, Sultan of the Turks (1861-1926) abrogated the non-existent parliament. The road was now open to the Association to declare that since the Istanbul government and Sultan were captives of the Allies, they had no say in national affairs and that the national assembly in Ankara was the only representative organ of the people. Nonetheless it would take another year until Ankara was recognized, first by France in 1921 with the Franklin Bouillon (Ankara) Treaty. A separate Treaty of Friendship and Neutrality was signed with Bolshevik Russia in 1921 that confirmed delineation of borders in northeast Anatolia, which included previous agreements with the Republics of Georgia and Armenia as their regimes were taken over by indigenous Bolsheviks.
Occupation and Resistance in Anatolia as Allies Part Ways
On 11 November 1918 an armistice was concluded to end WWI. Although armed forces were to halt where they were at the time, the rule did not apply to the Ottoman realm. British and French troops continued to move towards south-eastern Anatolia and the eastern Mediterranean coast, while Italian troops, albeit in smaller contingents, began occupation of previously designated zones. Few, if any in Turkey remembered the secret treaties among the Allies that partitioned the Empire. Revealed by the Bolsheviks in 1917, partition plans spelled out in the Constantinople Treaty (1915), London (1915), Sykes-Picot (1916) and St. Jean de Maurienne (1917) treaties were now being followed with the exception of the first, which had promised Constantinople to Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia (1868-1918). One will probably never know whether London was sincere about this promise or not, because the Bolshevik Revolution rendered that null and void when Russia unilaterally withdrew from the war in 1917-1918.
Article 9 of the London Treaty of 1915 read, “…in the event of total or partial partition [of the Ottoman Empire] in Asia, she [Italy] ought to obtain a just share of the Mediterranean region adjacent to the province of Adalia.” The Treaty of St. Jean de Maurienne reconciled conflicting interests of France and Italy in southwest Anatolia. Accordingly, France was awarded the Adana region and left the rest of the southwest to Italy, including the Vilayet (province) of Aydın with its regional capital Izmir (Smyrna). The Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France divided the Arab provinces of the Empire as respective zones of interest. Consequently, Britain, France and Italy were abiding by the secret agreements that were to seal the Eastern Question.
Having lost the Arab provinces at war was one thing, but occupation in the heartland was another issue, deemed illegal and unjust by inhabitants. Before British and French mandates were spelled out at the Hythe Conference of 1920, British troops proceeded to occupy Mosul, Iskenderun (Alexandretta), Kilis, Antep, Maraş and Urfa in the southeast. Disarmament, arrests and deportation of local notables followed between late 1918 and 1919. Both the British and French were aided by resident or returning Armenians from the forced relocation of 1915. In January 1919, the French occupied Mersin, Osmaniye and Adana. They sent resident commanding Turkish officers to prisoner of war camps in Syria. Later in 1919, the British and French came to an understanding about zones of influence whereby the former delivered Kilis, Antep, Maraş, and Urfa to the French.
Inspired by the national defence organizations that reflected resolutions from the Erzurum and Sivas Congresses of 1919, the local people established regional defence organizations buttressed by officers assigned from Ankara in 1920. Consequently, war was renewed on the southern front of the independence war. The southern front theoretically extended to cover Palestine and Syria, and in 1921 a Turkish officer who was originally from the region with good contacts was sent there in the hope of joining with the Arabs in revolt against the British and French. But the plan failed plausibly because Arab nationalism had no room for the Turks. Maraş fought between 20 January and 20 February 1920; Urfa fought between 9 February and 11 April 1920; Antep fought between 1 April 1920 and 8 February 1921 before surrendering the city; Adana fought between 21 January 1920 and 20 October 1921. That day also marks the Franklin-Bouillon Treaty signed in Ankara which conceded French defeat and confirmed Paris’ recognition of the Ankara government to the chagrin of the British. Although French troops from Cilicia (Adana region) were not withdrawn until 5 January 1922, the split between the Allied ranks was clear. From then on, French officers in the disarmament control missions throughout Anatolia began to fraternize with the Turkish military, invoking the British High Commissioner in Istanbul, Sir Horace Rumbold (1869-1941), to write in a personal letter that “the French are always playing the dirty on us.”
In essence, Italians were the first to cede from the Alliance, albeit subtly. When in 1919 the Greek Premier Eleutherios Venizelos (1864-1936) convinced the Supreme Council of the Paris Peace Conference that they should be allowed to occupy Izmir and was granted his wish, the Italians were disappointed because they were short-changed. Nonetheless, Italians occupied Antalya on 21 January 1919 and proceeded to claim Fethiye, Marmaris, Kuşadası, Bodrum, Milas and Konya, all of which today are known as tourist centres. They had all the trappings necessary, with occupation headquarters in Antalya, commanded by Colonel Alessandro Ciano (1871-1945) and High Commissioner Marquis Eugenio Camillo Garroni (1852-1935), the former Italian ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Rome instructed its occupation troops not to use force or any coercion towards the people in their zones. The Italians seemed content when their occupation of the Dodecanese islands in 1912 was accorded permanency in the secret Treaty of St. Jean de Maurienne of 1917, and now that they linked their presence on the islands with southwestern lands of the Mediterranean. They had long been interested in Marmaris, not because of aesthetics but because it had one of the three bays in the eastern Mediterranean which was most suitable to use as a base for the navy (the other two were the bays of Iskenderun (Alexandretta) and Iskenderiye (Alexandria) of Egypt.
On 11 April 1922, a separate treaty on commercial concessions to Italy was signed between the Ottoman Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmed Izzet Pasha (1864-1937) and Marquis Garroni. Whether Izzet Pasha, known to be clandestinely supportive of Ankara, did this to sustain peaceful Italian actions is not clear. Nonetheless, the Italians proved to be helpful to the national cause in more ways than one. First, they ignored when arms and men were smuggled through their zone in Üsküdar, on the Anatolian side of Istanbul. Secondly, they started selling arms, ammunition and clothing to the Turks, paid for by the Ottoman Red Crescent. The director of the Ottoman Bank and deputy director of the Red Crescent, Berch Kerestejian, was instrumental in depositing money in the Banko di Roma, acquired by selling assets of the Red Crescent. Kerestejian was a friend of Mustafa Kemal from Salonica, so the network built between Ankara and Istanbul proved beneficial to the latter in terms of gathering intelligence, opening channels of informal diplomacy for Ankara’s representatives, operating the underground resistance in Istanbul as well as buying military equipment from the commercially minded Italians.
Although there was a diplomatic war going on throughout, the Turkish war of independence is a military history which focuses on the Greek-Turkish war between 1919 and 1922. The Greek occupation of Izmir on 15 May 1919 met with protests and bloodshed in the city. The occupation was extended to Aydın, Manisa, Turgutlu, Ayvalık, and Tekirdağ (Rodosto) in Thrace. Greek military landings in Thrace were facilitated by British naval vessels, but as soon as the Greco-Turkish war began, London declared neutrality. In 1919, local armed bands displayed resistance to occupation using hit and run tactics. The Greeks did not remain within confines of the Milne Line, named after the British General George Milne who drew the lines of the occupation zone. As they began to expand towards the inner Aegean and then towards Ankara, war became imminent. At one point in early 1921, they reached the outskirts of the city and the Ankara parliament evacuated families and treasure to Konya.
However, the Greek army had moved too far from its logistical support base to its disadvantage. They were isolated in a proxy war on behalf of the British as well as for greater Greece. And, following setbacks received in 1921, another extremely bloody confrontation took place in July 1922 at the Battle of Sakarya that ended in a final Turkish offensive on 30 August 1922. Greek commanders were taken as prisoners of war, and remnants of the Greek army were practically chased towards Izmir. Much human drama accompanied the victory as the receding Greeks destroyed villages and towns on the way and the Greek population in Izmir desperately fought their way to get on board the naval and civilian vessels in the bay to escape to the Greek islands or to Greece proper. On 9 September 1922 the Turkish army entered Izmir. Greek historians were to call this venture the “disaster in Asia Minor”, which depleted the idea of a greater Greece as well as British policy.
It fell on the British to call for an armistice treaty. An armistice conference took place in Mudanya, a suburb of Bursa on the Marmara Sea between 3-11 October 1922. In attendance were the British General Harington, Turkish İsmet İnönü (1884-1973), French General Georges Charpy (1865-1945), Italian General Ernesto Mombelli (1867-1932). The Greeks refused to attend the meetings but signed the armistice treaty three days after it was concluded. The venue was now open to the call for a conference on near eastern affairs where the British were almost sure, though Lord Curzon had reservations, that they could dictate their terms. The Lausanne negotiations and the final peace treaty proved otherwise.
Istanbul remained under occupation, but Refet Bele Pasha (1881-1963), known as Bele, arrived in 1922 to gradually take over the administration. Requisitioned homes were returned to their owners, customs control was taken over by Turks, Istanbul Greeks were required to either register as citizens or if not, obtain passports to remain as foreigners. Sultan Vahideddin found it prudent to leave the country on a British naval vessel and later settled in San Remo, Italy. On 1 November 1922 the Ankara parliament abrogated the sultanate. The regime change from empire to republic officially followed on 29 October 1923 after Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Greece, Romania and the Serb-Croat-Slovene state signed the Lausanne Treaty on 24 July 1923. Istanbul was evacuated during the first week of October 1923 and the Allied military commanders left on 6 October 1923 while Turkish troops entered the city.
Conclusion
The Eastern Question was not overtly on the agenda as far as the war aims of belligerents were concerned. But the notion lurked behind in rhetoric and was operationalized on paper in the secret agreements of WWI, discussed previously. Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859-1941) had welcomed the Balkan War of 1912, exclaiming “The Eastern Question must be resolved by blood and iron!” The Greek Patriarch of Constantinople during the occupation stated in a letter sent to the Paris Peace Conference that the Eastern Question would never be solved until Constantinople was Greek again. The original title of Fabio Grassi’s book İtalya ve Türk Sorunu 1919-1923 was L’Italia e la questione turca 1919-1923, which reflects the problematique aptly. Copts, Maronites and Assyrians, peoples of the ancient eastern Christian denominations of the former Arab provinces of the Empire, accepted foreign occupation as liberation just like the Istanbul Greeks and, to a lesser extent, the Armenians did; a non-negligible dimension of the Question had been to protect the Christians of the Empire. In contrast, the leading Jewish Rabbi Chaim Nahum Effendi (1872-1960) spoke to the European occupiers in favour of Turks. By 1923, however, the Eastern Question was forced outside the borders of Turkey.
Domestic opponents of resistance to foreign occupation also abounded as observed from newspapers and diplomatic records. These people were to be labelled in the Republic “defeatist” and/or “collaborators”. On the one hand, opponents thought that resistance was pure adventurism like that of the CUP which led the country into WWI. On the other, the Palace thought that it may receive favourable peace conditions if cooperation with the occupiers was maintained. But the failed state once again failed to exert authority or control over resistance.
In 1918, Anatolia and part of Thrace were the last realms of the Ottoman Empire akin to contemporary borders. Scions of numerous refugees from the old borderlands in addition to those expelled from tsarist Russia (Tatars and Circassians) in the late 19th century, Muslim Greeks who arrived during the population exchange with Karaman Christians of Turkey in 1923-1924, as well as emigrants from the southern provinces are included in the human profile of the country. Along with them came cultural patterns and an intellectual outlook which facilitated adaptation to social and political change. This was most apparent in women’s public presence as individuals, professional and voluntary alike, a trend visible from the beginning of the 20th century’s era of wars. Occupations, as painful as they were both materially and mentally, stirred many Turks to come of age.
Nur Bilge Criss, Bilkent University | ||||
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] | 2024-07-29T22:27:06+00:00 | The Turkish War of Independence (Turkish language: Kurtuluş Savaşı "War of Liberation", also known figuratively as İstiklâl Harbi "Independence War" or Millî Mücadele "National Campaign"; 19 May 1919 – 24 July 1923) was fought between the Turkish National Movement and the proxies of the Allies –... | en | /skins-ucp/mw139/common/favicon.ico | Military Wiki | https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Turkish_War_of_Independence | "Turkish Revolution" redirects here. For the 1908 revolution, see Young Turk Revolution.
The Turkish War of Independence (Turkish language: Kurtuluş Savaşı "War of Liberation", also known figuratively as İstiklâl Harbi "Independence War" or Millî Mücadele "National Campaign"; 19 May 1919 – 24 July 1923) was fought between the Turkish National Movement and the proxies of the Allies – namely Greece on the Western Front, Armenia on the Eastern, France on the Southern and with them, the United Kingdom and Italy in Constantinople (now Istanbul) – after parts of the Ottoman Empire were occupied and partitioned following the Ottomans' defeat in World War I.[48][49][50] Few of the occupying British, French, and Italian troops had been deployed or engaged in combat.
The Turkish National Movement (Kuva-yi Milliye) in Anatolia culminated in the formation of a new (GNA; Turkish language: BMM) by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his colleagues. After the end of the Turkish–Armenian, Franco-Turkish, Greco-Turkish fronts (often referred to as the Eastern Front, the Southern Front, and the Western Front of the war, respectively), the Treaty of Sèvres was abandoned and the Treaties of Kars (October 1921) and Lausanne (July 1923) were signed. The Allies left Anatolia and Eastern Thrace, and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey decided on the establishment of a Republic in Turkey, which was declared on 29 October 1923.
With the establishment of the Turkish National Movement, the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, and the abolition of the sultanate, the Ottoman era and the Empire came to an end, and with Atatürk's reforms, the Turks created the modern, secular nation-state of Turkey on the political front. On 3 March 1924, the Ottoman caliphate was officially abolished and the last Caliph was exiled.
30 October 1918 – May 1919[]
On 30 October 1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies of World War I, bringing hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I to a close. The treaty granted the Allies the right to occupy forts controlling the Straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus; and the right to occupy "in case of disorder" any territory in case of a threat to security.[51][52] Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe—the British signatory of the Mudros Armistice—stated the Triple Entente′s public position that they had no intention to dismantle the government of the Ottoman Empire or place it under military occupation by "occupying Constantinople".[53] However, dismantling the Ottoman government and partitioning the Ottoman Empire among the Allied nations had been an objective of the Entente since the start of the war.[54]
On 13 November 1918, a French brigade entered the city to begin the Occupation of Constantinople and its immediate dependencies, followed by a fleet consisting of British, French, Italian and Greek ships deploying soldiers on the ground the next day. A wave of seizures took place in the following months by the Allies. On 14 November, joint Franco-Greek troops occupied the town of Uzunköprü in Eastern Thrace as well as the railway axis till the train station of Hadımköy near Çatalca on the outskirts of Constantinople. On 1 December, British troops based in Syria occupied Kilis. Beginning in December, French troops began successive seizures of Ottoman territory, including the towns of Antakya, Mersin, Tarsus, Ceyhan, Adana, Osmaniye and Islahiye.[55] The first bullet was fired by Mehmet Çavuş[note 3] in Dörtyol against the French on 19 December 1918.[56]
On 19 January 1919, the Paris Peace Conference opened, a meeting of Allied nations that set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers, including the Ottoman Empire.[57] As a special body of the Paris Conference, "The Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey" was established to pursue the secret treaties they had signed between 1915 and 1917.[58] Among the objectives was a new Hellenic Empire based on the Megali Idea. This was promised by British Prime Minister David Lloyd George to Greece.[59] Italy sought control over the southern part of Anatolia under the Agreement of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne. France expected to exercise control over Hatay, Lebanon and Syria, and also wanted control over a portion of southeastern Anatolia based on the Sykes-Picot Agreement. France signed the Franco-Armenian Agreement and promised the realization of an Armenian state in the Mediterranean region in exchange to the French Armenian Legion.[60]
Meanwhile, Allied countries continued to lay claim to portions of the quickly crumbling Ottoman Empire. British forces based in Syria occupied Maraş, Urfa and Birecik, while French forces embarked by gunboats and sent troops to the Black Sea ports of Zonguldak and Karadeniz Ereğli commanding Turkey's coal mining region. At the Paris Peace Conference, competing claims of Western Anatolia by Greek and Italian delegations led Greece to land the flagship of the Greek Navy at Smyrna, resulting in the Italian delegation walking out of the peace talks. On 30 April, Italy responded to the possible idea of Greek incorporation of Western Anatolia by also sending a warship to Smyrna (Izmir) as a show of force against the Greek campaign. A large Italian force also landed in Antalya. With the Italian delegation absent from the Paris Peace talks, Britain was able to sway France in favour of Greece and ultimately the Conference authorized the landing of Greek troops on Anatolian territory.
The Greek campaign of Western Anatolia began on 15 May 1919, as Greek troops began landing in Smyrna. For the city's Muslim population, the day is marked by the "first bullet" fired by Hasan Tahsin[note 4] at the Greek standard bearer at the head of the troops, the murder by bayonet coups of Miralay Fethi Bey for refusing to shout "Zito Venizelos" and the killing and wounding of unarmed Turkish soldiers in the city's principal casern, as well as of 300-400 civilians. Greek troops moved from Smyrna outwards, to towns on the Karaburun peninsula, Selçuk, situated a hundred kilometers south of Smyrna at a key location that commands the fertile Menderes River valley and Menemen and Selçuk, towards the north and the southeast of Smyrna.
Initial organization[]
Fahrî Yâver-i Hazret-i Şehriyâri ("Honorary Aide-de-camp to His Majesty Sultan") Mirliva Mustafa Kemal Paşa was assigned as the inspector of the 9th Army Troops Inspectorate to reorganize what remained of the Ottoman military units and to improve internal security on 30 April 1919.[61] According to Lord Kinross, through manipulation and the help of friends and sympathizers, Mustafa Kemal Paşa became the Inspector of virtually all of the Ottoman forces in Anatolia, tasked with overseeing the disbanding process of the remaining Ottoman forces.[62] He and his carefully selected staff left Constantinople aboard the old steamer SS Bandırma for Samsun on the evening of 16 May 1919.[63]
Resistance to Allied demands began at the very onset of the Ottoman Empire's defeat in World War I. Many Ottoman officials organized the secret Sentinel Association (Turkish language: Karakol Cemiyeti) in reaction to the policies of the Allies. The objective of the Sentinel Association was to thwart Allied demands through passive and active resistance. Many Ottoman officials participated in efforts to conceal from the occupying authorities details of the burgeoning independence movement spreading throughout Anatolia. Munitions initially seized by the Allies were secretly smuggled out of Constantinople into Central Anatolia, along with Ottoman officers keen to resist any division of Ottoman territories. Mirliva Ali Fuad Paşa in the meantime had moved his XX Corps from Ereğli to Ankara and started organizing resistance groups, including Circassian immigrants under Çerkes Ethem.
Since the southern rim of Anatolia[where?] was effectively controlled by British warships and competing Greek and Italian troops, the Turkish National Movement's headquarters moved to the rugged terrain of central Anatolia. The reasons for these new assignments is still a matter of debate; one view is that it was an intentional move to support the national movement, another was that the Sultan wanted to keep Constantinople under his control, a goal which was in total agreement with the aims of the occupation armies which could keep the Sultan under control. The most prominent idea given for the Sultan's decision was by assigning these officers out of the capital, the Sultan was trying to minimize the effectiveness of these soldiers in the capital. The Sultan was cited as saying that without an organized army, the Allies could not be defeated, and the national movement had two army corps in May 1919,[citation needed] one was the XX Corps based in Ankara under the command of Ali Fuat Paşa and the other was XV Corps based in Erzurum under the command of Kâzım Karabekir Paşa.
Mustafa Kemal Paşa and his colleagues stepped ashore on 19 May and set up their first quarters in the Mintika Palace Hotel. Mustafa Kemal Paşa made the people of Samsun aware of the Greek and Italian landings, staged mass meetings (while remaining discreet) and made, thanks to the excellent telegraph network, fast connections with the army units in Anatolia and began to form links with various nationalist groups. He sent telegrams of protest to foreign embassies and the War Ministry about British reinforcements in the area and about British aid to Greek brigand gangs. After a week in Samsun, Mustafa Kemal Paşa and his staff moved to Havza, about 85 km (53 mi) inland.
Mustafa Kemal Paşa writes in his memoir[citation needed] that he needed nationwide support. The importance of his position, and his status as the "Hero of Anafartalar" after the Gallipoli Campaign, and his title of Fahri Yaver-i Hazret-i Şehriyari ("Honorary Aide-de-camp to His Majesty Sultan") gave him some credentials. On the other hand, this was not enough to inspire everyone. While officially occupied with the disarming of the army, he had increased his various contacts in order to build his movement's momentum. He met with Rauf Bey (Orbay), Ali Fuat Paşa (Cebesoy), and Refet Bey (Bele) on 21 June 1919 and declared the Amasya Circular (22 June 1919).
Decoding national movement[]
On 23 June, High Commissioner Admiral Calthorpe, realizing the significance of Mustafa Kemal's discreet activities in Anatolia, sent a report about Mustafa Kemal to the Foreign Office. His remarks were downplayed by George Kidson of the Eastern Department. Captain Hurst (British army) in Samsun warned Admiral Calthorpe one more time, but Hurst's units were replaced with a Brigade of Gurkhas. The movement of British units alarmed the population of the region and convinced the population that Mustafa Kemal was right[citation needed]. Right after this "The Association for Defense of National Rights" (Müdafaa-i Hukuk Cemiyeti) was founded in Trabzon, and a parallel association in Samsun was also founded, which declared that the Black Sea region was not safe. The same activities that happened in Smyrna were happening in the region. When the British landed in Alexandretta, Admiral Calthorpe resigned on the basis that this was against the Armistice that he had signed and was assigned to another position on 5 August 1919.[64]
On 2 July, Mustafa Kemal Pasha received a telegram from the Sultan. The Sultan asked him to cease his activities in Anatolia and return to the capital. Mustafa Kemal was in Erzincan and did not want to return to Constantinople, concerned that the foreign authorities might have designs for him beyond the Sultan's plans. He felt the best course for him was to take a two-month leave of absence.
The Representative committee was established at the Sivas Congress (4–11 September 1919).
Representational problem[]
On 16 October 1919, Ali Riza Pasha sent a navy minister, Hulusi Salih Pasha, to negotiate with the Turkish National Movement. Hulusi Salih Pasha was not part of World War I. Salih Pasha and Mustafa Kemal met in Amasya. Mustafa Kemal put the representational problems of Ottoman Parliament on the agenda. He wanted to have a signed protocol between Ali Rıza Pasha and the "representative committee." On the advice of the British, Ali Riza Pasha rejected any form of recognition or legitimacy claims by this unconstitutional political formation in Anatolia.
In December 1919, fresh elections were held for the Ottoman parliament. This was an attempt to build a better representative structure. The Ottoman parliament was seen as a way to reassert the central government's claims of legitimacy in response to the emerging nationalist movement in Anatolia. In the meantime, groups of Ottoman Greeks had formed Greek nationalist militias within Ottoman borders and were acting on their own. Greek members of the Ottoman parliament repeatedly blocked any progress in the parliament, and most Greek subjects of the Sultan boycotted the new elections.
The elections were held and a new parliament of the Ottoman State was formed under the occupation. However, Ali Rıza Pasha was too hasty in thinking that his parliament could bring him legitimacy. The house of the parliament was under the shadow of the British battalion stationed at Constantinople. Any decisions by the parliament had to have the signatures of both Ali Rıza Pasha and the commanding British Officer. The freedom of the new government was limited. It did not take too long for the members of parliament to recognize that any kind of integrity was not possible in this situation. Ali Rıza Pasha and his government had become the voice of the Triple Entente. The only laws that passed were those acceptable to, or specifically ordered by the British.
Last Ottoman Parliament[]
On 12 January 1920, the last Ottoman Chamber of Deputies met in the capital. First the Sultan's speech was presented and then a telegram from Mustafa Kemal, manifesting the claim that the rightful government of Turkey[citation needed] being in Ankara in the name of the Representative Committee.
A group called Felâh-i Vatan among the Ottoman parliament worked to acknowledge the decisions taken at the Erzurum Congress and the Sivas Congress. The British began to sense that a Turkish Nationalist movement had been flourishing, a movement with goals against English interests. The Ottoman government was not doing all that it could to suppress the nationalists. On 28 January the deputies met secretly. Proposals were made to elect Mustafa Kemal president of the Chamber, but this was deferred in the certain knowledge that the British would prorogue the Chamber[Clarification needed] before it could do what had been planned all along, namely accept the declaration of the Sivas Congress.
On 28 January, the Ottoman parliament developed the National Pact (Misak-i Milli) and published it on 12 February. This pact adopted six principles, which called for self-determination, the security of Constantinople, and the opening of the Straits, also the abolition of the capitulations. In effect the Misak-i Milli solidified a lot of nationalist notions, which were in conflict with the Allied plans.[citation needed]
Shift from de facto to de jure occupation[]
The National Movement—which persuaded the Ottoman Chamber of Deputies to declare a "National Pact" (Misak-i Milli) against the occupying Allies–prompted the British government to take action. To put an end to Turkish Nationalist hopes, the British decided to systematically bring Turkey under their control. The plan was to dismantle Turkish Government organizations, beginning in Istanbul and moving deep into Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal's National Movement was seen as the main problem. The British Foreign Office was asked to devise a plan. The Foreign Office suggested the same plan previously used during the Arab Revolt. This time however, resources were channeled to warlords like Ahmet Anzavur. The politics of this decision were legitimised via the Treaty of Sèvres. Anatolia was to be westernized under Christian governments. That was the only way that Christians could be safe, said the British government. The Treaty of Sèvres placed most of Anatolia under Christian control. This policy aimed to break down authority in Anatolia by separating the Sultan, its government, and pitting Christians (Greece and Republic of Armenia, Armenians of Cilicia) against Muslims.
On the night of 15 March, British troops began to occupy key buildings and arrest Turkish nationalists. It was a very messy operation. At the military music school there was resistance. At least ten students died but the official death toll is unknown even today. The British tried to capture the leadership of the movement. They secured the departments of the Minister of War and of the Chief of the General Staff, Fevzi Çakmak. Çakmak was an able and relatively conservative officer who was known as one of the army's oldest field commanders. He soon became one of the principal military leaders of the National Movement.[citation needed]
Mustafa Kemal was ready for this move. He warned all the nationalist organizations that there would be misleading declarations from the capital. He warned that the only way to stop the British was to organize protests. He said "Today the Turkish nation is called to defend its capacity for civilization, its right to life and independence – its entire future". Mustafa Kemal was extensively familiar with the Arab Revolt and British involvement. He managed to stay one step ahead of the British Foreign Office. This—as well as his other abilities—gave Mustafa Kemal considerable authority among the revolutionaries.[citation needed]
On 18 March the Ottoman parliament sent a protest to the Allies. The document stated that it was unacceptable to arrest five of its members. But the damage had been done. It was end of the Ottoman political system. This show of force by the British had left the Sultan as sole controller of the Empire. But the Sultan depended on their power to keep what was left of the empire. He was now a puppet of the Allies.[citation needed]
Jurisdictional conflict[]
The new government—hoping to undermine the National Movement—passed a fatwa (legal opinion) from Şeyhülislam to qualify the Turkish revolutionaries as infidels, calling for the death of its leaders.[65] The fatwa stated that true believers should not go along with the nationalist (rebels) movement. Along with this religious decree, the government sentenced Mustafa Kemal and prominent nationalists to death in absentia. At the same time, the müfti of Ankara Rifat Börekçi in defense of the nationalist movement, issued a counteracting fatwa declaring that the capital was under the control of the Entente and the Ferit Pasha government.[66] In this text, the nationalist movement's goal was stated as freeing the sultanate and the caliphate from its enemies.
Dissolution of the Ottoman parliament[]
Mustafa Kemal expected the Allies neither to accept the Harbord report nor to respect his parliamentary immunity if he went to the Ottoman capital, hence he remained in Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal moved the Representative Committee's capital from Erzurum to Ankara so that he could keep in touch with as many deputies as possible as they traveled to Constantinople to attend the parliament. He also started a newspaper, the Hakimiyet-i Milliye (National Sovereignty), to speak for the movement both in Turkey and the outside world (10 January 1920).
Mustafa Kemal declared that the only legal government of Turkey was the Representative Committee in Ankara and that all civilian and military officials were to obey it rather than the government in Constantinople. This argument gained very strong support, as by that time the Ottoman Parliament was fully under Allied control.
Promulgation of the Grand National Assembly[]
The strong measures taken against the nationalists by the Ottoman government created a distinct new phase. Mustafa Kemal sent a note to the governors and force commanders, asking them to implement the election of delegates to join the GNA, which would convene in Ankara. Mustafa Kemal appealed to the Islamic world, asking for help to make sure that everyone knew he was still fighting in the name of the sultan who was also the caliph. He stated he wanted to free the caliph from the Allies. Plans were made to organize a new government and parliament in Ankara, and then ask the sultan to accept its authority.
A flood of supporters moved to Ankara just ahead of the Allied dragnets. Included among them were Halide Edip, Adnan (Adıvar), İsmet (İnönü), Mustafa Kemal's important allies in the Ministry of War, and Celaleddin Arif, the president of the Chamber of Deputies. Yunus Nadi (Abalıoğlu), the owner of Yeni Gün newspaper, journalist-author and deputy of Izmir, Halide Edip (Adıvar) met in Geyve on 31 March. Two intellectuals discussed the necessity that a news agency should be established to counter the allied occupation administration's censure over the news. They chose Anadolu as the name. Mustafa Kemal, whom they meet in Ankara, immediately launched initiatives to herald the establishment of the Anadolu Agency.[67] Mustafa Kemal wanted to transmit news stories to the world. Kemal also stressed the importance of making the national struggle heard inside and outside of the country.[67] Celaleddin Arif's desertion of the capital was of great significance. Celaleddin Arif stated that the Ottoman Parliament had been dissolved illegally. The Armistice did not give Allies the power to dissolve the Ottoman Parliament and the Constitution of 1909 had also removed the Sultan's power to do so, to prevent what Abdülhamid did in 1879.
Some 100 members of the Ottoman Parliament were able to escape the Allied roundup and joined 190 deputies elected around the country by the national resistance group. Ismet Inonü joined as a deputy from Edirne. In March 1920, Turkish revolutionaries announced that the Turkish nation was establishing its own Parliament in Ankara under the name (GNA). The GNA assumed full governmental powers. On 23 April, the new Assembly gathered for the first time, making Mustafa Kemal its first president and Ismet Inönü chief of the General Staff. The new regime's determination to revolt against the government in the capital and not the Sultan was quickly made evident. By 3 May 1920, a Turkish Provisional Government was also formed in Ankara.
Early pressure on nationalist militias[]
Anatolia had many competing forces on its soil: British battalions, Ahmet Aznavur forces, and the Sultan's army. The Sultan gave 4,000 soldiers from his Kuva-i Inzibatiye (Caliphate Army) to resist against the nationalists. Then using money from the Allies, he raised another army, a force about 2,000 strong from non-Muslim inhabitants which were initially deployed in Iznik. The Sultan's government sent forces under the name of the caliphate army to the revolutionaries and aroused counterrevolutionary outbreaks.[68]
The British being skeptical of how formidable these insurgents were, decided to use irregular power to counteract this rebellion. The nationalist forces were distributed all around Turkey, so many small units were dispatched to face them. In Izmit there were two battalions of the British army. Their commanders were living on the Ottoman warship Yavuz. These units were to be used to rout the partisans under the command of Ali Fuat Cebesoy and Refet Bele.
On 13 April 1920, the first conflict occurred at Düzce as a direct consequence of the sheik ul-Islam's fatwa. On 18 April 1920, the Düzce conflict was extended to Bolu; on 20 April 1920, it extended to Gerede. The movement engulfed an important part of northwestern Anatolia for about a month. The Ottoman government had accorded semi-official status to the "Kuva-i Inzibatiye" and Ahmet Anzavur held an important role in the uprising. Both sides faced each other in a pitched battle near Izmit on 14 June. Ahmet Aznavur's forces and British units outnumbered the militias. Yet under heavy attack some of the Kuva-i Inzibatiye deserted and joined the opposing ranks. This revealed the Sultan did not have the unwavering support of his men. Meanwhile, the rest of these forces withdrew behind the British lines which held their position.
The clash outside Izmit brought serious consequences. The British forces opened fire on the nationalists and bombed them from the air. This bombing forced a retreat but there was a panic in Constantinople. The British commander—General George Milne—asked for reinforcements. This led to a study to determine what would be required to defeat the Turkish nationalists. The report—signed by Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch—concluded that 27 divisions would be sufficient, but the British army did not have 27 divisions to spare. Also, a deployment of this size could have disastrous political consequences back home. World War I had just ended, and the British public would not support another lengthy and costly expedition.
The British accepted the fact that a nationalist movement could not be faced without deployment of consistent and well-trained forces. On 25 June, the forces originating from Kuva-i Inzibatiye were dismantled under British supervision. The official stance was that there was no use for them. The British realized that the best option to overcome these Turkish nationalists was to use a force that was battle-tested and fierce enough to fight the Turks on their own soil. The British had to look no further than Turkey's neighbor: Greece.
Establishment of the army[]
Before the Amasya Circular (22 June 1919), Mustafa Kemal met with a Bolshevik delegation headed by Colonel Semyon Budyonny[citation needed]. The Bolsheviks wanted to annex the parts of the Caucasus, including the Democratic Republic of Armenia, which were formerly part of Tsarist Russia. They also saw a Turkish Republic as a buffer state or possibly a communist ally. Mustafa Kemal's official response was "Such questions had to be postponed until Turkish independence was achieved." Having this support was important for the national movement.[69]
The first objective was the securing of arms from abroad. They obtained these primarily from Soviet Russia and from Italy and France. These arms—especially the Soviet weapons—allowed the Turks to organize an effective army. The Treaties of Moscow and Kars (1921) arranged the border between Turkey and the Soviet-controlled Transcaucasian republics, while Russia itself was in a state of civil war and preparing to establish the Soviet Union. In particular Nakhchivan and Batumi were ceded to the future USSR. In return the nationalists received support and gold. For the promised resources, the nationalists had to wait until the Battle of Sakarya (August–September 1921).
By providing financial and war materiel aid, the Bolsheviks aimed to heat up the war between the Allies and the Turkish nationalists in order to delay the participation of more Allied troops in the Russian Civil War.[70] At the same time the Bolsheviks attempted to export communist ideologies to Anatolia and moreover supported individuals (for example: Mustafa Suphi) who were pro-communism.[70]
According to Soviet documents, Soviet financial and war materiel support between 1920 and 1922 amounted to: 39,000 rifles, 327 machine guns, 54 cannon, 63 million rifle bullets, 147,000 shells, 2 patrol boats, 200.6 kg of gold ingots and 10.7[71] million Turkish lira (which accounted for a twentieth of the Turkish budget during the war).[71] Additionally the Soviets gave the Turkish nationalists 100,000 gold rubles to help build an orphanage and 20,000 lira to obtain printing house equipment and cinema equipment.[72]
Conflicts[]
East[]
Main article: Turkish–Armenian War
The border of the Republic of Armenia (ADR) and Ottoman Empire was defined in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918) after the Bolshevik revolution, and later by the Treaty of Batum (4 June 1918) with the ADR. It was obvious that after the Armistice of Mudros (30 October 1918) the eastern border was not going to stay as it was drawn. There were talks going on with the Armenian Diaspora and Triple Entente on reshaping the border. The Fourteen Points was seen as an incentive to the ADR, if the Armenians could prove that they were the majority of the population and that they had military control over the eastern regions. The Armenian movements on the borders were being used as an argument to redraw the border between the Ottoman Empire and the ADR. Woodrow Wilson agreed to transfer the territories back to the ADR on the principle that they were dominated by Armenians. The results of these talks were to be reflected on the Treaty of Sèvres (August 10, 1920). There was also a movement of Armenians from the southeast with French support. The Franco-Armenian Agreement granted the Armenian claims to Cilicia with the establishment of the French Armenian Legion. The general idea at that time was to integrate the ADR into the French supported southeast Armenian movement. This way the ADR could gain much-sought-after resources to balance the Bolshevik expansionist movements.
One of the most important fights had taken place on this border. The very early onset of a national army was proof of this, even though there was a pressing Greek danger to the west. The stage of the eastern campaign developed through Kâzim Karabekir's two reports (30 May and 4 June 1920) outlining the situation in the region. He was detailing the activities of the Armenian Republic and advising on how to shape the sources on the eastern borders, especially in Erzurum. The Russian government sent a message to settle not only the Armenian but also the Iranian border through diplomacy under Russian control. Soviet support was absolutely vital for the Turkish nationalist movement, as Turkey was underdeveloped and had no domestic armaments industry. Bakir Sami Bey was assigned to the talks. The Bolsheviks demanded that Van and Bitlis be transferred to Armenia. This was unacceptable to the Turkish revolutionaries.
Eastern resolution[]
For more details on this topic, see Turkish–Armenian War.
The Treaty of Sèvres was signed by the Ottoman Empire and was followed by the occupation of Artvin by Georgian forces on 25 July.
The Treaty of Alexandropol (2 December 1920) was the first treaty signed by the Turkish revolutionaries. It nullified the Armenian activities on the eastern border, which was reflected in the Treaty of Sèvres as a succession of regions named Wilsonian Armenia. The 10th item in the Treaty of Alexandropol stated that Armenia renounced the Treaty of Sèvres, which stipulated Wilsonian Armenia.
After the peace agreement with the Turkish nationalists, in late November, a Soviet-backed Communist uprising took place in Armenia. On 28 November 1920, the 11th Red Army under the command of Anatoliy Gekker crossed over into Armenia from Soviet Azerbaijan. The second Soviet-Armenian war lasted only a week. After their defeat by the Turkish revolutionaries the Armenians were no longer a threat to the Nationalist cause. It is also possible to claim that had the ADR been content with the boundaries as of 1919, it could have shown more resistance to the Bolshevik conquest, both internally and externally, but that was not how things happened.
On 16 March 1921, the Bolsheviks and Turkey signed a more comprehensive agreement, the Treaty of Kars, which involved representatives of Soviet Armenia, Soviet Azerbaijan, and Soviet Georgia.
The arms left by the defeated ADR forces were sent to the west for use against the Greeks.
West[]
The war arose because the western Allies—particularly British Prime Minister David Lloyd George—had promised Greece territorial gains at the expense of the Ottoman Empire if Greece entered the war on the Allied side. These included parts of its ancestral homeland, Eastern Thrace, the islands of Imbros (Gökçeada), Tenedos (Bozcaada), and parts of Western Anatolia around the city of Smyrna (Izmir). Greece wanted to incorporate Constantinople to achieve the Megali Idea, but Entente powers did not give permission.
It was decided by the Triple Entente that Greece would control a zone around Smyrna (Izmir) and Ayvalik in western Asia Minor. The reason for these landings were prior Italian landings on the southern coast of Turkey, including in the city of Antalya. The Allies worried about further Italian expansion and saw Greek landings as a way to avoid this.
On 28 May, Greeks landed on Ayvalık. It was no surprise that this small town was chosen as this town was the Greek-speaking stronghold before the Balkan Wars. The Balkan Wars changed the nature of this region. The Muslim inhabitants who were forced out with the extending borders of Greece, mainly from Crete, settled in this area. Under an old Ottoman Lieutenant Colonel Ali Çetinkaya, these people formed a unit. Along Ali Çetinkaya's units, population in the region gathered around Resit, Tevfik and Çerkes Ethem. These units were very determined to fight against Greece as there was no other place that they could be pushed back. Resit, Tevfik and Ethem were of Circassian origin who were expelled from their ancestral lands in the Caucasus by the Russians[citation needed]. They were settled around the Aegean coast. Greek troops first met with these irregulars. Mustafa Kemal asked Admiral Rauf Orbay if he could help in coordinating the units under Ali Çetinkaya, Resit, Tevfik and Çerkez Ethem. Rauf Orbay—also of Circassian origin—managed to link these groups. He asked them to cut the Greek logistic support lines.
The Allied decision to allow a Greek landing in Smyrna resulted from earlier Italian landings at Antalya. Faced with Italian annexation of parts of Asia Minor with a significant ethnic Greek population, Venizelos secured Allied permission for Greek troops to land in Smyrna, ostensibly in order to protect the civilian population from turmoil. Turks claim that Venizelos wanted to create a homogeneous Greek settlement to be able to annex it to Greece, and his public statements left little doubt about Greek intentions: "Greece is not making war against Islam, but against the anachronistic Ottoman Government, and its corrupt, ignominious, and bloody administration, with a view to the expelling it from those territories where the majority of the population consists of Greeks."[73]
Western active stage[]
Main article: Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922)
As soon as Greek forces landed in Smyrna, a Turkish nationalist opened fire prompting brutal reprisals. Greek forces used Smyrna as a base for launching attacks deeper into Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal refused to accept even a temporary Greek presence in Smyrna. Eventually, the Turkish nationalists with the aid of the Kemalist armed forces defeated the Greek troops and population and pushed them out of Smyrna and the rest of Anatolia.
Western resolution[]
Main articles: Chanak Crisis and Armistice of Mudanya
With the borders secured with treaties and agreements at east and south, Mustafa Kemal was now in a commanding position. The Nationalists were then able to demand on 5 September 1922 that the Greeks[Clarification needed] evacuate East Thrace, Imbros and Tenedos as well as Asia Minor, and the Maritsa (Turkish Meriç) River should again become the western border of Turkey, as before 1914. The British were prepared to defend the neutral zone of Constantinople and the Straits and the French asked Kemal to respect it,[74] to which he agreed on 28 September.[75] However, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, and the British Dominions objected to a new war.[76]
France, Italy and Britain called on Mustafa Kemal to enter into cease-fire negotiations. In return, on 29 September Kemal asked for the negotiations to be started at Mudanya. Negotiations at Mudanya began on 3 October and it was concluded with the Armistice of Mudanya. This was agreed on 11 October, two hours before the British intended to engage at Chanak, and signed the next day. The Greeks initially refused to agree but did so on 13 October.[77] Factors persuading Turkey to sign may have included the arrival of British reinforcements.[78]
The armistice then made it possible for the allies to recognise the Turkish claim to East Thrace, which was agreed to at the Lausanne Conference on 20 November 1922.[79]
South[]
Main article: Franco-Turkish War
The French wanted to take control of Syria. With pressure against the French, Cilicia would be easily left to the nationalists. The Taurus Mountains were critical to the Ankara government. The French soldiers were foreign to the region and they were using Armenian militia to acquire their intelligence. Turkish nationals had been in cooperation with Arab tribes in this area. Compared to the Greek threat, they were the second most dangerous for the Ankara government. He proposed that if the Greek threat could be dispersed, the French would not resist.
Conference of London[]
For more details on this topic, see Conference of London.
In salvaging the Treaty of Sèvres, The Triple Entente forced the Turkish Revolutionaries to agree with the terms through a series of conferences in London. The Conference of London, with sharp differences, failed in both the first stage and the second stages. The modified Sèvres of the conference as a peace settlement was incompatible with the National Pact.
The conference of London gave the Triple Entente an opportunity to reverse some of its policies. In October, parties to the conference received a report from Admiral Mark Lambert Bristol. He organized a commission to analyze the situation, and inquire into the bloodshed during the Occupation of Izmir and the following activities in the region. The commission reported that if annexation would not follow, Greece should not be the only occupation force in this area. Admiral Bristol was not so sure how to explain this annexation to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson as he insisted on "respect for nationalities" in the Fourteen Points. He believed that the sentiments of the Turks "will never accept this annexation".
Neither the Conference of London nor Admiral Mark Lambert Bristol′s report changed British Prime Minister David Lloyd George′s position. On 12 February 1921, he went with the annexation of the Aegean coast which was followed by the Greek offensive. David Lloyd George acted with his sentiments, which were developed during Battle of Gallipoli, as opposed to General Milne, who was his officer on the ground.
Stage for peace[]
The first communication between the sides was during the failed Conference of London. The stage for peace effectively began after the Triple Entente's decision to make an arrangement with the Turkish revolutionaries. Before the talks with the Entente, the nationalists partially settled their eastern borders with the Democratic Republic of Armenia, signing Treaty of Alexandropol, but changes in the Caucasus—especially the establishment of the Armenian SSR—required one more round of talks. The outcome was the Treaty of Kars, a successor treaty to the earlier Treaty of Moscow of March 1921. It was signed in Kars with the Russian SFSR on 13 October 1921[80] and ratified in Yerevan on 11 September 1922.[81]
Armistice of Mudanya[]
For more details on this topic, see Armistice of Mudanya.
The Marmara sea resort town of Mudanya hosted the conference to arrange the armistice on 3 October 1922. İsmet (İnönü)—commander of the western armies—was in front of the Allies. The scene was unlike Mondros as the British and the Greeks were on the defense. Greece was represented by the Allies.
The British still expected the GNA to make concessions. From the first speech, the British were startled as Ankara demanded fulfillment of the National Pact. During the conference, the British troops in Constantinople were preparing for a Kemalist attack. There was never any fighting in Thrace, as Greek units withdrew before the Turks crossed the straits from Asia Minor. The only concession that Ismet made to the British was an agreement that his troops would not advance any farther toward the Dardanelles, which gave a safe haven for the British troops as long as the conference continued. The conference dragged on far beyond the original expectations. In the end, it was the British who yielded to Ankara's advances.
The Armistice of Mudanya was signed on 11 October. By its terms, the Greek army would move west of the Maritsa, clearing Eastern Thrace to the Allies. The famous American author Ernest Hemingway was in Thrace at the time, and he covered the evacuation of Eastern Thrace of its Greek population. He has several short stories written about Thrace and Smyrna, which appear in his book In Our Time. The agreement came into force starting 15 October. Allied forces would stay in Eastern Thrace for a month to assure law and order. In return, Ankara would recognize continued British occupation of Constantinople and the Straits zones until the final treaty was signed.
Refet Bele was assigned to seize control of Eastern Thrace from the Allies. He was the first representative to reach the old capital. The British did not allow the hundred gendarmes who came with him. That resistance lasted until the next day.
Abolition of the sultanate[]
Main article: Abolition of the Ottoman sultanate
Kemal had long ago made up his mind to abolish the sultanate when the moment was ripe. After facing opposition from some members of the assembly, using his influence as a war hero, he managed to prepare a draft law for the abolition of the sultanate, which was then submitted to the National Assembly for voting. In that article, it was stated that the form of the government in Constantinople, resting on the sovereignty of an individual, had already ceased to exist when the British forces occupied the city after World War I.[82] Furthermore, it was argued that although the caliphate had belonged to the Ottoman Empire, it rested on the Turkish state by its dissolution and Turkish National Assembly would have right to choose a member of the Ottoman family in the office of caliph. On 1 November, The Turkish Grand Assembly voted for the abolition of the Ottoman sultanate. The last Sultan left Turkey on 17 November 1922, in a British battleship on his way to Malta. Such was the last act in the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Conference of Lausanne[]
For more details on this topic, see Conference of Lausanne.
The Conference of Lausanne began on 21 November 1922 in Lausanne, Switzerland and lasted into 1923. Its purpose was the negotiation of a treaty to replace the Treaty of Sèvres, which, under the new government of the Grand National Assembly, was no longer recognised by Turkey. İsmet İnönü was the leading Turkish negotiator. İnönü maintained the basic position of the Ankara government that it had to be treated as an independent and sovereign state, equal with all other states attending the conference. In accordance with the directives of Mustafa Kemal, while discussing matters regarding the control of Turkish finances and justice, the Capitulations, the Turkish Straits and the like, he refused any proposal that would compromise Turkish sovereignty.[83] Finally, after long debates, on 24 July 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed. Ten weeks after the signature the Allied forces left Istanbul.[84]
The conference opened with representatives from the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Turkey. It heard speeches from Benito Mussolini of Italy and Raymond Poincaré of France. At its conclusion, Turkey assented to the political clauses and the "freedom of the straits", which was Britain's main concern. The matter of the status of Mosul was deferred, since Curzon refused to be budged on the British position that the area was part of Iraq. The British Iraq Mandate's possession of Mosul was confirmed by a League of Nations brokered agreement between Turkey and Great Britain in 1926. The French delegation, however, did not achieve any of their goals and on 30 January 1923 issued a statement that they did not consider the draft treaty to be any more than a "basis of discussion". The Turks therefore refused to sign the treaty. On 4 February 1923, Curzon made a final appeal to Ismet Pasha to sign, and when he refused the Foreign Secretary broke off negotiations and left that night on the Orient Express.
Treaty of Lausanne[]
Main article: Treaty of Lausanne (1923)
The Treaty of Lausanne, finally signed in July 1923, led to international recognition of the sovereignty of the Republic of Turkey as the successor state to the defunct Ottoman Empire.[85]
Establishment of the Republic[]
A republic was proclaimed on 29 October 1923, in the new capital of Ankara. Mustafa Kemal was elected as the first President. In forming his government, he placed Mustafa Fevzi (Çakmak), Köprülü Kâzım (Özalp), and İsmet (İnönü) in important positions. They helped him to establish his subsequent political and social reforms in Turkey.
See also[]
Armenian Genocide
Greek genocide
Assyrian genocide
Aftermath of World War I
Timeline of the Turkish War of Independence
List of modern conflicts in the Middle East
Turkish Medal of Independence
[]
References[]
[]
Stock Footage - Turkish recruits muster in the war for independence after WWI. Critical Past
Stock Footage - Turkish revolutionaries arrive by ship in Samsun, Anatolia. Critical Past
Stock Footage - French and British troops occupy Constantinople and administer their respective enclaves. They search Turkish civilians. Critical Past
Stock Footage - Effects of World War I. Critical Past
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3581 | dbpedia | 1 | 19 | https://dokumen.pub/the-armenians-of-aintab-the-economics-of-genocide-in-an-ottoman-province-0674247949-9780674247949.html | en | The Armenians of Aintab: The Economics of Genocide in an Ottoman Province 0674247949, 9780674247949 | [
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] | null | [] | null | A Turk’s discovery that Armenians once thrived in his hometown leads to a groundbreaking investigation into the local dy... | en | dokumen.pub | https://dokumen.pub/the-armenians-of-aintab-the-economics-of-genocide-in-an-ottoman-province-0674247949-9780674247949.html | Citation preview
The Armenians of Aintab
The
Armenians of Aintab The Economics of Genocide in an Ottoman Province
Ümit Kurt
Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England
2021
Copyright © 2021 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of Americ a First printing Jacket design: Graciela Galup Jacket art: Photo courtesy of Mihran Minassian Collection. 9780674259898 (EPUB) 9780674259904 (PDF) The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Names: Kurt, Ümit, author. Title: The Armenians of Aintab : the economics of genocide in an Ottoman province / Ümit Kurt. Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020044139 | ISBN 9780674247949 (cloth) Subjects: LCSH: Armenians—Turkey—Gaziantep—History. | Armenian massacres, 1894–1896. | Abandonment of property—Turkey—Gaziantep. | Deportation—Turkey—Gaziantep—Citizen participation. | Gaziantep (Turkey)—Economic conditions. | Gaziantep (Turkey)—Politics and government. Classification: LCC DR435.A7 K873 2021 | DDC 956.6/20154—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020044139
To Hasan and Hanım
Contents
List of Tables ix Preface xi Introduction
1
1 The 1895 Massacres in Aintab
26
2 Ethnic Politics after the Young Turk Revolution
58
3 Wartime Deportation and Destruction of the Aintab Armenians
78
4 Confiscation and Plunder under the Abandoned Properties Laws
108
5 The Flawed Restitution Process for Armenians
142
6 The End of the Armenian Community in Aintab
166
Conclusion
209
Appendix 221 Glossary 243
Contents
viii
Notes 247 Bibliography 351 Acknowledgments
361
Index 365
T ables
4.1 Liquidated Movable Goods and Assets Owned by Yacoubians
135
4.2 Liquidated Valuable Items and Additional Liquidated Assets Owned by Yacoubians
136
4.3 Yacoubians’ Liquidated Land and Estates
137
6.1 Karekin Bogharian’s List of Armenian Properties, 1922
176
6.2 Distribution of Abandoned Properties in Gaziantep Province, 1926
179
6.3 Allocation of Abandoned Properties in Gaziantep Province, 1926
179
Preface
Following my graduation from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, I found myself again at my parents’ h ouse in my hometown of Gaziantep, formerly known as Aintab, where I escaped the stifling heat and passed the days dozing on the sofa. One day I was jarred from my nap by a call from an old friend: “Ümit, where have you been? It’s been ages! I know a great place in Kayacık where we can catch up.” Though I was born and raised in Aintab and hadn’t left the city until college, the word “Kayacık” did not mean anything to me. It was just another district in the city, a neighborhood I had never visited, of which I knew nothing. She said she would wait for me at Papirüs Café and gave me directions. I took a bus to the Kayacık neighborhood, and upon arrival found myself dazed by the charming atmosphere, letting myself get lost in the side streets, and leaving my poor friend waiting some more. Embarrassed by my obliviousness, I found myself asking, “Where am I? What is this place?” I was on a narrow street with beautifully constructed stone houses lining each side, taking me back to a simpler, though slightly mysterious, time. Tucked away between the high-rise concrete apartment buildings of “modernized” Gaziantep, this neighborhood was like an architectural mirage. I felt nostalgic for a past that was never mine.
xii
Preface
Finally, I found Papirüs Café, which turned out to be located in one of t hose exotic houses. Like most of the houses on the street, it had been converted into a café as part of the process of “restoring” the city. Upon entering, a few letters carved at the top of the majestic gate caught my eye. Not recognizing the script, I simply assumed t hese w ere Ottoman characters. Inside, I was once more left speechless. A spacious courtyard with staircases on e ither side leading up to two large rooms welcomed me. The rooms were filled with antique furnishings, and the high ceilings were adorned with frescos and engravings similar to Florentine cathedrals. The experience was a kind of historical voyeurism, like stepping into a living museum. Feeling a surge of pride in my hometown and ancestors, I decided to talk to the owner to try to glean some information about the history of the house. I approached him, intending only to compliment his establishment, but before I could stop myself, I asked, “I was just wondering, from whom did you get this place? Who was h ere before you?” He wearily explained that he inherited this place from his grandfather. It must have been especially strong coffee they w ere serving that day, as I was emboldened to press further. “And how about your grandfather? From whom did he buy this place?” The man paused hesitantly before responding. And then after a few moments, he softly murmured to the ground beneath him, “There were Armenians here.” I asked, “What Armenians? What are you talking about? W ere t here Armenians in Gaziantep?” He nodded. I was getting annoyed with the opacity of his answers. “So, what happened to them? Where did they go?” He retorted indifferently: “They left.” As I rode the bus back home, I pondered why the Armenians—why anyone—would just leave and hand over such an exquisite property to someone. I was a naïve-to-the-point-of-ignorant twenty-two-year-old university graduate, unaware of the existence of Armenians in my hometown. A few years later, I would find out that the house belonged to Nazar Nazaretian, honorary consulate to Iran, who was a member of Aintab’s wealthiest and most prominent family, and that he, his children, and his grandchildren used to live in this house. Those letters above the gate w ere not Ottoman but Armenian, spelling out the surname of Kara
Preface
xiii
Nazar Agha, who built the house. Years later, I would also have the chance to meet the youngest member of the family, Shusan, whose grandmother was deported at the age of one during the 1915 Armenian genocide. Shusan kindly spoke Turkish to me in Aintab dialect. That building is no longer Papirüs Café for me. For me, it is the house of Kara Nazar Agha, the Nazaretians’ home, the house where the grand mother of Shusan was born. Hence, for me, the houses in Kayacık are the homes of the Barsumians, Pirenians, Ashjians, Krajians, Leylekians, Jebejians, and Karamanougians. In Turkish, t here is a saying: “Mal sahibi, mülk sahibi, hani bunun ilk sahibi?” Roughly translated, it reads, “Landlord, property owner, where is the original owner?” This book is the story of the Aintab Armenians, who were torn away from their homes, neighborhoods, and the city where they were born and raised. This is the account of how their material and spatial wealth changed hands and was transformed. This is the historical record of their persecution and subsequent erasure.
RUSSIA
NN AA IIRR
OT OT TO M TO A MA N E M N EM PIR PI E RE
Hadjin
UN O M
US R U TA
r. an
Urfa
E
AMANUS MOUNTAINS
Jey h
r.
Adana an
Hromgla
Aintab
sr .
Sei h
Mersina
Marash
Sis
uphra t e
Tarsus
NS I Zeytoun A T
Alexandretta Silifke
Aleppo
Antioch
Mediterranean Sea Cyprus
rt e s eRakka D r Zo r i Deir Zor De
Meskene
Hama Homs
Salammiyya
map 1 Cilicia region of the Late Ottoman Empire. © Ümit Kurt.
0
30
60
SCALE: Miles
90
Original owner
Present-day owner
1. Otacı (eye-healer) Iskender’s house 2. House of Armenian priest 3. House of Leylekian f amily 4. Armenian house 5. Armenian house 6. Armenian house 7. Barsumian h ouse 8. Armenian house 9. Armenian house 10. Avedis Jebejian h ouse 11. Garuj Karamanougian house 12. Najarian house 13. House of Barsumian family 14. Garuj Kurkchuian house 15. House of Jebejian f amily 16. House of Barsumian family 17. Sarkis Krajian h ouse 18. House of Krajian family 19. House of Krajian family 20. House of Krajian family 21. House of Krajian family 22. House of Krajian family 23. House of Krajian family 24. House of Krajian family 25. House of Krajian family 26. House of Krajian family 27. Hadidian house 28. Bulbulian house 29. Armenian house 30. Pirenian house 31. Pirenian house 32. Pirenian house 33. Armenian house 34. Armenian house 35. Nazaretian house 36. Nazaretian house 37. Nazaretian house 38. Nazaretian house 39. Demirdjian house 40. Armenian house 41. Armenian house 42. Bedros Ashjian house 43. Armenian house 4 4. Armenian house 45. Armenian house
Kasım Ergül and Emine Türkhan Agricultural Bank Dündar Gürbüz, Esen Lütfiye Güç Mehmet Hayri and Kifayet Sıvakcıgil Osman Morcalı Ökkeş Erkut Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality Gaziantep Provincial Special Administration Gaziantep Provincial Special Administration Atatürk Culture Center Hasan Süzer Ethnography Museum Mehmet Yılmaz Yanç Family Ministry of Culture and Tourism Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality Fazilet Çoruh and Fatma Ayberk İhsan Dai İhsan Dai İhsan Dai Fatma Hilal Sultan Çelik İhsan Dai Fatma Hilal Serdar Doğu Serdar Doğu Serdar Doğu Cevdet Uyanık Ali İhsan Ertütüncü Mehmet and Ramazan Kar Ahmet Hurşit Dai Şaşmaz F amily Ersoy Barak Cuma Öztürkmen Büyükbeşe F amily Doğan and Özdemir Families Necati Gültekin Kimya Family Konukoğlu Foundation Abdülkadir and Ali Şaşmaz Abdullah Bakkaloğlu Sait Kurt Yetkin Family Mehmet Doğan Özgen Durdu Kılıç Çoşkun Uğurlu
ARMENIAN QUARTER OF AINTAB c. 1914 Sites and Owners of Confiscated Armenian Properties in Gaziantep
35 34 45
32
36 37 33 38
31 32 30
39 29
40 41
42
9
17 24 26 23 25 19 18 21 20 22
8
16
1
4
10
44
27 28 12
15 7
43
13
11
5 3
14
6
CITY OF AINTAB
Aintab Citadel
Armenian Muslim Quarter Quarter American College
map 2 Sites and o wners of confiscated Armenian properties in Gaziantep. © Ümit Kurt.
2
The Armenians of Aintab
Introduction
In his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, Raphaël Lemkin says that “genocide is composite and manifold, and that it signifies a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of the essential foundations of life of a [specific] group.”1 Collective dispossession, including plunder and spoliation, is only one of the many crimes that accompany and even fortify genocidal policies—or perhaps better said, expropriation and pillaging are important aspects of the political economy of genocide. As Martin Dean, an authority on Nazi looting and plundering of Jewish property, remarkably underlines, “ethnic cleansing” and genocide usually have a “powerful materialist component: seizure of property, looting of the victims, and their economic displacement are intertwined with other motives for racial and interethnic violence and intensify their devastating effects.”2 In the case of the Armenian genocide, the state-orchestrated plunder of Armenian property immediately impoverished its victims; therefore, it was simultaneously a condition for and a consequence of the genocide. The Armenians of the Ottoman Empire experienced calamity of the greatest degree during World War I. Many males, including youth, were executed outright, while the rest—men, women, children, and the elderly—were deported to barren lands in Iraq and Syria. Th ose deported were subjected to e very manner of misery—k idnapping, rape, torture, murder, and death from exposure, starvation, and thirst—by e very
2
T H E A R M E N IA N S O F A I N TA B
possible adversary—Ottoman gendarmes, Turkish and Kurdish irregulars, tribespeople, and the army. As Donald Bloxham emphasizes, those who escaped deportation, primarily w omen and children, w ere forced to convert to Islam, as Muslim identity was considered a cornerstone of the new nation-state, Turkey.3 Principally perpetrated by the “Committee of Union and Progress” (İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti; hereafter CUP) elite, who largely controlled the Ottoman government at the time, these events constitute what we now know as the Armenian genocide. Cloaked under the guise of war, this violence surpassed the war crimes of Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary.4 Through these policies and their mechanisms, the CUP achieved its goal of eliminating the “Armenian question” and establishing Anatolia as a “purified” homeland for those whom the CUP elite deemed the true Turkish peoples.5 The Ottoman Empire’s participation in World War I included a major campaign aimed at eliminating certain minorities—first and foremost Armenians—depicted by the CUP regime and Muslim society as dangerous and treacherous domestic enemies. This campaign led Armenians to be subjected to wartime mass deportation, internment, total extermination, and expropriation. However, the Ottoman Empire was by no means the only state to take measures against its own citizens. Both Central and Allied Powers carried out brutal policies against domestic political suspects and e nemy aliens during the years 1914–1918.6 For example, Russia’s campaign against its enemy citizens quickly widened in scope to include “the empire’s large population of ethnic Germans to Russian-subject Jews, Muslims, and o thers.”7 Only in one state, according to Matthew Stippe, the Ottoman Empire, did this “ ‘dynamic of destruction’ get pushed as far as genocide. In others, including Austria- Hungary, the quest for military security had murderous, rather than genocidal consequences” (italics added).8 Pursuing this global dynamic of violence during the Great War, the CUP campaign resulted in the forced displacement of more than a million civilians, the nationalization of a substantial portion of the imperial economy, and the transfer of extensive lands, assets, and properties from the targeted minorities (Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians) to favored groups. Historically, few governments formally took measures in times of war against their own subjects.9 However, as Eric Lohr underscores, World
Introduction
3
War I introduced systematic and brutal measures against e nemy citizens and other civilians, measures that proliferated both during and a fter World War II.10 One cornerstone of the wartime campaign against Armenians in the Ottoman Empire was the confiscation of their properties and wealth, which w ere subsequently transferred to Muslim elites and used in reshaping the domestic economy as well as covering war time expenses. Th ese were among the radical practices of the CUP regime aimed at nationalizing the economy. First, many businesses and properties were transferred to state institutions. Second, a lesser but substantial number of firms w ere transferred to “reliable” Muslim individuals and social institutions. More significant than the transfers themselves was the fact that these extraordinary measures belonged to a set of laws, regulations, rules, and decrees that created a legal basis for a more systematic campaign against the movable and immovable properties of Armenians.11 In this capital transfer, we see that genocide also created the circumstances to enable “the complete fulfilment of the established policy of ethnic domination through expropriation.”12 Economic dispossession was far from a process carried out “from above” by means of the s imple execution of CUP o rders. If the process of the economic exclusion of Armenians is to be described fully, a regional historical analysis is necessary. Not only w ill the fundamental features of regional anti-Armenian policy be examined, but decision- makers, local actors, provincial notables, and ordinary Muslims will be scrutinized in detail. In that sense, as Bloxham and Dirk Moses have suggested, “the m atter of location tells us much about the political calculus underpinning genocide.”13 In fact, to grasp the full implications of state-sponsored genocide, we must look at local atrocities and their long-term outcomes. I employ evidence and materials provided by “local protagonists, in the form of diaries, letters, eyewitness accounts, testimonies, interviews, and memoirs.” As Omer Bartov and Eric Weitz have contended, “Only in this manner, the combination of standard state documentation with locally generated sources, can historians reconstruct local events in all their complexity and thereby gain more insight into the socio-psychological makeup of interethnic violence, its motivations, rationalizations, dynamics of perpetration, and subsequent narratives.”14
4
T H E A R M E N IA N S O F A I N TA B
Drawing upon primary sources from Armenian, Ottoman-Turkish, British, and French archives, as well as memoirs, personal papers, local newspapers, periodicals, testimonials, and oral accounts, this book explores how the process of genocide and deportation directed at the Armenians of Aintab—present-day Gaziantep, thirty-five miles west of the Euphrates and twenty-eight miles north of today’s Turkish-Syrian border—was implemented. Shifting focus from state to society, thereby prioritizing the local roots of a genocide in the making, this work highlights the crucial role played by local elites and provincial notables, actors who prospered in the new social stratum through the acquisition of Armenian property and wealth. In this respect, I argue that the CUP genocide and deportation decision had a degree of social support through the practice of effective power and control mechanisms at the local level. Influenced by renowned Holocaust scholar Frank Bajohr’s “Aryanization” in Hamburg and Martin Dean’s Robbing the Jews, this book treats Aintab as a microcosm to elucidate the confiscation and transfer of Armenian properties. This process was an essential component of the genocidal policy, and plunder was an influential incentive behind the support and involvement of local elites in the Armenian genocide.15 The sheer scale of actions constituting genocide could not be carried out by a single order from the central government. Therefore, local dynamics played an extremely important role in this destruction. This book provides a historical analysis of t hese dynamics, while paying attention to the political, ideological, social, and economic climate in Aintab—a crucially important town and district of the time. The book investigates local and regional dynamics, with a particular emphasis on the disintegration of social relations and the breakdown of social fabric in the city of Aintab, to contextualize the developments that led to the persecution, forced deportation, and mass murder of Armenians, and the dispossession of their property. As Hilmar Kaiser and Uğur Ümit Üngör successfully did in the case of Diyarbekir, I pay particular attention to the local dynamics of genocide—its political, social, and economic legacies, and the roles of local actors and civilian and military authorities—but this book distinguishes itself from those scholars’ works by combining Armenian and Turkish documentation as well as employing unmined
Introduction
5
Armenian and Turkish sources.16 Doing so enables me to demonstrate the complex picture of not only the relations between central and local actors but also each group’s internal relations. The book thus brings together analysis at the macro level (contextualizing the genocide in a global and national context), the meso level (revealing and discussing the activities of the various “middlemen” of violence—notables, midranking officers, and tribal leaders), and finally the micro level (dissecting how the process unfolded in the various regional microcosms)— an approach that has been missing in the literature. The book also provides new insights on the c auses and origins of genocidal policies and their impact in the making and remaking of provincial elites and, by extension, of the modern Turkish Republic. Thus, the scope of the book is not limited to the sale and liquidation of Armenian properties; it treats confiscation as an all-encompassing displacement process whose political and social underpinnings and historical context must be considered in tandem. At the core of the book is a series of studies of the nationalization of state practices at the local level: the expropriation and liquidation of properties and businesses of Armenians; their forced mass deportations; and extermination. The book focuses on the origins and implementation of these practices in the city of Aintab.
As Jan T. Gross eloquently remarks, the participation of local populations is “a necessary condition to ensure the effectiveness of genocidal policies.”17 The CUP relied to a considerable extent on the cooperation of the local administrations and elites, political institutions, and ordinary citizens in Aintab. With this cooperation in mind, certain questions arise. How w ere the CUP and their local collaborators able to mobilize society? How did Armenian properties change hands? How did the distribution of properties establish an important degree of local complicity? Collaboration as well as tensions between central and local authorities in the course of the violent appropriation of large amounts of property, with or without the permission of the central and local authorities, are also examined.
6
T H E A R M E N IA N S O F A I N TA B
If genocide, as a practice that includes murder and plunder, is orchestrated by a central authority but implemented at the local level, what is the relationship between local and central authorities? How can we explain the support of Muslim elites in encouraging and implementing the genocidal policies of the central authority—in the case of the Armenian genocide, the CUP? Did the CUP distribute Armenian property to Aintab gentry and its inhabitants in exchange for their support? If so, which institutions w ere involved? What kinds of laws, rules, and regulations did state authorities enact for the confiscation of Armenian property? These will be the guiding questions in this book.18 They cut across a number of research areas in Ottoman and Middle Eastern history, some of which have been more thoroughly explored than others. A careful examination and analysis of these issues can tell us more about the implementation of the Armenian genocide and the significance of Armenian property in the context of the entire process of destruction. The concept of local or provincial elites is central to my understanding of the elite-making process. The term “provincial elites”19 is generally associated with ayan, notables who held a dominant place in the Ottoman provinces beginning in the late seventeenth century.20 Political, social, and economic power was the defining feature of these provincial elites. Predominantly Muslim, not only did they include members of the military, the learned institutions (institutions dedicated to education), religious personnel, administrative staff, and artisans, but they also occasionally consisted of dervish sheikhs, w omen, and even non-Muslims.21 As Antonis Anastasopoulos explains, they could “facilitate the implementation of government policies and guarantee relative order in the provinces”; in turn, “state acknowledgement or government appointment enhanced” t hese local notables’ prestige and authority.22 More modest families consisted of local notables with some political power. These ayan had “more in common with contemporary patriciates in Europe than the military magnates of the Ottoman realm.”23 The participation of the local populace in robbing their Armenian neighbors is seen as the product of an increasing radicalization and loss of restraint resulting from the breakdown of social ties along ethnic, religious, and economic lines. I seek to scrutinize both the role of the local population as witnesses to the Armenian genocide and also the im-
Introduction
7
pact of the radical Turkish economic exploitation of the Armenians, which led to bitter social conflicts over scarce resources, contributing to this development in the case of Aintab. While official CUP policy intended for all Armenian property to be confiscated for the benefit of the Turkish administration, material rewards clearly acted as an incentive for collaboration at the regional level. Administrators recognized this motive and tolerated or encouraged it as they saw fit, often taking their own cut. Consequently, the Armenian genocide was much more complicated than the outcome of a simple top-down decision-making process in which the CUP leadership assigned, enforced, and oversaw exterminationist policies while local Muslims acted as passive, indifferent bystanders. This book holds not only that the relationship between the central power and regional and local authorities was one-directional and hierarchical, but also that regional offices and the central authority mutually influenced each other. Jongerden and Verheij’s poly-centricity and poly-activity theory, in Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870–1915, is useful in understanding and explaining the dialectic, dynamic, and complicated structure of the relationship between the center and periphery.24 With “poly-centricity,” the authors refer to a “shift of attention from the so-called center to the so-called periphery,” and with “poly- activity,” “a move from an exclusive focus on the acts and deeds of the elite alone, to one that includes also t hose of multiple subaltern categories.”25 In a similar fashion, local actors in Aintab were not simply engaged in implementing orders or opposing them; t hese actors functioned as a structural element that was present throughout the process. Thus, beyond serving as intermediaries between the outside authority and the locals or patrons of the local populace, t hese local actors w ere an authority in their own right. Following this conceptual framework, it can be claimed that as much as the Armenian genocide was a top-down process, it was equally led from the bottom up via a multitude of multifaceted relations between the central power and local authorities. Beyond any doubt, genocide and plunder were centrally planned, yet I argue that mass participation arose primarily from local incentives and motives. At the same time, one would not expect t hese motives to be unanimous or lacking nuance and
8
T H E A R M E N IA N S O F A I N TA B
change. They were both economic and social. On the economic side, the prospect of loot, for example, incentivized local collaborators to support massacres and deportations. Realizing the potential, the CUP leadership deliberately instrumentalized the promise of spoil and plunder to cajole public participation. The central government was well aware of the fact that provincial notables, local landowners and bigwigs, officials, and a range of other p eople with vested interests tried to take possession of Armenian wealth. These actors found themselves in a fortuitous position. Not only did their actions fulfill the ideological requirements of the regime, but t hese actions also brought material gain in the form of expropriated and pillaged Armenian properties. Th ese factors in combination served to catalyze further the persecution of Armenians. Thus, a “reward mechanism” was created by which the CUP could draw political and social support for decisions to deport and massacre Armenians.26 The profiteers justified their confiscation and seizure of Armenian wealth not as robbery or plunder but as fair reward for their participation in the elimination of “harmful and traitorous elements.”27 Beyond base greed, the fervor with which they executed the genocide on the local level must be understood in part as a result of the rationalization that they were acting in the service of the Ottoman state. On the social side, it is important to consider the role of stolen and confiscated Armenian assets in the integration and consolidation of the process of “Turkification” or a Muslim-controlled Milli İktisat (National Economy).28 The main purpose of “Turkification” was the dispossession of countless thousands of Armenians and their systematic removal from virtually every sector of the economy by transferring Armenian movable and immovable properties and businesses to “Turkish” hands.29 To date the literature has largely ignored the participation of many “ordinary” Muslims from manifold classes in the massacres of Armenians. Motivated in large part by material profit, the actions of t hese actors reflected the prevailing attitude of Turkish-Muslims, that of indifference and dispassion. One of the main tasks of my study is to explicate the economic and social atmosphere in Aintab, which allowed the local administrators, members of the Aintab gentry, and ordinary Muslims (Aintab’s inhabitants) to radicalize their views and policies against the Armenians and to disclose how this atmosphere expedited the depor-
Introduction
9
tation. By focusing on Aintab, I hope to shed light on the origins of the property and wealth of Muslim elites, as well as the means by which properties of massacred and deported Armenians changed hands.
Aintab was a frontier city that lay at the crossroads of various states, cultures, and civilizations; and control of the city over its history changed hands among Muslims, Byzantines, and numerous crusading armies including the Mamluks and the Turcomans. The city, situated on a high and fertile plan to the east of the Taurus Mountains, has long served as a border between the Byzantine Empire and Arab Syria, beginning as early as the seventh c entury, and was incorporated in 1516 into Ottoman lands following Selim I’s Syria campaign.30 Armenians w ere some of the first residents of Aintab, having settled t here in the sixteenth c entury. As we will see, at the turn of the nineteenth c entury, as the living conditions of Armenians improved considerably, the Muslims of Aintab developed a growing resentment t oward their affluent Armenian neighbors, resulting in part from the Muslims’ demoted status within the community. The Armenians experienced various positive social, political, sociocultural, and economic transformations in the second half of the nineteenth century. They undertook key intermediary roles in relation to the outside world mostly as a result of their language skills and their religious confraternity with the European powers. However, neither the Ottoman state nor the Muslim community welcomed t hese transformations, which led to an aggravation of ethnic divisions and brewing of local animosities. These underlying sentiments created a tense atmosphere, foreshadowing the storm to come in 1895. Yet this storm would pale in comparison to the events that would begin in 1915. Agitation from the Armenian community for political reform and autonomy, boiling since the 1870s, was further intensified by large-scale massacres that occurred across the empire in 1894–1897 and in Cilicia in 1909; additionally, the more seemingly benign expressions of oppression and discrimination faced by Armenians, which had increased throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, also contributed to growing discontent.31 Though they had already suffered grave injustices,
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T H E A R M E N IA N S O F A I N TA B
the previous misfortunes of the Ottoman Armenians paled in comparison to the genocide of 1915–1916. As Bloxham notes, the massacres of the 1890s and genocide of 1915 differ in significant ways—notably in their motivations as well as in participation by centralized versus localized actors—but share a common time frame at the twilight of the Ottoman Empire.32 Finally, the massacres of 1894–1897 themselves charted the course of what was to come, conditioning the mentality of both perpetrators and victims. This study discloses the differences and discrepancies between the assumed impact of Young Turk policies on the Armenian-populated areas and the actual dynamics of the implementation of mass murder, genocide, and spoliation in t hese areas. Aside from the grave consequences, this analysis shows how Muslim elites and Aintab’s inhabitants in the community at large benefited from the implementation of genocidal policies and what I call “the economy of plunder.” Th ere was, in other words, an explicit desire at the local level for the depredation of assets and property of the Armenian community, rather than solely the generally assumed ideological pressure emanating from the political center. My localized focus tackles the chronological complexities of the genocide, especially with respect to possible antecedents in the late nineteenth century and postgenocidal developments during the Turkish War of Independence (İstiklâl Harbi) of 1919–1922 and the early years of the Republic in the 1930s. Accompanying the massacres, the confiscation and plunder process of Aintab Armenians’ properties can be divided into three periods. In the first period—World War I—both the CUP itself as well as Muslim elites and ordinary Muslims pillaged Armenian wealth. In terms of the CUP policy regarding the removal of Armenians from the economy, a clear legal framework was required.33 These laws and statutes came to be known as the Emval-i Metruke Kanunları (Abandoned Properties Laws). In the second period—post–World War I (1918–1921), a fter the Ottoman defeat—the process of restitution commenced in the city but was later discontinued. In the Sykes-Picot Agreement, concluded secretly on 19 May 1916, France and Britain carved the Arab territories of the former Ottoman Empire into spheres of influence. U nder Sykes-Picot,
Introduction
11
the Syrian coast and modern-day Lebanon was annexed by France and Britain took direct control of central and southern Mesopotamian territories. Based on this agreement and the seventh article of the Mudros Armistice from 30 October 1918, British forces occupied Aintab in December 1918. The primary and most urgent tasks of the British occupation forces were to facilitate the return of the Armenians to their homes, to restore their properties and assets, and to find and deliver Armenian women and c hildren who had been held in Muslim h ouseholds to their families or relatives. Armenian survivors started to return to their hometowns in December 1918, most immediately concerned with discerning how their movable and immovable properties would be returned to them. This issue of restitution of properties was of pressing importance for the Ottoman government; related o rders w ere sent to localities, and necessary legal regulations w ere issued. However, the British decided to cede the city to the French by signing the Syrian Agreement with the French government on 15 September 1919. According to this agreement, the French forces would replace the British in October 1919, a situation that disrupted the restoration process. Local authorities became reluctant to return the Armenian properties to the survivors, even if ordered to do so by the Ministry of Interior. Though houses w ere occasionally returned to their rightful o wners, in most cases local authorities refused to evict the present occupants. Additionally, the rise of the Kemalist nationalist movement in the city in 1919–1920 put a halt to the restitution process. In the face of French occupation, local nationalist-Kemalist forces instigated armed struggles against the French. Throughout the Turkish- French war in Aintab, which started on 1 April 1920 and ended with the Kemalist defeat and the city’s surrender to the French military forces on 9 February 1921, the Armenians of Aintab allied with the French. Yet, despite their victory, the French ultimately decided to retreat from the city in February 1921, leaving it on 20 October 1921 to the Kemalist forces in accordance with the Treaty of Ankara. In the third period (post-1921), with the total departure of the Armenians from Aintab, the confiscation and plunder process was completed. With new administrative and legal regulations implemented u nder the domestic laws following the Lausanne Treaty in 1924, and with other
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bilateral agreements signed between France and Turkey in 1926 and 1932 invalidating the return of properties, all movable and immovable assets of the Armenians who were forced to move to Aleppo and Beirut were appropriated. Armenian properties were mainly sold by auction to Aintab’s local elites who participated in the Turkish-French war and who supported the national forces financially and logistically. These auctions were organized by the Defterdarlık (Internal Revenue Office) of the city and the local administration’s initiative. This book provides a concise history of these three periods.
A ba n d o n e d A r m e n ia n P ro pe rt y Much of the literature on the destruction of the Ottoman Armenians tells the story of a state captured by a radical party that enforced genocidal measures throughout the land.34 Scholarship about genocidal activity at the local level, however—what social scientists would call “the periphery”—is still in its infancy.35 Despite the paramount importance of the property issue in the execution of the Armenian genocide and its aftermath, few studies to date have addressed the issue. Lut’fik Kuyumdjian’s research, published from 1927 through 1933 in the General Almanac of So’wrp P’rgich Hiwantano’c (The Holy Savior Hospital of Istanbul),36 is one of the earliest attempts to contemplate the significance of the subject of abandoned properties, discussing the laws and regulations promulgated during the Republican period. Haygazn Ghazarian studied the confiscation of Armenian properties by establishing an empirical foundation mostly derived from the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire.37 The first comprehensive study to scrutinize Ottoman and Turkish laws and regulations in relation to Armenian abandoned properties was undertaken by Levon Vartan.38 In his pioneering work, Vartan examined the enforcement of legal instruments with respect to the abandoned properties of Ottoman Armenians. From another perspective, Kevork K. Baghdjian designated the confiscation of Armenian properties as a decisive process that was constitutive of what in due course followed it: the perpetration of the genocide in 1915.39
Introduction
13
Dickran Kouymjian introduced an early categorization of expropriated properties, including gold, bank assets, insurance policies, immovable wealth, and inventories.40 Kaiser’s studies on the dispossession of Armenians have contrasted “the promises of the legal veneer and the actual events” that transpired on the ground.41 He argued that no Ottoman law existed to keep the confiscation process within legal bound aries, nor did the Young Turk regime seem to have any interest whatsoever in safeguarding Ottoman Armenians’ property.42 A more precise analysis by Taner Akçam indicated an overview of the demographics of the new owners of confiscated assets. Relying solely on Ottoman documents, he identified six types of recipients of the Armenian properties: Muslim immigrants, the Muslim bourgeoisie, the Ottoman army, the operational costs of conducting the Armenian deportation itself, the state’s own infrastructure, and militia organizations.43 Bedross Der Matossian’s work provides another perspective. He argued that “whereas the CUP confiscated Armenian property, the subsequent Kemalist movement gladly accepted the crime as fait accompli and could move towards appropriation” without obstacles; “this distinction between confiscation and appropriation is a matter of active versus passive expropriation.” 44 Der Matossian discussed the fate of “Armenian capital” as an important component of the annihilation process of the Ottoman Armenians, approaching the confiscation of “Armenian capital” as a process thinly veiled under the guise of legality. Furthermore, he put forth questions to invite further research on the possible connections between this capital and the material foundations of the later Republican era.45 In A Perfect Injustice: Genocide and Theft of Armenian Wealth, Hrayr Karagueuzian and Yair Auron aimed to fill yet another hole in the existing literature, an academic void resultant from a lack of sufficient documentation of how and why the Young Turk government forcibly annexed Armenian life insurance policies. Their book provides an in teresting but fragmented discussion that ultimately fails to expound on how the Armenian properties w ere transferred at the local level.46 Sait Çetinoğlu placed the expropriation of Armenians during the 1915 genocide in a much wider historical context and discussed the fate of Armenian properties through a linear historical understanding. He
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argued that the period of 1895–1955 (including the Hamidian massacres of 1895, the Adana massacres of 1909, the genocide of 1915, and the pogroms of 6–7 September 1955) brought the complete elimination of the economic life of the Armenians.47 Nevzat Onaran’s voluminous studies on the confiscation of Armenian and Greek properties offered a narrative account of the dispossession of t hese two Ottoman Christian groups and examined the entire body of legislation that had been passed by the Ottoman and Republican states.48 Claiming to be the first comprehensive study devoted to the mass sequestration of Armenian property during the genocide, Üngör and Mehmet Polatel’s work detailed the emergence of Turkish economic nationalism and creation of a Turkish bourgeoisie,49 offered insight into the economic results of the genocidal process, and described how the plunder was organized on the ground.50 This important study relies on two interconnected concepts that played a pivotal role in the nationalization of Turkish economy: confiscation and colonization. By “confiscation,” the authors mean “the involvement of an extensive bureaucratic apparatus that perpetuated a legal façade during the dispossession of Armenians.” As for the concept of colonization, the authors refer to the redistribution of Armenian property to Muslims “as a form of internal colonization.”51 Additionally, the authors explored the interrelated nature of property confiscation carried in cooperation with the local elites within two provinces of the Empire, Adana and Diyarbekir.52 Anahid Astoian analyzed the factual history of Armenian expropriation throughout the Ottoman Empire in 1914–1923 based on archival documents as well as Armenian, Turkish, and other sources.53 Oya Gözel Durmaz’s dissertation constituted an exception within the existing literature regarding this topic. Her study distinctively illustrated how the Abandoned Properties Laws w ere implemented for Kayseri Armenians, while also bringing to light the active role of the local elites in the confiscation process of 1915–1918.54 In her recent study, on the other hand, Ellinor Morack delved into how abandoned property and the discourses and practices surrounding its distribution were used for the creation of a Turkish bourgeoisie and the foundation and internal legitimization of a Turkish nation-state during the early Republican period.55
Introduction
15
In The Spirit of the Laws, Taner Akçam and I directly focused on the l egal framework of the abandoned properties and, in particular, provided information on the Lausanne and post-Lausanne periods.56 We also examined the confiscation of Armenian properties during the genocide and subsequent attempts to retain seized Armenian wealth. Through close analysis of laws and treaties, we revealed that decrees issued during the genocide constituted central pillars of the Turkish system of property rights, retaining their l egal validity; although Turkey has consented through international agreements to return Armenian properties, it has continued to refuse to do so. The book demonstrated that genocides did not depend on the abolition of the l egal system and elimination of rights; on the contrary, the perpetrators of genocide manipulated the legal system to facilitate their plans. While a few studies touch upon this issue, they do not primarily address the topic.57 These noteworthy studies share one major drawback: insufficient use of primary and secondary Armenian materials. The scholarship on the Armenian genocide in general and economics of genocide in particular lacks focus on the local or micro level and the Ottoman periphery, in part as a result of the absence of Armenian sources. This book includes the confiscation, liquidation, and plunder process as an integral element of the entire destruction system within a particular region, using Armenian and Turkish as well as Western sources to analyze and document with specificity the liquidation of Armenian movable and immovable properties. The book demonstrates how the Abandoned Properties and Liquidation Commissions carried out Abandoned Properties Laws and performed transactions on the wealth of deported Armenians, including the newly unearthed report and records of the Aintab Liquidation Commission that clearly reveal how “the economy of plunder” created intersecting political or ideological and material interests among the local collaborators. While t here are a number of existing books regarding the history of Aintab Armenians, almost none contains studies on property issues or describes in rich detail the social, economic, and political lives of the various ethnic-religious groups living in the area, as well as the relations among them.58 My work fills this gap by dealing closely with the prob lems specific to the origins of property and wealth of the Aintab gentry.
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The objectives outlined here can hardly be met given the present state of research. There is no lack of regional histories of the persecution of Armenians under the CUP regime, but the economic expropriation of the Armenians and economic “Turkification” for the most part appear only marginally. Most local and regional studies limit themselves to a summary overview; though they contain useful strands of information, they cannot stand in for a comprehensive investigation. Even t oday, little is known about the destruction of Armenian economic and material power in centers of Armenian life in the Ottoman Empire. I see this book as both a foundation for such work at a regional level and also a stimulus for further comparative research.
The core of this study focuses on the 1915–1916 period, with chapters detailing the late nineteenth c entury through 1914, as well as a legal and an economic overview of 1920–1923 and the early Republican years. Chapter 1 explores the massacres of 1895 in Aintab, examining why and how the anti-Armenian violence took place and how two communities— Armenian and Muslim—that lived in relative harmony until the last quarter of the nineteenth c entury began to clash with each other on ethnic grounds. The chapter aims to investigate the process through which ties between the two ethno-religious communities turned hostile—how and why this atmosphere was transformed into a series of violent and panic-stricken events. The principal question I raise here is how a region that had not experienced any significant level of sustained, systemic, or intercommunity violence until the turn of the nineteenth century became a region synonymous with ethnic conflict.59 Most prominently, my attention is focused on how the events revolving around the Aintab Armenian massacres unfolded. The Hamidian massacres clearly demonstrated that when specific circumstances would present themselves in the coming years, the relations between these two ethno- religious communities could rapidly gain a violent character. The southeastern Ottoman provinces of Greater Cilicia were—much like the rest of the Empire—composed of manifold ethnic groups, as was the case for the Aintab district within the Aleppo province. Christians
Introduction
17
and Muslims seemed to live together harmoniously but both knew that the latter had the upper hand in an imperial-monarchical structure. Yet, beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, the Armenians of Aintab went through various social, political, sociocultural, and economic changes. Th ese changes became evident in several areas: economy, trade, education, and religious institutions. Advancement of the Aintab Armenian population in all t hese areas altered the imperial hierarchical context. I analyze how this multifaceted change culminated in the disintegration of social relations and violence. In Chapter 2, I first examine how the tense relations between the two communities further went amiss with July 1908’s restitution of the 1876 Kânûn-ı Esâsî (the first Ottoman Constitution) by a new generation of leaders, the CUP. With a bloodless revolution, empire-w ide elections, and the reintroduction of the Parliament in 1908, “the Ottoman Empire had, it seemed, transformed itself into a liberal, constitutional monarchy.” 60 Subsequently, I explain how the news of the April 1909 Adana massacres was received in Aintab. This chapter also explores the nature of the relationship between Armenians and Muslims before World War I to understand w hether the ideal of Ittihad-ı Anasır, an Ottomanist unity (Ottomanism), actually existed following the restoration of the constitution. Additionally, I address the impact of the Young Turk Revolution on the Armenians of Aintab, the sociopolitical structure of ethnic groups, the sociopolitical power dynamics between them, the political attitudes of both the government and the ethnic groups toward each other, and Muslim and Armenian perceptions of the constitutional era.61 I elucidate why a powerful escalation of ethnic tensions as a result of ethnic politics appearing in the first year of the constitutional period erupted in a counterrevolution and why an incident similar to the Adana massacres of 1909 did not occur in Aintab, as well as identifying and analyzing the f actors and processes that led to restraint. Since Aintab Armenians w ere no longer as defenseless and unorga nized as they had been in November 1895, they were not subjected to the killing and looting that erupted in Adana. Relatively speaking, there was a period of peaceful though tenuous coexistence in Aintab. B ecause of its fragility, Armenians had fortified themselves in the Armenian neighborhoods and protected these neighborhoods against any mob attack.
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My findings demonstrate that the attitudes of Muslim inhabitants and administrators, as well as the firm stance of local CUP rulers, prevented the possibility of a new upheaval. “Union and progress” and “liberty, justice, and brotherhood” were the mantras of the Young Turk revolution. Th ese major pillars of the revolution w ere emphasized in many postcards and placards thanks to the birth of a lively press within the empire. However, as Mustafa Aksakal remarks, the years that followed the revolution were also marked by “deep crises of internal violence, including the massacre of 20,000 Armenians in the Adana region in 1909, wars in North Africa and the Balkans in 1911–13, and continued financial insecurity.” 62 Lastly, in the context of the Balkan Wars, the CUP attained absolute power politically and administratively in 1913 and controlled the state apparatus over the course of the war years. I end up by tracing the policies of the Young Turks that plunged them into the war and genocidal acts. Chapter 3 describes and attempts to explain the mass violence that was inflicted upon the Ottoman Armenians in the Aintab district during World War I. The chapter explores the persecution of Armenians and how that process evolved into genocide. The chapter analyzes the extant political and social context, which radicalized the views of local authorities, provincial elites, and ordinary Muslims regarding Armenians and paved the way for the deportations. I assess how the behavior of local elites affected the genocidal process and how they interpreted, organized, and intensified the destruction of Armenians. The decision-making processes and policies of the Ottoman central government and its regional as well as local representatives against Armenians w ill also be discussed. Additionally, it is important to investigate the path taken from the decision to deport to actual massacre. Deportation and extermination are not the same, though a number of similar historical situations have demonstrated that one can easily lead to the other u nder ripe conditions. Hardly planned from the outset, genocidal spasms and their related events w ere fostered by certain situational dynamics.63 One t hing gave rise to another as actors calculated their next steps in response to previous actions and decisions that had been unplanned. The momentum of events frequently led participants to find themselves in situations they
Introduction
19
had not envisioned. Thus, genocidal motives did not prefigure any a ctual genocidal design, intent, or target.64 No genocide is an “a priori given.” Further, h uman agency in genocidal processes “depends on forces that often go beyond any sense of rational action.” 65 Hence, genocides are not inevitable events; to the contrary, as Yektan Türkyılmaz stresses, a genocidal process has its own specific spatial, temporal, and political dynamics, as well as potential discontinuities. It is precisely t hese local situational and structural dynamics and contexts that can both explain and give rise to genocides. The o rders and policies of the center constitute only one side of the story of the deportation process in Aintab; equally important is the implementation of these o rders and policies. Therefore, as Üngör and Kaiser have, independently, suggested in the case of Diyarbekir, it is essential to explore how local elites established, preserved, and broadened their control over Aintab. To reveal the dynamics that shaped the annihilation, I illustrate the local power structures, focusing on the deeds of Ali Cenani,66 a CUP parliamentary deputy from Aintab, and Ahmed Faik (Erner),67 the mutasarrıf (district governor) of Aintab. Through this approach, I hope to capture the complexity of processes governing mass violence. Chapter 4 has two sections. The first fundamentally examines the Abandoned Properties Laws. In doing so, I also document the expropriation process of Armenian properties that changed hands u nder the veneer of legality. Properties belonging to Ottoman Armenians w ere seized through various laws, decrees, and other l egal regulations passed by the CUP government and later the cadres of the Republican regime. Both governments concocted ways of making this illegal process look legitimate under the veil of the law. Central to this process w ere the economic outcomes of violence committed against Armenians. Principally, what “economic violence” refers to here is the appropriation of movable and immovable properties and assets left b ehind by the deported Armenians. The process was abetted by the legal system, through which an entire community was reduced to the status of nonexistence. A similar process took place in the Third Reich and various European countries invaded by Hitler’s army (the Wehrmacht). All the appropriated wealth and proceeds from the Jews were transferred to the treasury of Nazi Germany through the appropriation of law and the extension
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of legal boundaries. As a result, Germany was able to finance its war. These resources w ere distributed among central and local actors that supported the regime as well as various social classes that belonged to the Aryan race.68 By the same token, after the CUP issued the decision for deportations, Ottoman Armenian citizens were prohibited from selling, renting, or transferring their properties. Thus, the state systematically managed to confiscate t hese assets, and highly detailed laws w ere prepared regarding how t hese properties would be appropriated. This w hole process was put into action by commissions established by the CUP government. These commissions w ere called Abandoned Properties Commissions and Abandoned Properties Liquidation Commissions. Through the laws and regulations issued during the period of the CUP government, an intricately detailed action plan was presented regarding what was to be done with the properties left by the Armenians, but no legal arrangements were introduced regarding the values of t hese properties that w ere supposed to be returned. The second section details how these regulations were executed specifically with the Armenians of Aintab in mind, concentrating on the appropriation of Armenian abandoned properties. I investigate what happened to these properties primarily by using Armenian sources and other archival materials. This chapter presents a unique report of the Aintab Liquidation Commission—previously undiscovered—that documents the liquidation process on the ground. It is the first of its kind in demonstrating how numerous government officials and other individuals from different classes (particularly Aintab Muslim elites)— including property assessors, auction houses, trustees, estate agents, notaries, and transport companies—were employed to manage the administration and sale of Armenian assets through the Abandoned Properties Laws. Additionally, I review a number of documents from the Ottoman archives that show that laws and decrees passed in the period of 1915–1918 constituted the basic components of the extermination process. Hence, these laws and decrees could be regarded as the most important legal documents of the Republican era. Furthermore, I extensively use coded telegrams sent by the Ministry of Interior, particularly telegrams dis-
Introduction
21
patched to Aleppo regarding abandoned properties, as Aintab was located in the province of Aleppo.69 The relationships between the CUP, local merchants, and local officials who participated in the despoliation and distribution process of properties are illustrated. Chapter 5, also consisting of two sections, focuses on the period between 1918 and 1920. One section discusses the legislation that came into effect regarding Armenian survivors who returned and demanded the restoration of their assets following the end of the war, a fter the Ottoman Empire signed the Mudros Armistice on 30 October 1918. The second section specifically explores the return of Aintab Armenians and reveals the process for the restitution of their properties. In this period between 1918 and 1920, the most complicated topic was the restitution of abandoned properties to the survivors, as their properties had already been liquidated. After Kemalist forces came into power in Aintab in December 1921, the dispossession of Armenians who w ere forced to migrate to Syria and Lebanon en masse between 1921 and 1922 continued. In Chapter 6, my main focus is to elucidate how Aintab Armenians’ properties and assets were used a fter their absolute departure. Having flourished between 1915 and 1918, the city’s newly emerging wealthy Turkish-Muslim class consolidated its economic status by seizing t hese properties, with the complete departure of the Armenians in 1921–1922. This chapter provides a unique systematic analysis that demonstrates how properties were used for various purposes by the central government, local municipality, and Aintab Muslim elites, and how they w ere sold at auction and distributed in accordance with the o rders of Mustafa Kemal himself, founding f ather of modern Turkey. Additionally, I discuss how Armenian properties were expropriated through a series of domestic laws, rules, and regulations, and a complex legislative framework prior to the promulgation of the Lausanne Treaty on 6 August 1924 and mutual agreements signed between France and Turkey in 1926 and 1932. In order to come to an agreement with Turkey, France rescinded its claims for some combination of the return of or compensation for the properties of Armenians who had acquired Syrian or Lebanese citizenship, leaving Armenians isolated on the international stage.
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The practice of selling Armenian assets, including shops, estates, and ouses in different neighborhoods, at auction to Muslims at very low h prices continued through the 1930s and 1940s. The Muslims who acquired these immovable properties became rich, creating the base of what would become the urban bourgeoisie of Aintab in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, the majority of these Muslims still retain these assets at their disposal.
Th e S o u rc e s P ro bl e m The existing research on violence in the Ottoman Empire suffers from an important methodological problem: the lack of sources from ethnic groups subjected to violence. Some works reconstruct the history of violence solely through the prism of the Ottoman archives, while others rely only on European sources; both are deficient in terms of Armenian sources. Using sources from as many of the parties involved as possible provides us with a better understanding of the factors that led to the eruption of violence in the region and its culmination in the massacres.70 It is evident that there are neither sufficient studies that draw upon Armenian, Ottoman-Turkish, French, British, and Turkish archival sources nor ample research within the literature focusing on one par ticular province or district. The scope of books on the history of Aintab is rather narrow, relying entirely on a nationalist narrative grounded in the sources of the proponents of this nationalist narrative. The main problem is the absence of a comparative analysis of existing archival documents. Within this context, it is easy to understand the difficulty in conducting studies on the seizure and plunder of Armenian wealth at the local level. To compensate for the gaps in the literature, this book is based principally on archival documents and primary and secondary sources in Armenian, Ottoman-Turkish, English, French, and modern Turkish languages. These include correspondence and reports of state authorities, periodicals, local newspapers, and personal documents such as letters, memoirs, personal papers, and oral testimonies, scattered in archives in
Introduction
23
Armenia, Turkey, Lebanon, France, England, and the United States. This study also uses a wealth of untapped local archival sources in Gaziantep, including the private archive of Mahmut Oğuz Göğüş. However, Armenian materials are most central to the work. Many of these documents, introduced to scholarly discussions for the first time, allow for an in-depth examination of the period spanning the 1890s all the way up to the 1940s. They provide for an integrated historical narrative that takes into consideration the rapid changes seen in institutions such as the military, political elite, and local community, as experienced by the inhabitants of Aintab in the first quarter of the twentieth c entury. Accounts of the perpetrators (local elites) and of the victims are integrated with accounts from third parties to reveal in full the plunder and murder of the Armenians of Aintab. One caveat must be given: the Emval-i Metruke Tasfiye Komisyonu Defterleri (The Principal Record Book and Record Book of Current Accounts from the records of the Liquidation Commissions), as well as the archives of Tapu ve Kadastro (Land Registry and Cadaster), are inaccessible in Turkey. Two circulars of the General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadaster w ere issued in 1983 and 2000, stipulating that deported Armenians and their heirs were prohibited from accessing any information regarding the fate of their properties or disclosing the identities of those who acquired the properties. Since the Turkish state itself utilized and benefited from Armenian properties, dissemination of information and of documents concerning this issue has been regarded as a threat to the national security of Turkey. The Turkish National Security Council found the transfer of land records covering the 1915 period from the Land Registry Archives to the Prime Ministry Archives against the interests of the state and prohibited researchers from accessing these records starting in 2006.71 Without access to t hese books and records, the liquidation of the abandoned properties cannot be fully understood. Only the documents in the Land Registry and Cadaster Archives, the record books of the abandoned properties, and records of the Liquidation Commissions can provide detailed accounts of the distribution of confiscated houses, workshops, and movable properties, as well as auctions of property in Aintab. Nevertheless, the documentation of the liquidation of Sarkis
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Yacoubian’s properties detailed in Chapter 4 is an attempt to overcome this problem and unveil records that belonged to the Aintab Liquidation Commission.
As Lemkin points out, genocide is a process not only of destruction but also of construction. By the time genocide perpetrators are destroying one group, they are also constructing another group or identity. Expropriation is one of the most indispensable and effective mechanisms for perpetrators to realize the process of destruction and construction. Therefore, the entire process of expropriation can be construed as both an ideological principle and economic motivation. Th ese two aspects cannot be separated from each other. The ideological principle was hugely supported and complemented by economic motivation and material stakes. In some instances, ideology played a more significant role than economic motivation, and in other instances economic interests came into prominence vis-à-v is ideology. Th ese two para meters, as important aspects of the political economy of the Armenian genocide, were implemented and constituted dynamic and effective mechanisms in the confiscation, plunder, and seizure of Armenian material wealth. The CUP deported the Armenians for various reasons, and while deporting them promised that the government would look a fter their properties and give them their equivalent values in the new places where they would be resettled. All the promulgated laws and regulations repeated that the Armenians were the true owners of their properties and that the state undertook their administration only in the name of the owners. However, the entire legal system was based on deception and a fiction of caring for Armenian wealth and assets. In reality, these laws and regulations were used to eliminate both the material and physical existence of the Armenians in Anatolia. The same practice continued in the Republican era. The Armenians’ right to the properties they left behind was repeated in the international treaties signed during this period. Turkey promised to give back properties to owners who as of 6 August 1924 were at their properties. Afterward, Turkey’s borders were fortified, and not even one Armenian was able to enter the country.
Introduction
25
The Armenians not allowed back were declared to be fugitive and missing, and the process of confiscation of their properties continued. Furthermore, as all this occurred in the Ottoman and Republican periods, it was not and could not be said that the Armenians had no rights to their properties. Legislation held that the Armenians possessed rights to their properties—if properties could not be returned, their equivalent values were supposed to be paid—but that same legislation was used simultaneously to prevent restitution. The goal was to completely remove the Armenian presence in Anatolia. What was occurring was a legal operation of theft. The use of the l egal system was both an attempt to deny and legitimate the Armenian genocide u nder the cover of legality. The law was used to provide a legitimation of what was an act of power and destruction. As in most of Asia Minor, the physical removal of Armenians to the Syrian deserts proved decisive in separating them from their property, because it was clear they w ere not meant to return. The confiscation and sequestration of Armenian properties w ere not just politically complex but also involved an economic process. The expropriation of Armenian wealth in the Ottoman Empire clearly evinces how an essentially ideological process came to incorporate highly diverse motivations and interests, especially material ones. Th ese then contributed to a progressive and deepening radicalization of the w hole process.
•
1•
The 1895 Massacres in Aintab
The bulk of existing studies view the outbreak of mass violence in the Ottoman Empire as a by-product of the imperial collapse and subsequent invasion by Western powers that took place in the aftermath of World War I. Yet this process can be traced back to the period of the Tanzimat (Edict of Gülhane of 1839) and Islahat (Ottoman Reform Edict of 1856) reforms of the nineteenth c entury. The aim of the reforms was to eliminate the imperial hierarchy that institutionalized discrimination between Muslim and non-Muslim (Christian and Jewish) communities, laying the groundwork for the equal citizenship law that would come into force following the promulgation of the Ottoman Constitution of 1876.1 The reforms were fiercely contested by the Muslim community, which perceived them as a direct threat to their social and economic status.2 Central actors in this response w ere factions of ayans (local Muslim dignitaries wielding administrative authority), tribal leaders, and landowners on one side and Christian nationalists on the other. Muslim clergy as well as local elites, especially in eastern Anatolia and Cilicia, were also influential in this process. In eastern Anatolia, outside the major towns, “central government control was mostly nominal. The countryside was dominated by shifting groups of local notables, insurgents, semi-nomadic Kurdish and Turkmen tribes.”3 Reactions w ere particularly fierce in borderland and religiously mixed areas such as Kosovo, Trans-Jordan, Albania, and the Kurdish
The 1895 Massacres in Aintab
27
tribal zones. Such reactions served to stall reforms in these borderlands, where the Tanzimat and the Islahat w ere effectively dead on arrival. Yet, disenchantment with these reforms was not only a matter of bigotry. The nineteenth c entury was, for the Empire, a period of immense territorial loss and painful separatist movements. The Ottoman government, engrossed in European politics with the 1856 Treaty of Paris and seeking to preserve its integrity, attempted to gauge the shifting tides of international political balances yet suffered a vast loss of power. This era also saw the emergence of Greek independence; French control of Tunisia; British control of Egypt and Cyprus; and the Empire’s loss of Bessarabia, Serbia, Abaza, and Mingrelia. The shrinking of territory persisted, with Crete in 1908, Libya and Tripoli in 1912, and Macedonia and Albania in 1913. These developments had a profound effect on Ottoman society. Military defeat produced successive waves of migration and resettlement. The mass exodus of Muslim refugees fleeing the Crimean War (and intensified by the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War), the Russian annexation of Kars, Ardahan, and Batumi, and the nascent Balkan nations (born of the 1878 Treaty of San Stefano) exacerbated grievances against the Armenians and other Christian populations, as these refugees had suffered greatly at the hands of Christian regimes. The European powers, however, quickly grew wary of the treaty, which emboldened Russia in the Balkans and eastern Anatolia. Hence, the treaty was allowed to collapse shortly after its signing, and the European powers convened in Berlin in 1878 to produce a new agreement that would be more advantageous for the Ottomans. Macedonia and eastern Thrace reverted to Ottoman control, the nascent Bulgaria was reduced in size, and the Ottomans retained control of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus Straits, with an understanding of their unimpeded control of maritime trade.4 Nonetheless, the new agreement failed to dispel anxieties within the Ottoman administration, especially regarding the status of the Armenian communities. The treaty included reforms but contained no provisions on foreign enforcement mechanisms, and Ottoman authorities feared Article 61 (explained in the following pages) could be used as grounds for Armenian secession.5 The distrust the Ottomans felt for the Christian citizens of the Empire prior to the Berlin treaty deepened into
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a conviction that the non-Muslims sought to collude with foreign adversaries in order to bring about the state’s downfall. The Great Powers, with an eye on Russia, further stoked Ottoman paranoia of a subversive Christian movement, leading to the Ottoman Empire further imperiling the Christian groups for whom the Europea ns had previously shown concern.6 Making matters worse for the Armenians, the Ottoman state encouraged displaced Muslim citizens to settle in Armenian-populated regions, heightening security concerns for Armenian communities.7 This combination of defeat, out-migration, and belated efforts toward institutional modernization via reforms exposed and exacerbated the religious polarization occurring in the Ottoman Empire. Such feelings w ere intensified by the rapid social and economic changes that were taking place within the state and society. The nineteenth century was a period of steady demographic decline and diminishing social mobility for the Muslim population. In many areas, commerce, agriculture, and industry passed into the hands of an emerging Christian elite that benefited from foreign power intervention, the Empire’s gradual entrance into European economies, and a newfound sense of collective ethnic identity among the Ottoman Christians. Ethno-religious disputes coalesced in this context. For the Armenians and other Ottoman Christians, these developments elevated their grievances, without the implementation of reforms; for the Ottoman statesmen, they led to a growing suspicion of the Ottoman Christians because of their sudden international prominence. The Ottoman Christian question thus emerged as the amalgamation of issues of territory, agriculture, demographics, and an incipient collective consciousness. The unrest caused by the Tanzimat reforms, military defeats, and weakening of the government’s control over more distant reaches of the Empire compelled a stronger state response during the reign of Abdülhamid II. In such a heightened political atmosphere, ethno-religious relations deteriorated in the decades preceding the massacres of the 1890s. The breakdown in Muslim-Christian relations was not limited to Anatolia; intercommunal violence broke out in numerous provinces. In 1860, intercommunal tension between the Maronite and the Druze communities of Mount Lebanon resulted in violence and massacres.
The 1895 Massacres in Aintab
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Such incidents w ere no less conspicuous in the Balkans, including the April 1876 uprising in Bulgaria and the Cretan revolts of 1866–1869 and 1894. In 1894–1897, the predominantly Kurdish and Armenian eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire witnessed the massacre of the Armenian population. In 1909, shortly after the Constitutional Revolution of 1908, the Armenian population of Adana endured pogroms and massacres. In 1912–1913, the Balkan Wars resulted in a diminution of the Muslim population caused not only by forced migration, starvation, and disease but also by mass killings committed by Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia. With the commencement of the Armenian genocide in 1915, the ruling CUP took a drastic step t oward one of its long-standing goals—the Turkification of Anatolia. This series of state-initiated persecutions and intercommunal violence continued throughout the post-Ottoman Middle East, with ruthless policies carried out by newly established nation-states. The overall Ottoman state decline, changes in landownership laws benefiting Christians (specifically, the Land Code of 1858, which transformed use rights on land into exclusionary land rights),8 the increase of a sense of “relative deprivation” among Muslims,9 muhajir-immigration, the “second Ottoman invasion of Kurdistan” throughout the 1830s and 1840s (which constituted a state attack on the effectively sovereign Kurdish regions in eastern Anatolia),10 “modernizing” policies that disaffected Muslims, along with the legacies of the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 and the Treaty of Paris in 1856, all contributed to a sense that external powers w ere working clandestinely with Christian minorities. It was the totality of these grievances that made possible the coming massacres in Aintab.
The eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire became the primary site of a series of massacres of Armenians between 1894 and 1897. Th ese killings centered initially in the urban centers of the six vilayets (provinces) of Sivas, Erzurum, Ma’muretü’l-aziz, Diyarbekir, Bitlis, and Van—where the great majority of Ottoman Armenians lived—but spread after November 1895 not only to rural districts but to western and southern
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Anatolia. Violence claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands under the last significant sultan, Abdülhamid II. Tens of thousands converted to Islam to escape death, and tens of thousands fled to the Russian Empire. Thousands of Armenian women and girls were abducted and forced into marriage to Muslim men. Systematic and repeated violence was coupled with the plunder of residences and businesses, ruining countless families.11 The opening act took place in the Sasun district of Bitlis vilayet in summer 1894, when Muslims killed Armenians a fter the latter mounted armed resistance to administrative encroachments, unfair taxation, and the depredations of the local Kurdish aghas (chieftains, reportedly backed by Turkish regulars).12 The second stage, in which events discussed later play a part, erupted in Istanbul and then Trabzon in September and October 1895. The outbreak of violence motivated British and Russian diplomatic pressure to improve political and social conditions for the Christian populations inhabiting the Empire’s eastern provinces. The Sultan’s October 17, 1895, promulgation of reforms consequent to that pressure seems to have only encouraged the violence. As Selim Deringil notes, the massacres “spread like shockwaves” after the announcement of the Sultan’s concessions.13 Muslim resentment provided the hostile political atmosphere prerequisite to anti-Armenian disturbances. Though several important studies of the eastern vilayets have appeared recently, t here has been little research into the unfolding of violent events in the region of Cilicia (southern Anatolia), though these took place in provinces and districts such as Adana, Osmaniye, Düzce, Kilis, Zeitun, and Aintab.14
Surrounded by hills and valleys, Aintab is situated on the boundaries of Cilicia and Syria near both the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Alexandretta. T oward the south lies Düz Tepe, Mardin Tepe, and Kurban Baba. Aintab’s layout at the time of t hese events consisted of the citadel in the north, the downtown, and the ethnic quarters (Figure 1.1). Aintab rose from a valley to three hills called Hayik, Kayacık, and Kurd Tepe, with the Armenians living chiefly on Hayik (though some lived on Kayacık as well).
The 1895 Massacres in Aintab
31
figure 1.1 Aintab in the early twentieth century. Courtesy of the Mihran Minassian Collection.
A populous and prosperous Armenian community lived in Aintab and its surroundings. Records indicate that t here was not a significant Armenian community in Aintab until the onset of the fifteenth century, when Armenians immigrated and settled in the city from various parts of Greater Armenia, Anatolia, and Persia. The size of the Armenian population in Aintab began to increase beginning in the sixteenth c entury.15 For example, according to some sources, there were 236 Armenians living in Aintab in 1536.16 Of the city’s twenty-nine neighborhoods in the sixteenth c entury, only one was Armenian.17 In this period, the prevailing spoken language was Turkish, though the Turkish population of the city used Armenian words and expressions in their daily lives. Armenians also spoke Turkish, and the Arabic language was used occasionally.18 Aintab was fairly developed in trade and artisanship in the sixteenth century and became a center of commerce, as various trade roads passed through the city. This enrichment in economic life contributed to the growth of the city’s population. Aintab was within the bounda ries of Aleppo, which was one of the greatest provinces of the Ottoman
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Empire, after Istanbul and Cairo. This connection with Aleppo played a pivotal role in the commercial and cultural life of Aintab.19 The Egyptian invasion of Aintab by Ibrahim Pasha, son of Mehmet Ali (the khedive [governor] of Egypt), took place in 1830–1839. During Ibrahim Pasha’s short-lived rule, the Armenian population of Aintab prospered materially.20 In 1839, Ibrahim Pasha defeated the Ottoman army of Hafız Pasha, but the city came under Ottoman rule again in 1840.21 After the Ottoman Empire seized Aintab, the greatest threat at hand was attacks from Arabic and Kurdish tribes, who harassed the Armenians and Turcoman tribes.22 These attacks became increasingly violent in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.23 In 1870–1871, the general structure of Aintab was as follows: Aintab was the biggest district of the Aleppo Province. There were thirty-six mosques, fifty-seven prayer rooms, twenty-one Muslim seminaries, four dervish lodges, thirty-six schools, five churches, thirteen baths, 1,938 shops, four covered bazaars, ten khans [large commercial buildings], thirty-six coffee shops, nine pubs, fifty paint shops, three soap shops . . . t hirty-seven bakeries, two police stations and one hospital.24
According to estimates by Turkish historians Solmaz and Yetkin, in 1832, the population in Aintab and its surrounding villages was 15,000,25 consisting of approximately 12,000 Muslims and 3,000 Christians, mostly Armenian. While the Armenian population increased significantly starting from the second half of the nineteenth century, Muslim Turks maintained the majority status they had occupied since the eleventh century. Turkish sources show that the Muslim-Turkish population continued to surpass that of Armenian Christians both in the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth c entury.26 An important hub inside Aleppo, Aintab was home to 10,802 Muslims, 4,933 Christians, and 274 Jews in 1868.27 By 1883 that population had doubled to 31,486, two-thirds of whom w ere Muslims and one-third Armenians.28 According to the city’s 1895 Yearbook, the total population of Aintab had more than doubled to 84,135, of whom 15,390 w ere Armenians.29
The 1895 Massacres in Aintab
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As a trade center and gateway to Syria and Palestine, Aintab attracted Armenian entrepreneurs who took a g reat deal of initiative in commerce. By the turn of the nineteenth century, Armenians had become econom ically more powerful than Muslims. Armenians owned caravansaries, covered bazaars, and other businesses.30 For example, the Kürkçü Hanı, an inn, was owned by the Kurkchuians, one of the most prosperous families in Aintab.31 Th ese lodgings and bazaars enabled Armenians to become even more active in economic life. Among Aintab’s Muslim and Armenian communities, no specific ethnic or religious conflicts existed. Having always been close to Turkish culture and having even adapted their language to the Turkish language, Armenians also embraced many aspects of Turkish culture, such as music, dance, dress, and customs. In order to settle their legal problems, which also included intracommunal issues, Armenians often appealed to Şer-i mahkeme (the ecclesiastical court), the civic authority of the Muslim community. Armenians could serve as witnesses in lawsuits of Muslims, they could represent Muslim plaintiffs, and they could even challenge Muslim testimony.32 Armenians faced no challenges at the ecclesiastical court in claiming their rights regarding issues of credits and debits, commercial transactions, and properties such as shops, vineyards, and gardens.33
S tat u s C ha n g e In an attempt to explain potential c auses for the outbreak of communal violence, describing status changes between the two societies is of great value. Residential organization in seventeenth-century Aintab was not predicated on socioeconomic segregation, and most neighborhoods retained their mixed demography until the nineteenth century.34 By that time, however, “the overall distribution of wealth in Aintab’s residential topography and the ethnic composition of the wealthy had changed significantly.”35 Beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, the Empire’s Armenians underwent accelerated economic, educational, cultural, religious, and political change. Especially evident in
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economic life, the changes w ere likewise apparent outside the Armenian community. First, economic power gradually shifted to the Armenians. Ali Nadir Ünler (1895–1986), a local notable who played an important role in Aintab’s official historiography, emphasizes that the Aintab Armenians were considerably ahead of the Turkish-Muslim community in terms of economic and commercial activities. The vast majority of artisanal businesses w ere in Armenian hands: soapmaking, jewelry making, copper working, tailoring, shoemaking, construction, blacksmithing, weaving, saddlemaking and more.36 Ünler describes how they protected their craftsmanship jealously and refused to train Turks. Besides most fields of artisanship, Armenians controlled nearly all of Aintab’s trade, domestic and foreign. Most doctors, dentists, pharmacists, and lawyers were A rmenian.37 Muslims, on the other hand, tended to earn less money as grocers, butchers, and the like.38 Second, education factored into Armenian status change. Two institutions founded by American missionaries in 1876, the American Central Turkey College and the Girls’ Seminary, enrolled primarily Armenian students. At the onset of the twentieth century, there were twenty Armenian schools: eleven “national schools,” eight Evangelical schools, and one Catholic school. Prominent Armenian schools w ere the Cilicia Tchemaran (College), founded in 1912;39 the Vartanian and Atenagan Schools for boys, founded in 1882 and in 1885, respectively;40 and the Hayganushian School for girls, founded in 1878.41 By contrast, Aintab’s Muslim-Turkish community remained loyal to the traditional education model and continued to attend madrasahs (Muslim theological schools). Armenian schools helped to strengthen a national identity while encouraging cultural modernization. In Aintab, Armenians’ educational and cultural programs led some speak of Aintab as “the Athens of Cilicia and Anatolia.” 42 Thus advantaged, Armenians gained new positions. A considerable number of members of the Ottoman lower court (court of first instance), as well as both the administrative and town councils were Armenians;43 two of the four members of the Ticaret Odası (Chamber of Commerce) w ere Armenians, and Armenians occupied posts in the
The 1895 Massacres in Aintab
35
Ziraat Bankası (Agricultural Bank) and the Tarım Kurulu (Agricultural Assembly).44 Third, some Armenians now could entertain thoughts of conversion from Apostolic Orthodoxy to other forms of Christianity. There were seven Armenian churches in Aintab by the early twentieth century: an Apostolic church,45 three Evangelical churches, an Anglican church, and a Catholic church and Franciscan monastery.46 The history of an organized church community in Aintab dates to the seventeenth century, when the old church was built at the time of Michael I, Catholicos of Cilicia (1738–1758). The Armenian Church of Aintab underwent repairs on three occasions, with the major repairs made in 1807. When a fourth repair was necessary in 1873, the g reat plan of a new church was submitted. The Armenian people themselves worked diligently to construct the church. They began to build in 1873 but w ere interrupted during the years 1875–1877 b ecause of an epidemic and the outbreak of the Turkish-Russian War.47 Eventually, Surp Asdvadzadzin (Saint Mary’s Church) took its final form and shape in 1893.48 There were three Armenian Protestant churches in Aintab: the Kayacık Church, built in 1848; the Hayik Church, in 1865; and the Alay Beyi Church, in 1880. The first Protestant church of Aintab Armenians was formed by the efforts of American missionaries such as Dr. Azariah Smith and Van Lennep in 1848.49 Each of the Armenian Protestant churches in the city had primary or elementary schools for both the boys and girls of their congregations. At the Kayacık Church, there was also a middle school funded by the Kurkchuian f amily called the Kurkchuian Varjaran.50 The middle school associated with the Hayik Church was built by a wealthy member, Adour Agha Niziblian. Niziblian also donated a large building known as the Niziblian Tankaran, to be used for youth activities, public cultural gatherings, and lectures.51 In addition, the Seminary School for Girls was also founded in Aintab. Benjamin Schneider began to teach a group of girls in his home in 1852, which was to become the forerunner of the Kız Koleji (Seminary for Girls),52 which was introduced in 1860. The school was originally housed in a group of buildings near the Kayacık Church. Owing to a significant rise in the Protestant community in Aintab, the third Protestant church was
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founded in 1880. Yet this church was not as successful as the first two churches.53 The Armenian Catholic Church was built in 1862. Armenian Catholics in Aintab constituted a small minority. While they taught Armenian in their schools, the sermons were preached in Turkish. According to Sarafian, this was because Aintab Armenians, as a result of Turkish persecution, had abandoned the Armenian language as of the eighteenth c entury.54 Improvements in welfare made Aintab Armenians more politically aware, and Armenians throughout the Empire gained increased self- consciousness and a collective assertiveness. Foreign Christian missionary activities played a key role in this process.
A c t i v i t i e s o f A m e ri c a n M i s s i o na ri e s American missionary efforts gained momentum in 1848 when the first Protestant church was established in Aintab. Its missionary activities were successful, generating a number of converts equal to that in the entire remainder of the Empire.55 The advance of Protestantism in the 1870s and 1880s became associated with Aintab’s reputation as a center of Armenian prosperity. To understand the success of Protestantism among Armenians in an Ottoman periphery, one needs to bear in mind the context of economic, societal, and political transformations. Thanks to the city’s proximity to Aleppo, Aintab Armenian businessmen might connect to a broader world system. The Armenian middle class of Aintab flourished, which seemed to some Turks to threaten the traditional millet (confessional community) system that had long regulated the lives of non-Muslims within the Empire.56 In this context, Protestantism, which seemed to reflect American values, offered relative autonomy from traditional forms of oppression and presented a more flexible religious and legal structure—features that in turn promised social mobility. Nor were Protestant missionary activities l imited to the confessional sphere. Most important, two institutions established by missionaries focused on modernization: Central Turkey College (established in 1876) and Azariah Smith Hospital, founded in 1878 under the college’s medical
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department.57 The latter, notably, enjoyed the financial support of a number of wealthy Muslim families.58 Its chief was American missionary Dr. Fred Shepard (1855–1915). The college was established by Rev. Dr. Tilman C. Trowbridge (1831–1888), who became its first president, with the collaboration of Professor Alexan Bezjian (1856–1913).59 While the official language of instruction was Turkish, the study of English, Armenian, and Arabic was mandatory. The college contributed to Armenian intellectual development, ethnic self-awareness, and social advancement.60 Its high level of Anglo-Saxon education enabled sharp growth in the political and national consciousness of Armenians.61 In the eyes of many Muslims, unfortunately, the college was an infamous place where Armenians honed their national objectives. The Ottoman government considered American colleges in Merzifon and Aintab “harmful” threats, labeling them “subversive places, striving to train young Armenian students to instigate disorder.” 62 According to government officials, most of the professors took part in “incidents” as activists of Armenian political organizations.63
P e rc e i v e d Mu s l i m I n f e ri o ri t y a n d E n v y In Muslim eyes, a number of significant factors underlay the superior position of Armenians by the late nineteenth century. Endless unsuccessful war spelled conscription for young Muslim men, many fated never to return. Most of those who did return w ere e ither sick or disabled. Muslim peasants not drafted (like their Armenian counterparts) bore the cost in heavy taxes. Wealthier Armenians could buy exemption by paying the bedelat-ı askeriye, an exemption tax, and thus continue their economic activities.64 Such factors permitted some affluent Armenians to take over businesses and land that previously belonging to Muslims. Although the Armenian population in the villages near Aintab was small, much of the land there belonged to Armenians who lived in the city. At the beginning of the twentieth century, more than half of the commercial, industrial, and agricultural wealth of the Aintab district was owned by Armenians, who constituted less than a quarter of the
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population.65 To be sure, Muslim imaginations exaggerated this wealth. Terekeler (probate inventories) and inheritance documents prove that Armenians became only comparatively rich. Property holdings of wealthy Armenians from 1830 to 1908 are reflected in the following: Forty-eight out of 576 law estates in this period [1830–1908] belonged to Armenians. In 1840–1849 jewelry dealer Agob, the son of Sarı Kirkor . . . was the richest person out of eighty-four people. . . . In 1850–1874 twenty-t wo out of 277 law estates belonged to Armenians. Among the richest p eople, Kirkor Karabet, the son of Karamenek, was in third place with his vast amount of land and Okancian, the son of Keşişoğlu, was in fifth place. In 1880–1890 seventeen out of 180 law estates belonged to Armenians. Amongst them, Artin Agha from Nizip was the wealthiest person. Most of his wealth was composed of vineyards near Aintab and pistachio lands in the vicinity of Nizip. . . . Especially in the aftermath of the Second Constitutional Period, Armenians increasingly flourished by means of commercial relations, which they established with Europeans, and immense amount of land that they acquired in war times.66
It is possible to see concrete manifestations of the relative prosperity of the Armenian community in comparison to the underdevelopment of its Muslim counterpart by looking at the structure of neighborhoods where the two communities widely exhibited their living practices. The missionaries observed that the orderliness, splendor, cleanliness, richness, and architectural magnificence of houses in Aintab’s Armenian quarters were much more sophisticated than those in Muslim neighborhoods. This striking visual difference contributed to the crystallization of economic fault lines. The missionaries noticed this difference, stating that “we are much impressed by what we see here, both as regards the conflict between civilization and barbarism.” 67 Skewed socioeconomic, political, and cultural developments, and the failure of the Muslim community to keep pace, generated a sense of disadvantage. This feeling diluted earlier feelings of “harmonious coexistence” between the two groups. Enlightened nineteenth-century reform
The 1895 Massacres in Aintab
39
programs also upset many Muslims, for instance because of their rhe toric of religious equality.68 Envy and resentment opened the door to a hate-mongering atmosphere. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, this open enmity found expression in many of the Ottoman newspapers: They [the Turks] are ordered to die on Crete, they have been slaughtered on Samos, massacred in Rumelia, cut into pieces in Yemen, mowed down in Hawran, and strangled in Basra. But it’s not the Greeks, the Bulgars, the Vlachs, the Jews, the Arabs or the Armenians . . . who are sent t here, is it? Let them sit in their h ouses, in their homelands, in their tents! Let them put all their energies into their work and grow rich! Let them marry and multiply! It w ouldn’t be right to upset them, to trouble their lofty souls, to tire their delicate bodies. If it were otherwise, how could we have warmed them to the idea of Ottomanism? We had to please them so that they would beg and plead to remain Ottomans.69
Economic, social, and political asymmetries upset e arlier balances, enabling opportunistic actors to foster a social climate in which violence seemed to be justified, as would become evident in 1894–1897. The momentum of this violence first became evident in 1895 and resurfaced again in 1909, but it was not fully put into action for various reasons. Finally, in 1915, it erupted. As Mark Levene persuasively demonstrates, “while the form of killing remained remarkably constant” in t hese three violent moments, the framework and particular circumstances rooted in different historical trajectories in which t hese massacres came into existence “markedly changed.”70
Th e “A r m e n ia n Q u e s t i o n ” as a n I n t e rnat i o na l Is s u e The Hamidian massacres were a turning point from the nineteenth- century history of the “Armenian question” of the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, it will be useful to clarify a few points about that “question”
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as an international issue before discussing how the 1895 massacres unfolded. The g reat European powers w ere becoming an increasingly determining factor in the Ottoman Empire. The Treaty of Berlin of 1878 marked a crucial shift after Turkish defeat by Russia (itself cheated of the benefits by other European powers). Article 61 of the treaty stipulated that | |||||
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3581 | dbpedia | 1 | 0 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Aintab | en | Siege of Aintab | [
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] | 2011-05-11T12:14:14+00:00 | en | /static/apple-touch/wikipedia.png | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Aintab | The siege of Aintab[8][9] (French: Les Quatres Sièges d'Aïntab;[10] Ottoman Turkish: عین تاب قوشاتماسى; Turkish: Antep Kuşatması) was a military engagement between the Turkish National Forces and the French Army of the Levant occupying the city of Aintab (present-day Gaziantep) during the Turkish War of Independence (specifically its southern front, known as the Franco-Turkish War).
Fighting began in April 1920, when French forces opened fire on the city. It ended with the Kemalist defeat and the city's surrender to the French military forces on 9 February 1921.[11] However, despite a victory, the French ultimately decided to retreat from the city leaving it to Kemalist forces on 20 October 1921 in accordance with the Treaty of Ankara.[12] According to Ümit Kurt, born in modern-day Gaziantep and an academic at Harvard’s Center for Middle East Studies, the resistance movement not just sought to regain the control of the city but also aimed at keeping the loots from the local Armenians and eradicating the Armenian community of the city.[13]
Timeline
[edit]
1920
[edit]
1 - 16 April: 1st Turkish siege
30 April - 23 May: 2nd Turkish siege
30 May - 18 June: 1920 armistice
29 July - 10 August: 3rd Turkish siege
11 August: beginning of French siege
21 November - 18 December: Goubeau column participation
1921
[edit]
7 February: last exit attempt
8 February: sending of a city parliamentary mission - cease fire
9 February: capitulation
Notes
[edit]
References
[edit]
Further reading
[edit]
Shepard, Dr. Lorin, "Fighting the Turks at Aintab," Current History 14/4 (July 1921). | ||||||
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3581 | dbpedia | 1 | 42 | https://www.facebook.com/Gibrahayer/photos/the-war-for-peace-and-justice-an-armenians-perspective-dr-hrayr-jebejian-i-was-b/3459925517383731/ | en | Facebook | https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/yv/r/B8BxsscfVBr.ico | https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/yv/r/B8BxsscfVBr.ico | [
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3581 | dbpedia | 0 | 75 | https://www.solistravel.am/en/History_Armenia/ | en | History of Armenia Ararat Travel | [
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] | null | [] | null | Ararat travel is a tour agency, in Yerevan Armenia. | en | //www.solistravel.am/uploads/img/favicon/apple-icon-57x57.png | https://solistravel.am/ | History of Armenia
Armenia has a history of thousands of years. However during their history the Armenians have had various tragic pages. The country has been under the sway of such empires, as Roman, Byzantine, Persian, Seljuk Turks, etc. The country was divided into two parts in 387. And these parts have always been under different empires’ rule.
In modern historical period, the eastern part of Armenia was under the rule of Persia, later, Russian Empire. The Western part was under the sway of Byzantium, later, Ottoman Empire.
Nowadays, the territory of the Western Armenia is in the territory of the modern Turkey. This territory is full of Armenian relics, such as churches, fortresses, other buildings and architectural complexes.
In the beginning of the 19th century, Eastern Armenia was ceded by the Persians to the Russian Empire.
This part of Armenia declared independence in 1918 but the sovereignty (the First Republic of Armenia) lasted only two years. The Red Army of the Soviets conquered the country in 1920.
Being under the Soviet rule for 70 years, Armenia restored its independence in 1991. Today’s Armenian state is considered the Third Republic of Armenia.
Urartu Kingdom
2000-1000 B.C. The Indo-European people start to emerge in Europe and Asia and begin to settle down in the Armenian Highland.
860 B.C. The Urartu Kingdom is mentioned for the first time in the scripts of Assurbanipal, the mighty Assyrian king. The center of the Urartu Kingdom laid by the shores of Lake Van and developed to an impressive neighbor for Assyria.
9th c. B.C. The original Armenian tribes start to settle down in the Armenian Highland and establish themselves. According to the legend the leader of the Armenians was a man by the name Hayk, whom the Armenians regard as their tribunal father and therefore call themselves "hay" (hay), i.e. the sons of Hayk, 60/22 and their country Hayastan (the country of Hayk). Another more scientific explanation about the naming of the Armenian people is based on the original tribes of which the present Armenians consist of. The local people who lived in the area at the time of the arrival of the Indo-European tribes were called the Arme-Shupria people (the people of king Arame). The invading Indo-Europeans called themselves the Hayatsa people and came in time to dominate the Armenian highland and assimilate the Arme-Shuprias. Based on the names of these two people, the Armenians called themselves by the name of the dominant tribunal name, i.e. "hay" and the country Hayastan, while the neighbours called them by their old name: Armenian and their country Armenia. Another theory is simply suggesting that the name Armenian is the remaining of "Arian men", who the natives called the newly arrived Indo-Europeans.
782 B.C. The Urartu king, Argishti I, builds the city of Erebouni (present-day Yerevan) and proclaim it as his capital.
Armenia becomes a country
7th c. B.C. The Armenian prince, Parouyr, allies himself with the Medes and the Chaldeans in the war against Assyria. After the conquest of the Assyrian capital, Nineveh, the victors appoint him as the Armenian king.
521 B.C. Armenia is mentioned officially for the first time, as a country, in cuneiform belonging to the Persian king, Darius I. Armenia is annexed to Persia.
331 B.C. Alexander the Great attacks Persia and defeats Darius III. However, Armenia is never conquered by the Macedonian army. This results in Armenia freeing itself from Persia and, more or less, regains its independence.
322 B.C. The first Armenian Kingdom is founded by King Yervand I.
215 B.C. After almost an entire century of independence, Armenia loses its sovereignty to the Seleucids for a short period of time.
The Artashisian Dynasty, the First Royal Dynasty of Armenia (190 B.C. - 12 B.C.)
190 B.C. King Artashes I proclaims himself as king of Armenia and becomes the founder of the first Armenian royal dynasty, the Artashisian.
105 B.C. Armenia loses the ongoing war against the Persians and King Artavazd II, in accordance to the customs of those days, to surrender his son, Tigran, to the enemy. Tigran grows up at the Persian royal court, which characterized his way of thinking and played a major role during his future ruling.
95 B.C. King Artavazd II dies and is succeeded by his son, Tigran II, also known as Tigran the Great. During the reign of Tigran II, Armenia reaches its height in history and becomes a mighty power. The Roman general Lucullus came to be the only real opponent of Tigran the Great.
Tigran the Great creates Great Armenia
70 B.C. The Armenia of Tigran II reaches its height. His empire stretches from the Caspian Sea in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in south-west and Black Sea in the north-west.
69 B.C. A war breaks out between Rome and Armenia. Lucullus engages in his first war against Tigran II.
68 B.C. Lucullus starts his second war against Armenia.
67 B.C. Pompey's war against Armenia.
56 B.C. Tigran the Great dies in 56 B.C. and is succeeded by his son Artavazd III.
53 B.C. Marcus Antonius attacks Armenia. In collusion with Cleopatra he lures the Armenian king into a trap and murders him.
34 B.C. Alexander, son of Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra, is put on the Armenian throne and rules the country during three years under the protection of the Roman army.
31 B.C. Artashes II, son of the murdered King Artavazd III, comes to power and allies himself with the Persian king Farhad.
20 B.C. The Roman emperor, Augustus, removes Artashes II from the Armenian throne and replaces him with his brother, Tigran III.
12 B.C. Tigran IV becomes king of Armenia. He is the last king in the Artashesian dynasty and dies in 2 B.C.
2 B.C. Caius Caesar sends his stepson, Ariobarzane, as king of Armenia.
11 A.D. Ariobarzane I is succeeded by his son Artavazd V.
17 A.D. Germanicus comes to Armenia in order to crown King Artashes III.
Arshakounian Dynasty Arshakounian, the Second Armenian Royal Dynasty (53 A.D. - 423)
53 A.D. Tirdat I takes the Armenian throne and founds the Armenian royal dynasty of Arshakouni.
62 A.D. Tirdat I is crowned by Emperor Nero in Rome and proclaimed as king of Armenia.
228 The Sasanids, who since a while back have taken the power in Persia, attack Armenia but are driven back.
242 The Sasanids sign a peace treaty with Rome and concentrate their forces entirely against Armenia. King Khosrov I falls victim for a act of treason and is murdered by the Sasanids.
252 King Khosrov I's son, who has been saved from the Sasanid mass murder of the royal family and grown up abroad, returns to Armenia and is announced as King Tirdat III.
288 King Tirdat III is baptised by Grigor Lousavoritch (Illuminator) and accepts Christianity.
Armenia: The First Christian Nation in the World, 301
301 Armenia becomes the first official Christian state in the world, when King Tirdat III proclaims Christianity as the official state religion of Armenia.
303 The construction of the cathedral and the Holy Sea of Etchmiadzin (Armenian for "the confinement place of God's only-begotten son") begins and is finished in year 305.
330 King Tirdat III dies and Armenia enters one of the most difficult periods in its history. King Khosrov II succeeds Tirdat III on the Armenian throne.
340 Khosrov II's son, Tiran, comes to power. During his reign, Armenia is weakened further as a direct result of the conflict between the court and the church.
363 Byzantine sings a treaty with Persia, according to which the Byzantine Empire gives large and strategic areas in Armenia to the Persians and, furthermore, abandons Armenia alone against the Sasanid Persia. Shapour attacks Armenia and a bloody war breaks out.
369 King Pap is crowned as king of Armenia and leads the country to victory against the Persians and drives them out.
374 King Pap falls victim for a staged Byzantine conspiracy and is murdered during a feast.
378 King Vagharshak is crowned as king of Armenia. During the coming years, Armenia is divided in two camps: one supported by Byzantine and another supported by the Sasanids.
386 King Khosrov III is crowned as king. Byzantine annexes the western parts of Armenia (Armenia Minor) to the East-Roman Empire.
392 Armenia regains its might by the coronation of King Vramshapouh in 392.
Mesrop Mashtots invents the Armenian alphabet
405 Mesrop Mashtots, on orders from King Vramshapouh and Catholicos Sahak I, invents the Armenian alphabet.
416 Shapour, son of the Sasanid king Yezdgerd I, is put on the Armenian throne.
423 King Artashes retakes the Armenian throne from the Persians. With his death in 428, the second Armenian royal dynasty of Arshakounian comes to its end. Thereby, this branch of the Persian Arsacid dynasty survives two centuries longer than its main branch in Persia.
428 Armenia in annexed to Persia.
449 The Sasanid king, Yezdgerd II, declares an order according to which all Christians in his realm must convert to Mazdeism. This ignites the fuse of the future war against Armenia.
451 On the spring of this year, the Persian army invades Armenia since the Armenians have refused to renounce Christianity and thrown out the emissaries of Yezdgerd. The battle of Avarayr, on May 26, goes to history since a small Armenian army, led by Vartan Mamikonian, loses the battle but succeeds to convince Yezdgerd to abandon his plans for converting the Armenians.
489 The Sasanid king appoints Vahan Mamikonian, Vartan Mamikonian's brother, to the general governor of Armenia and recognizes Armenia's right to self-ruling and religion freedom.
491 The Armenian Church remains faithful to its mono-physical faith and separates itself from the churches in Rome and Byzantine.
7th c. The emergence of Islam alters the entire Middle East and also affect Armenia's future significantly.
639 The Arabs start their war against Armenia but are successfully driven back by the Armenians during 640 and 642.
645 The Arabs appoint their own general governor for Armenia and the country remains under their rule until 859.
697 Armenians rebel against the Arab rule and the Armenian forces are led by Prince Smbat Bagratouni.
774 Armenians rebel once more, this time led by Prince Moushegh Mamikonian.
850 The house of Bagratouni possesses almost the entire Armenia, except the provinces of Vaspourakan and Zangezour. Thereby, Armenia had regained one united power in the country.
The Bagratouni Dynasty, the Third Armenian Royal Dynasty (862- 1045)
862 Prince Ashot Bagratouni is acknowledged by the Caliphate and Byzantine as king of Armenia and thereby the third Armenian royal dynasty, the Bagratouni, is founded.
952 King Ashot III comes to power. During his reign, the capital is moved from Dvin to Ani, the city of the 1001 churches, on the shores of Arpa River. The city flourishes and become the heart and pride of the Bagratouni Armenia.
11th c. The first Seljuk Turks attack Armenia, but are driven back.
1042 King Smbat III dies and the Byzantine Emperor seizes the opportunity and attacks Armenia from west while the country is at war against attacking Turks from the east. Gagik II (also called Khatchik), nephew of Smbat III, at an age of 14 is crowned as king of Armenia. He becomes the last Bagratouni king.
1045 Byzantine invades Armenia and the country is turned into a province within the East-Roman Empire. King Gagik II is put in jail. The only parts which succeed to maintain their independence are the provinces of Kars and Lori, which remain independent in another 100 years.
1048 Seljuk Turks attack Armenia once more, came all the way to the province of Karin (present-day Yerevan) and massacre the entire population of Arzen (present-day Erzurum).
1054 Seljuk Turks attack Armenia but the fortresses of Ani and Manazkert manage to withstand their assault.
1064 The capital of Ani falls. The once magnificent capital of the Bagratouni, the city of 1001 churches, is plundered and levelled with the ground and the population is slaughtered without exemption.
1071 The decisive battle at Manazkert takes place between Byzantine and the Seljuk Turks, and in the absence of the Armenians who, until the moment Byzantine forced them to fight in two different fronts, managed to withstand the waves of Turkish assaults in more than 100 years, the Byzantine army suffers a crushing defeat and the entire Asia Minor stands wide open for the Turkish invasion, which in time leads to the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
The Great Emigration to Cilicia
1080 Prince Rouben, an Armenian prince of Bagratouni origin, who together with a number of other Armenian princes have emigrated from Armenia to Cilicia, at the Mediterranean cost, establishes a new principality in the mountainous part of Cilicia. This becomes the foundation for the fourth Armenian royal dynasty, the Roubinian dynasty, and the epos of New Armenia.
Roubinian Dynasty, the Fourth Armenian Royal Dynasty (1187 - 1375)
1187 Levon II, known as the Magnificent, comes to power. During his reign the independence of New Armenia is proclaimed and the country transforms to a kingdom, the fourth in the Armenian history, although this time the kingdom is not situated on the Armenian Highland.
1199 On June 6, Levon II is crowned by Cardinal Conrad de Wittelsbach from Mayence, the representative of Pope Celestin II and the emperor, in the church of Christ's Holy Wisdom in the city of Tars, in presence of 15 bishops and 39 Armenian princes and a group of Latin noblemen, presented the royal crown to Levon II and Archbishop Grigor VI crowned Levon II as the new ruler and heir to the Roman Empire in the East.
1220 Levon II dies and since he had no sons, the throne passes to his daughter, Isabelle. But the country is ruled by Grand Baron Constantine, who was one of Levon II's old commanders.
1270 Levon III succeeds his father on the throne. His first mission is to strike down a rebellion among discontent Armenian princes and then a war against the sultan of Egypt.
1291 By this time, a while longer than two hundred years after the first crusaders landed on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, there was only one Christian country left in the region, and that was New Armenia which had been left to its own fate. Despite this the country was able to continue its resistance for another 100 years.
1342 The Armenian throne goes to the Lusignan family who got its right to the Armenian throne by the marriage between Isabelle II and Amoy de Tyr, brother of Cypress' former king Henry II. The marriage resulted in two sons, Jean and Guy, who both served at t the Byzantine court. After the death of Levon V, Jean returns to Armenia and becomes the crown prince of the country for a short period of time. The second brother, Guy, arrives to Armenia shortly after and is crowned as the new king.
1344 The new king, Guy, who is Catholic, pushes forward the issue of uniting the Catholic and the Armenian churches, which once more rouses strong reaction among the Armenian people who revolt and kill Guy. He is succeeded by Constantine IV, son of the great Armenian commander, Baudouin.
1363 Constantine V, also a Catholic, comes to power, but is murdered by the people where after the country, under a short period, is ruled by his widower, Marie de Gorigos.
1374 Levon VI Lusignan, nephew to Guy and grandson of Isabelle, H?houm II's sister comes to power. He will become the last Armenian king.
1375 The Egyptian sultan attacks Armenia in order to eliminate the last Christian stronghold in the region, and after a short resistance the fortress of Sis surrenders, which also marks the end of the Kingdom of New Armenia. Levon VI is taken as prisoner to Cairo where he refuses to regain his throne and country in exchange for converting to Islam.
1382 After intervention of the Castilian king, Levon VI is set free and travels to Rome, then Spain and finally to France. In Paris he lives at the court of Charles II, until his death in 1393, after which he is buried in the St Dennis Cathedral, among other French royalties.
Armenia is transformed into a stage for plundering and war by the Turkish people
1400 The armies of Mongol Timur Khan sweep over Middle East and into Asia Minor and Armenia and bring death and destruction. In the city of Isfahan (Persia) alone Timur raises a pyramid consisting of 70,000 skulls from the murdered city inhabitants.
1402 Timur defeats the Ottoman sultan Bayazid in the battle at Angora and conquers the cities of Izmir, Brousse and Nic? but doesn't manage to cross the Dardanelles in order to attack Byzantine. He returns to Central Asia, but dies on the road of illness in 1045.
1453 On May 29 Sultan Mehmet II attacks Constantinople with an army of 200,000 men and the Byzantine emperor Constantine XI, known as Drogasus, and his small army of 10,000 men who had been abandoned by other western powers, could only put up a heroic resistance and at least defend their honour. The city falls and with it the East-Roman Empire ceases to exist.
1514 Sultan Selim I, known as the Cruel, attacks Persia, defeats Ismail Shah's army and conquests the major part of Armenia in 1516. Hence, it is not until the beginning of the 16th century that the Ottoman Turks gain control over Armenia.
1585 The Ottoman Turks have gained control over entire Armenia and even Georgia and Persian Azerbaijan.
1620 After a major war between Persia (led by Shah Abbas), and the Ottoman Empire, a peace treaty is signed according to which the latter keeps the major part of Armenia, while the important parts of Yerevan, Nakhichevan and Karabakh are given to Persia. During this war Shah Abbas forces more than 150,000 Armenians from the border city of Joulfa (in Nakhichevan) to abandon their homes and moves them to outer skirts of the Persian capital, Isfahan. The new city is named New Joulfa.
18th century Armenia is transformed to a constant war scene between Persia and the Ottoman Empire and is devastated. Europe re-discovers Armenia and the country and its people start to be mentioned in western books and travel stories.
Russia conquers East Armenia
1827 The Russian army, led by Paskievitch, occupies the city of Etchmiadzin and besieges Yerevan. Then he marched towards Nakhichevan and took the province in June. In August the Persians arrived, led by Price Abbas Mirza, to the plains of Yerevan in order to attempt forcing the Russians to end their siege, but were defeated in a battle near the city of Astarah. Finally, on October 2, the garrison of Yerevan, consisting of 4,000 men and 50 canons, surrendered.
1828 After the fall of Yerevan Paskievitch continued towards Tabriz and was preparing to continue all the way to Tehran. But the Persian Shah agreed to sign the Turkmentchai Treaty (February 1828). According to this treaty, the Persians regained the provinces of Yerevan and Nakhichevan from Russia and paid almost 2,000,000 robles in war indemnity.
The Persecutions of Armenians in West Armenia Starts to escalate
1877 During the Russian-Ottoman war of 1877-1878, Armenia was once more transformed to the scene of a number of horrible inhuman evil deeds which the irregular groups within the Turkish Army committed against the Armenian population. And it was in this way that the majority of the Armenians in Bayazid, Vehiadin and Alashkert were murdered. 7/378 (in the city of Bayazid alone, 24,000 Armenians were murdered, while the Armenian populations in Kars, Basen and Van suffered heavy casualties).
1878 Russia defeats the Ottoman Empire and a peace treaty is signed between the two countries in San Stefano. This treaty resulted in the independence of Bulgaria, which in those days also included Macedonia. And as far as it concerns the Asian part of the Ottoman Empire, according to the treaty, Russia received the provinces of Kars, Ardahan, Batum and Bayazid. In return Russia would retreat its troops from Erzurum, but on the insistence from the Armenians the paragraph 16 was added which would result in the reforms within the Armenian provinces. Paragraph 16 stated the following: "Since the evacuation of Armenia, which the Russian soldiers occupy and must be returned to the Ottoman Empire, can create conflicts in its provinces and create difficulties which can damage the relations between the two countries, the Sublime Port assures the immediate creation of administrative self-governments in these Armenian provinces and transfer the rule to them and ensure the safety of their lives and properties against the Kurds and the Cherkeses."
1878 On June 14 a secret treaty is signed between Great Britain and the Ottoman Empire, in Cypress, a treaty according to which England gave its word to force Russia to pull out from the provinces of West Armenia which they occupied before the implementation of the promised reforms. In return, according to the same treaty, the sultan promised to "implement necessary reforms for the improvement of the administrative rule and the protection of the Christian inhabitants and other minorities under the rule of the Sublime Port, measures which the two governments (British and Ottoman) later would put a stop to?
1878 When the Berlin Treaty, after a month of discussions, was signed on July 13, 1878, the most important alteration which had been inserted in the San Stefano Treaty, from Armenian point of view, were the following: First of all Russia must content itself with Batum, Ardahan and Kars and give up Bayazid and Alashkert. 24/383 Moreover, the paragraph 16 in the San Stefano Treaty, about the implementation of the reforms in the Armenian populated provinces was changed to an extreme vague and empty formulation
1881 Tsar Alexander III is crowned as the new Russian ruler and begins to drive an aggressive policy towards non-Russian people in the empire and converting all Christians to the Russian Orthodox faith. This policy was carried out towards all the non-Russian people, but was especially concentrated towards the Finns, the Protestant Baltic peoples, the Catholic Poles and the Gregorian Armenians, i.e. the non-pure Orthodox Christians
1885 The first Armenian movement was founded in Europe. It was necessary to include two simple and clear concepts in the Armenian masses within the Ottoman Empire: nation and freedom.
1890 On February 2, the Armenian patriarch in Constantinople handed over a letter to the Sublime Port in which he had complained about the indifference and the silence of the Ottoman military towards the attacks and the assaults which took place in the Armenian provinces.
1890 In June 1890 there was a bloodbath in Erzurum. The Ottoman military had, on account of a groundless report and lies, intruded the Armenian church in Erzurum in order to search for hidden weapons. The Armenians, infuriated by this desecration, under the leadership of one of their most famous figures, Harutyun Pasdermadjian, tried to defend the church but the Turkish military executed them on the spot.
1892 The following goal was declared during the first party convention of Dashnaktsoutyoun: "Political and economic freedom to West Armenia".
1893 The Turkish attempts for crushing and annihilating the activities of the Armenian Hntchak party, ended with the events in Mersivan, where they burned down the Armenian collage and arrested and sentenced several Armenians to the death, events which aroused the wrath and the hatred of the Anglo-Saxon world and lead to the direct intervention of the officials of the Great Britain.
1893 The prelude to the mass murders during 1894-1896 began with the events in Sasoun. The Armenians in this mountainous region suffered especially more from the Kurdish assaults and crimes. Since the creation of the Homayoun lackeys, the Kurds had been armed to the teeth. Besides the taxes which the Armenians must pay to the government, they were also forced to pay illegal fees and taxes to the Kurdish clan leaders.
The Armenian Massacres, 1894-1896, the Prelude of the Genocide in 1915
1894 The Armenians in Sasoun refused to subject themselves to this oppression, i.e. to pay illegal taxes and fees to the Kurds who were about to ruin them. However, they continued to pay their taxes to the collectors of the Ottoman government. The Kurds who had been angered by this action attacked the Armenians of Sasoun, but these courageous mountaineers hit them back. Then the Kurds called for help from the Turkish government and the Turks immediately sent an armed force to the area. These soldiers, who were led by General Zeki Pasha, joined the Kurds, occupied Sasoun and started a horrible mass slaughter (August 1894). This mass murder, which was the first link in a long chain of crimes and oppression which was about to continue from 1894 to 1922, was perhaps the most terrifying one in regard to how it was carried out compared with all other mass murders which happened after it, since 3 500 out of 12,000 Armenians in Sasoun were murdered.
1895 In September, the Armenians in Constantinople arranged a demonstration led by the Hntchak party, which ended in a bloodbath. In the wakes of this event, other large massacres took place, from September and all the way to December 1895. Large scale massacres took also place in Trabizond, Bayberout, Erzurum, Erzinjan, Bitlis 186/412, Diyarbakir, Kharpout, Arabkir, Malatya, Sivas, Mardin, Aintab, Marash and Caesarea. These massacres reached their peak in Ourfa, where 3,000 Armenians were murdered during the first week of the new year, of whom the majority were women and children who had taken cover in the city church. These were burned alive in the church.
1896 The massacres start to decline since the major power shave started to realise the magnitude of the events in the distant Armenian provinces, but new massacres continue to take place in Moush and Kilis Vajin. The sum of the victims for the massacres in 1894, 1895 and 1896 have been estimated to around 150,000 people and this figure is the sum of 100,000-110,000 murdered plus another tens of thousands who lost their lives during the harsh winter in Armenia since their homes had been burned to the ground and they lacked food and heating, as well as children who had become orphans when their mother and father had fallen victims for the massacres. To this figure one must add those who had been forced to convert to Islam (the alternative was the death), the number of who according to the French ambassador amounted to 40,000 persons.
1896 To this figure one must add those who had been forced to convert to Islam (the alternative was the death), the number of who according to the French ambassador amounted to 40,000 persons. On the same day, the revolutionaries sent a letter to the European major powers, in which they wrote the following: "We are now in the Bank Ottoman building and will not evacuate it before the sultan promises to attend to our demands and hand over the solution of the Armenian Question to an international judge. Otherwise, on the third day, we will blow up us and the bank."
1897 The new Tsar Regime began to implement its anti-Armenian policy in Trans-Caucasus by closing 300 Armenian schools in East Armenia and hundred other schools in the rest of Transcaucasia. Other Armenian institutions such as libraries were closed, Armenian newspapers were confiscated and the aid organizations were harassed. At the same time, a real spy organization was established around the Armenian Church and its priests. On order from the Russian government the Russian papers began to incite the public against Armenians, Finns, Jews and Poles 38/458 and in the schools of Caucasus they started to expel the Armenian students.
1903 In June, 1903, when Nicholas II was sick, Plehve used the opportunity and issued on his own an order in the name of the tsar, according to which all the properties of the Armenian Church was being confiscated and handed over to the Russian state treasury.
The Young Turks Seize Power in Turkey
1908 The Young Turks, in June, with the assistance of the Turkish army in Macedonia, overthrow the regime of Abdul Hamid, the Armenian revolutionaries were right by their side and participated actively to such a degree that the Young Turks officially acknowledged the importance of the Armenian assistance. As a consequence of the 1908 revolution, the sultan was forced to establish the parliamentary rule from 1876, a liberal monarchy which had been proclaimed in the beginning of the Russian-Ottoman war in 1876-1877, but which had remained on the paper. This way, the Ottoman Empire transformed to a parliamentary monarchy in which the rights of the individuals and freedom were guaranteed.
1909 In April 1909 Sultan Abdul Hamid, with the assistance of loyal persons, attempted to stage a coup against the revolutionaries, but the Young Turks, yet again by the support from the Turkish army in Macedonia, managed to retake the capital and force the person who Gladstone called the "great murderer", i.e. Sultan Abdul Hamid II, to abdicate. Even in this occasion the Armenians proved to be among the most loyal supporters of the new regime and it was thanks to their assistance and sacrifices that a number of Young Turk leaders escaped a certain death during the first days of the coup which seemed to end in the victory of the coup makers.
1909 A new massacre of the Armenians started in the Armenian provinces and especially in Cilicia. It is still uncertain who was behind these massacres which cost the lives of 15,000 Armenians, and we don't know whether this was the last act of vengeance of the fallen regime or the first measure of the new one. One of the best experts on eastern questions, Viktor Berard, claims firmly that the cooperation between some of the people in the Progress and Development in these events can be proved with certainty.
1912 Turkey, which because of the Balkan War had lost the major part of its European conquests, not only refused to understand that the strength of an empire lies in the satisfaction of its subjects and their freedom, but even forced itself towards a policy which pursued the plan about compulsory homogenization of the non-Turkish peoples in the empire. This policy was particularly intensified against the Arabs and the Armenians. A new oppressive and assault-regime, which strongly reminded about the overthrown regime of Sultan Abdul Hamid, was implemented in West Armenia and the Turkish officials began once more to use the nomadic Kurd tribes for plundering and confiscation of the Armenian farmlands and in order to drive the Armenians away from their homes.
1913 The major powers force Turkey to implement the reforms stated in Berlin Treaty's paragraph 61. Only Germany, which wished to expand the existence of the Ottoman Empire, in order to itself take over the country someday, opposed entirely any plan regarding the implementation of reforms in West Armenia. The Turkish secret diplomatic efforts for implanting disagreement and division among the members of the "Triple Alliance", was revealed by the English intelligence service and ended in the failure in Anatolia.
1914 By the request of Russia which also was supported by England and France, there was a reform planed signed on February 8, 1914. 11/471 According to this plan they would appoint two international supervisors from neutral countries, who would monitor the administration and the ruling in the Armenian provinces of the Ottoman Empire. This reform plan also guaranteed that the Armenians, in relation to their numbers in each province, would contribute with a number of Armenian advisors, officials and polices to the local governments.
1914 But just as the two observers from the neutral countries, namely Westeneck from Netherlands and Hoff from Norway, had been appointed and the latter had just arrived at his office in the city of Van (June 1914), the sparks of the First World War were ignited. Chateaubriand writes: "During the history there are events which are as mockeries against the human fate."
1914 The Turkish leaders, after the losses in west, started to turn their gaze towards east and plan a union of all Turkish people which would result in a united empire which stretches from the Bosporus to Central Asia. However, there was one more obvious obstacle. Even if they managed to shatter Russia, the Christian non-Turkish Armenians were an obvious hinder on the path of the realization of this dream since they, with their geographical situation, separated the Ottoman Turks from the rest of their Tartar cousins by the Caspian Sea in the Russian Empire, and thereby all other Turanian peoples who are more or less neighbors with each other in a long chain which stretches all the way to Mongolia. The leaders of Union and Progress first attempted to ensure themselves of the cooperation of the Armenians and asked them to start an armed revolt in East Armenia and Transcaucasia and in return they were promised self-governance for East Armenia and the neighboring areas in West Armenia after the war. The leadership of the Dashnak party rejected this offer during its congress in August 1914, which was held in Erzurum and replied that, at an eventual war between Turkey and Russia, the Armenians are obliged to fight for their respective land. Exactly as Winston Churchill reminds: the Armenians preferred the war, with brother-killings in two fronts, to the suggestion of the Turks about treason against the Russians."
The First World War
1914 As Turkey stood beside Germany (October 1914) to participate in the war, they decided to use this occasion and get rid of the Armenians once and for all. Besides, just after the end of August, Turkey expelled the Norwegian observer, Hoff, in an extremely violent and threatening manner and had in this way torn the treaty from February 8, 1914 and emptied West Armenia of the presence of all the representatives of the western major powers and eventual witnesses to what was about to happen.
Armenian Genocide 1915
1915 On the evening of April 24, 1915, which is now remembered by Armenia and around the world as the remembrance day of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. At the same time they began to arrest and execute Armenian officers and soldiers who, with loyalty, were serving on the Caucasus front. Thousands of them had already sacrificed their lives for Turkey during the battles in Basen and Sarighamish.
1915 The annihilation of the Armenians civil population was implemented as an outright extermination according to a well-planned ethnical cleaning since they mass deported the Armenian inhabitants and drove them in long caravans towards the deserts of Mesopotamia and Syria. The caravans of refugees were subjected to assaults from the army units, gendarmes and military special units who had been enlisted among the fanatic and primitive individuals in the population. These murdered the Armenians without any discrimination and women and young girls were abducted to be sold to the harems of the Turkish men in power or their military leaders. The ways these persons were executed are so heinous that one almost can’t believe that they can happen in the reality, even less in the 20th century, but that hey should belong to the most horrible and sad fairy tales. The Turkish soldiers who guarded these caravans even waged on the gender of the foetus in the wound of an Armenian woman, cut her up after the wager and took out the foetus to find out who had won. No one has ever, neither before nor after, described such an action by the enemy towards their prisoners. At the arrival to Ter Zor, the Armenians who had survived the march through the desert were packed into the caves and the soldiers put them on fire. If one compares this to the incinerators of the Nazis in the concentration camps, one can instantly see how the Turks used the same, but more primitive methods. The survivors tell stories about how they ate the parts of the burned human bodies in order to not starve to death. The Armenian Church in Syria holds annual services at the opening of these caves for the remembrance of the victims in Ter Zor.
1915 Of the 2,000,000 Armenian inhabitants in Turkey, 1 800,000 were subjected to this plan and more than 1,000,000 lost their lives. Only a few hundred thousand could escape to Transcaucasia or survive in Syria and Mesopotamia.
1915-1916 At the Caucasian front, the Armenians were at the first lines and had an important role in defeating the advancing Ottoman armies who came towards Caucasus at the beginning of 1915, and later participated in a number of unique operations which were carried out in difficulty accessed mountain passages, military operations which resulted in the victory of the Russian Caucasus army and the conquest of Van in 1915 and Erzurum, Trabizond and Erzinjan in 1916.
Republic of Armenia, (May 28, 1918 - December 2, 1920)
1918 On May 28, 1918, after the disintegration of the Transcaucasian government, the independent Republic of Armenia is proclaimed. On June 4, 1918, Turkey, in accordance to the Batum Treaty, recognized the borders of Armenia which then, due to secret agreements between Turkey and the Tartars, was limited only to Yerevan and Sevan, while the rest of East Armenia was divided between Turkey and the Tartar territory which later would be declared as Azerbaijan.
1919 As a result of the allied victory over Germany and its Axis powers, Armenia, in the beginning of 1919, once more retook the provinces of Alexandrapol and Kars. The latter province was especially of great importance for the new government, since the most fertile farmlands for cultivating wheat were situated here and could supply the country with crops.
1919 On May 28, 1919, i.e. on the first anniversary of the recovered independence, the government of Armenia, in accordance with the decision taken in the Armenian parliament and the council in West Armenia, declared the annexation of West Armenia to the Republic of Armenia and hence the reunion of West and East Armenia.
1920 The allied powers recognize de facto Armenia as an independent state.
1920 In April 1920, during the conference in San Remo, the prime ministers of England, France and Italy (Lloyd George, Millerand and Nitti) at last paid attention to investigating the paragraphs in the ceasefire treaty with Turkey and in regard to the Armenian Question decided to establish an Armenian state consisting of the provinces of Trabizond, Erzurum, Van and Bitlis. This plan was handed over to the Ottoman delegation in Cedonse (the foreign ministry of France) on May 11, 1920.
1920 In April 1920, the Red Army, with assistance of the Turkish nationalists, conquered Baku and then the entire Azerbaijan. The new Azerbaijani soviet republic repeated its earlier claims on Karabakh and Zangezour. In August 1920 a congress, under the leadership of Zinovief, Parlek, Belar Kun, was held by the title of "The Congress of the Eastern peoples", delegated by Enver Pasha. This congress was the decisive sign of the active support which Soviet gave to Kemal Atatuk's Turkey. Of this reason, Armenia was forced to maintain some of its forces, for defending of the eastern boundaries of the country against Soviet Azerbaijan, at the same time that the Turks began to advance from the west.
1920 In June 1920, during the conference in Spa, the allies answered the Turkish offer. The notes of the allies, with the signature of Millerand (French prime minister), which was sent away on June 17, mentioned the following in regard to Armenia: "The Armenians have been massacred with an unequalled violence. During the war, the Ottoman government's massacres, deportations and the assaults of the prisoners have only been surpassed by its earlier acting in these matters. It is estimated that from 1914 until now, the Ottoman government, under groundless accusations of revolt, have murdered 800,000 Armenian men, women and children while more than 200,000 Greeks and 200,000 Armenians have been exiled or been driven away from their homes. The Ottoman government has not only refused to fulfil its duties concerning the protection of its non-Turkish subjects in the Empire towards plundering, oppression, violence, assault and murder, but there are even numerous evidence of that the government itself is guilty of the planning and coordination of the most violent attacks against these peoples, whose protection the government should have been responsible for Of the same reasons, the allies can’t insert any changes in the paragraphs concerning the creation of a free Armenia."
1920 On June 22, the treaty was ratified by the imperial council in Constantinople, with a total majority except for one single voice.
The Peace Treaty in Sevres Recognizes the Independent Armenia consisting of East and West Armenia.
1920 On August 10, the signing of the peace treaty between Turkey and the allies took place in the guest hall of the chin factory in Sevres, a suburb south west of Paris. A. Aharonian 36/501, who represented the Republic of Armenia, which at last would not exist only as a de facto state but was recognized officially and internationally, signed the Sevres Treaty, a treaty which contained two important paragraphs from Armenia's point of view:
1. Turkey declares that, precisely as the ally's earlier recognition, it acknowledges Armenia as an independent and free country.
2. Turkey and Armenia and also the other countries which have signed this treaty approve that the decision concerning the borders between Armenia and Turkey in the provinces of Erzurum, Trabizond, Van and Bitlis would be assigned to the president of USA and they approve his decision in this matter and also all decisions concerning facilitating Armenia's access to open seas and the demilitarization of the Ottoman territories adjacent to Armenia.
1920 The nationalist government in Ankara, despite the existing cease-fire treaty of Mudros and the peace treaty of Severs, resumes the offensive towards Armenia. During the months of September and October the Armenian army in north managed to stop the advancement of the Turks. On October 14 the Armenian army in Novoslibili started a counteroffensive which came to determine the outcome of the war. After an initial victory, the Armenian army could no longer neutralize the advancement of the enemy. During the following days, the Turkish army approached Kars and on October 30, after a swift maneuver with its right flank, managed to take the fortress of the city.
The Soviet Republic of Armenia
1920 On December 2, 1920, the representatives of the Armenian government, in Alexandrapol, were forced to accept the peace terms forced upon them by the government in Ankara. Turkey did not only kept West Armenia but also annexed Kars and Ardahan in accordance to the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. Moreover, Turkey annexed also the province of Igdir (in which the national symbol of the Armenians, Mount Ararat, is located) and demanded the creation and the transformation of Nakhichevan to an in dependent Tartar state.
1921 By the Treaty of Moscow (March 1921), which established normal relations and friendship between Soviet Russia and the Ankara government, Turkey dropped its claims to Batum and the other districts in return for Russian abandonment of efforts to redeem for Soviet Armenia the Surmalu district in Yerevan. In that sector, the new Turkish boundary was extended to the Araxes River, thus incorporating the fertile Igdir plain and Mount Ararat. What was more, the treaty provided that Sharur-Nakhichevan would not be attached to Soviet Armenia but would instead be constituted as an autonomous region under Soviet Azerbaijan, even though it was separated from eastern Transcaucasia by intervening Armenian territory.
Karabakh and Nakhichevan are annexed to the Azerbaijani S.S.R.
1921 On July 5, the Supreme Soviet decides to annex the two regions of Karabakh and Nakhichevan to the Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. The leadership of Soviet Armenia protests against this decision, but without any results.
1922 When a new conference was held in November 1922, in Lausanne, in order to revise the items in the Sevres Treaty, the situation had turned remarkably to the advantage of Turkey. According to Winston Churchill: "The allies army in 1918, at the table of the peace negotiations had reached a total victory against Turkey, but during the course of four years the nagging politicians had let this victory be turned into a defeat."
European Parliament Officially Recognizes the Armenian Genocide
1987 On June 18, The European Parliament officially recognizes the Armenian Genocide and calls upon Turkey to recognize the Genocide.
The Prelude of Karabakh Conflict
1988 Suddenly, unexpectedly, on February 13, 1988, Karabakh Armenians began demonstrating in their capital, Stepanakert, in favour of unification with the Armenian republic. Six days later they were joined by mass marches in Yerevan. On February 20 the Soviet of People's Deputies in Karabakh voted 110 to 17 to request the transfer of the region to Armenia. This unprecedented action by a regional soviet brought out tens of thousands of demonstrations both in Stepanakert and Yerevan, but Moscow rejected the Armenian's demands. In response to the demands, Azerbaijanis in Sumgait, an industrial town on the Caspian, went on a rampage for two days, and at least thirty-one people died before Soviet troops ended the pogrom.
1988 In response to the demands, Azerbaijanis in Sumgait, an industrial town on the Caspian, on February 26, 1988, went on a rampage for two days, and at least thirty-one people died before Soviet troops ended the pogrom.
1988 On December 7, 1988, a massive earthquake devastated northern Armenia, killing at least 25,000 people and rendering hundreds of thousands homeless. World attention focused here for several weeks, and aid poured in from many countries.
1989 Karabakh Armenian National Council, on August 23 declared the secession of Karabakh from Azerbaijan and its merger with Armenia. The Armenian Supreme Soviet then declared the Karabakh National Council as the sole legitimate representative of the Karabakh people. The Azerbaijani Supreme Soviet responded by abrogating the autonomy of Karabakh and Nakhichevan.
The Second Independent Armenian Republic
1991 On September 21 Armenia proclaims its independence and its decision to leave the Soviet Union.
1991 On December 21 the Soviet Union cease to exist.
1992 On the spring of this year, the Armenians of Karabakh celebrated their first major victory in what was beginning to turn into a full scale war against Azerbaijan.
1994 Russia managed to negotiate a ceasefire (February 1994) which was officially signed on May 12, 1994, and which is still in power (2005). | |||||
3581 | dbpedia | 3 | 20 | https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-world-history-of-genocide/racism-total-war-imperial-collapse-and-revolution/74B29B02A80BC8921328CE98491720FF | en | Racism, Total War, Imperial Collapse and Revolution (Part I) | [
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"Ben Kiernan",
"Yale University",
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"Claremont McKenna College",
"Norman Naimark",
"Stanford University",
"Scott Straus",
"University of California"
] | null | The Cambridge World History of Genocide - May 2023 | en | /core/cambridge-core/public/images/favicon.ico | Cambridge Core | https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-world-history-of-genocide/racism-total-war-imperial-collapse-and-revolution/74B29B02A80BC8921328CE98491720FF | To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
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3581 | dbpedia | 1 | 39 | https://agbu.org/leaving-syria/armenians-syria | en | Armenians in Syria | [
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] | null | [] | null | A Brief History The Armenian Genocide memorial in Syria’s Deir El Zor province, long a pilgrimage site for descendants of survivors, is hardly the only casualty of the brutal conflict raging across the country today, but it is a symbolic one. It was bombarded during a battle between the army and its armed opponents in November 2012, but still stands as a testament to another struggle nearly a century ago. | en | favicon.png | https://agbu.org/leaving-syria/armenians-syria | The Armenian Genocide memorial in Syria’s Deir El Zor province, long a pilgrimage site for descendants of survivors, is hardly the only casualty of the brutal conflict raging across the country today, but it is a symbolic one. It was bombarded during a battle between the army and its armed opponents in November 2012, but still stands as a testament to another struggle nearly a century ago.
The Armenians have a long history in Syria, dating back as far as the 11th century. Those fleeing the Seljuk invasion of Armenia resettled in northern Syria, establishing quarters in Antioch, Aleppo and Aintab. The decline of the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia brought a new population influx in the early 14th century to the northern city of Aleppo. In the decades that followed, these Armenians would found their owns schools, churches and prelacy.
The population was destined to rise and fall over the centuries along with the opportunities or turmoil that Syria presented. But it was the survivors of the 1915 Armenian Genocide—those who witnessed neighbors and relatives slaughtered in their villages or perish on death marches and somehow emerged alive from their unspeakable journey—who established the modern community.
The eastern Syrian region of Deir El Zor would be the final stop for hundreds of thousands of Armenians who met their deaths in its deserts. Many survivors would see Syria as merely a transit point, and they would continue on to Lebanon, Egypt or the West if they were able.
But thousands of others stayed, having found shelter among the hospitable Arab population and opportunity in its cities and towns. Armenians settled mainly in Aleppo, the commercial hub of the country, but also in the capital Damascus, and the northern provinces of Hasakeh, Raqqa and Latakia.
When the Armenians arrived to Syria as refugees, the French and the British controlled the region militarily and politically. Syria would later fall under the French mandate, which was recognized by the League of Nations in 1923 and would last for two decades. The Armenians arrived at a difficult time of disease and famine in the wake of World War One. The impoverished refugees were sometimes blamed for taking jobs, spreading disease or crime.
Arab nationalists originally perceived Armenians as collaborators with the French, who provided the Armenians humanitarian assistance and recruited them to serve in the public administration and security apparatus. Armenians were offered Syrian citizenship in 1924, granting them a permanent status in their host country and a chance to integrate. When the French allowed for elections following a nationalist strike in 1936, Arab nationalists began to regard the Armenians as a vital voting bloc. The community mobilized to help bring the Arab nationalists to power in 1936, and these relations were deepened when France allowed Turkey to take control of Alexandretta, home to many Armenians.
While Armenians became increasingly integrated in Syria, they traditionally relied on self-help through political parties, the church and community organizations like the Armenian General Benevolent Union to rebuild their lives.
The community flourished in the decades that followed. Schools were built, churches inaugurated and cultural activities put in motion. A country that was the final resting place for hundreds of thousands of genocide victims became the place where they would start anew, creating livelihoods, absorbing new traditions and introducing their own culture to the local society. In Aleppo alone, nine schools served the local community—the heartbeat of the Syrian Armenian society and a key center of learning and culture for the entire Middle East Diaspora. A new generation would grow up in Syria with a love for their historic homeland and their adopted country alike.
Armenians, though a religious and ethnic minority, enjoyed a near-steady representation in the Syrian parliament since their mass exodus from Ottoman Turkey. Throughout the diverse chapters of the Syrian history, Armenian participation in public life demonstrated the diversity and tolerance of a mosaic society comprised of a host of ethnicities and religious sects.
Like their fellow Syrians, more recently Armenians witnessed the influx of refugees and stories of strife following the 2003 invasion of neighboring Iraq. When the Arab Spring revolts began sweeping the region in 2011, many viewed the rhetoric about democratic reform with distrust, fearful that authoritarian regimes would give way to the chaos and bloodshed that had befallen Iraq. The community had enjoyed the hospitality of the Syrian people and its various governments for decades, and they were concerned about the implications of the unprecedented unrest.
Syria did not occur in a vacuum—the whole region was teeming with resentment for its authoritarian governments, and Damascus was only the latest regime to feel the heat. For the past two years, protests have given way to an all-out insurgency as the government and opposition refused to yield.
Armenians were caught in the middle as the protests spread like wildfire, the military responded with an iron fist and the revolt steadily militarized. In the two years that followed, life would change dramatically for all Syrians. Entire cities were leveled, over four million displaced and more than 80,000 killed, according to the United Nations. Perhaps the most worrying trend for Armenians was to watch the emergence of hardline Islamist fighters and sectarian trends among a once tolerant society. As the Assad regime dug in its heels, so did the opposition, putting Armenians in a dangerous position that echoed the Lebanese civil war.
Today the situation is dire. Armenians who remain in Syria struggle to make ends meet amid an economic crisis compounded by sanctions. The risk of kidnapping for ransom is high, and movement even within cities can be fraught with peril. Escape is no longer simple, with the Aleppo airport closed since January. While the coastal cities of Latakia and Tartus remain government strongholds, Aleppo has been locked in a deadly stalemate since last summer and the southern and eastern suburbs of Damascus are largely rebel-held. While many have adapted to a new way of life, sending children to school as shelling sounds in the distance, life is hardly normal. Thousands have left the country for safety elsewhere, but are living in purgatory, neither able to return nor willing to give up on their country.
Three generations ago, the Armenians of Anatolia witnessed death and destruction on an unparalleled scale. Today, the Syrian Armenians are again faced with brutal upheaval and devastation. Once more, an uncertain future. With the passing of the 98th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, many will be concerned not with the painful memories of the past, but with the critical question of the present. Whether in Syria, Lebanon, Armenia or elsewhere, they will need the help of the Diaspora to rebuild. | |||||
3581 | dbpedia | 0 | 22 | https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/occupation-during-and-after-the-war-ottoman-empire/ | en | Occupation during and after the War (Ottoman Empire) | [
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] | null | [] | 2024-07-02T21:48:05+00:00 | Memories of occupation by foreign forces are not usually articulated except when prisoners of war speak of their experiences when debriefed. These are usually shameful episodes in the lives of those who survived. Collaboration with the enemy often overwhelms the saga of resistance, especially when examining World War I. Yet combined with the struggle to defy the “peace treaties”, Turkey was a unique example, however unexpected, of a country that reversed the partition plans of its heartland, not its defunct empire. This essay addresses the existential struggle of those Turks who defied the age-old Eastern Question and analyzes the conjunctures that made this success possible. | en | /wp-content/themes/encyclopedia19141918/assets/img/favicon.ico | 1914-1918-Online (WW1) Encyclopedia | https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/occupation-during-and-after-the-war-ottoman-empire/ | Memories of occupation by foreign forces are not usually articulated except when prisoners of war speak of their experiences when debriefed. These are usually shameful episodes in the lives of those who survived. Collaboration with the enemy often overwhelms the saga of resistance, especially when examining World War I. Yet combined with the struggle to defy the “peace treaties”, Turkey was a unique example, however unexpected, of a country that reversed the partition plans of its heartland, not its defunct empire. This essay addresses the existential struggle of those Turks who defied the age-old Eastern Question and analyzes the conjunctures that made this success possible.
Introduction
War endings in historiography are usually confined to conferences, peace treaties, border adjustments, reparations, regime change, and reborn and/or newly born polities. Stories of occupation and resistance, however, remain confined to obscure pamphlets and memoirs. Official but secret documents await declassification. Further, state-centric approaches alone do not provide satisfactory accounts of occupation or resistance. But they do offer the context within which individuals and groups operate and exert their political will against the odds and potentially bring about change when and where it is most unexpected. This is one such saga. In 1919 British Admiral Richard Webb (1870-1950), Deputy High Commissioner in occupied Istanbul, wrote to his friend Sir Eyre Crowe (1864-1925) in Paris, “The situation in the interior, due practically entirely to the Greek occupation of Smyrna, is getting more hazy and unsettled. Were this anywhere but Turkey, I should say we were on the eve of a tremendous upheaval”.
The occupation of Izmir (Smyrna) on 15 May 1919 may have roused many a Turk from the lethargy that had accompanied defeat in the Great War, but was hardly the major reason for the “upheaval” that followed. The major shock had come with the occupation of Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire. Almost simultaneously with the occupation of the capital were occupations of vital provincial cities in the Anatolian heartland and its Mediterranean coast. During the war, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) government had made contingency plans in case of defeat and foreign occupation; withdraw to central Anatolia and continue to fight from that base. When the CUP leadership escaped the country in 1918 bearing both the burden of defeat and the 1915 Armenian massacres, institutional and family networks maintained the resistance while a new leadership took over.
This article addresses the following major questions. First, why was the capital city of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul (Constantinople), occupied by the Allies soon after the Mudros Armistice of 30 October 1918 when no other capital city of the defeated powers was occupied? Secondly, how was it possible that French, British and Greek occupations of major cities in Anatolia (Italian occupation being of an entirely different nature) first met with local resistance and then an increasingly organized military resistance? Third, what were the diplomatic implications of rivalries between the Allied powers that made it possible for the underground resistance in Istanbul to divert the energies of its most vociferous intelligentsia, veterans of multiple wars, and war material to Anatolia? Last but not least: how was it possible that Turkey ended up being the only defeated power to reverse the dictated peace and determine its own political future?
The occupation of Anatolia during the war was the Russian occupation in the northeast and eastern Black Sea coast as of February 1916, namely Erzurum, Kars, Erzincan, Muş and Bitlis, the last three of which were taken back in July and August of 1916. In March and April 1916, the Black Sea towns Rize and Trabzon were occupied, after which the Russian armies made a semi-circular route towards occupying Van. The geographical configuration matched that of the secret Sykes-Picot, alias the Asia Minor agreement of 1916, concluded with the Allies.
A large tract of territory was returned in the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution when Russia unilaterally withdrew from war with the Brest-Litovsk agreement negotiated between December 1917 and March 1918. It was, however, not possible to keep the northwestern borders intact because Armenian militants who accompanied the Russian army remained to continue fighting and perform acts of ethnic cleansing. Moreover, in 1919 the Supreme Council of the Paris Peace Conference demanded the transfer of Kars, Sarıkamış, Ardahan and Iğdır to the Republic of Armenia.
Subsequently, war with the Armenian Republic in 1920 settled the northeastern frontier in Caucasia. In 1921, diplomatic negotiations with Georgia resulted in the return of Ardahan and Iğdır to Turkey in exchange for Batumi. Apart from this geography, Arab provinces of the empire were lost to the British in war and are only referred to here in the context of an effort to establish a unified front against the British and French occupation in 1921, during the Arab resistance movements in Syria/Iraq. In essence, the Ottoman state, no longer financially or economically sovereign, was an empire in name only. Following the loss of its Balkan territories during the 19th century, Egypt was occupied by the British in 1881. Arab nationalism/intellectual awakening was already a fact before and during World War I, albeit confined to urban centers like Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad. Hence, Arab notables and intellectuals found willing allies with the British and French while Ottoman military governors attempted to suppress agents of Arab nationalism by harsh measures during the war. The war concomitant with mobilization, deaths, starvation and economic devastation had literally decimated Arab societies.
By the time Ottoman armies withdrew from or surrendered in the Mesopotamian fronts secession of the Arab provinces was a foregone conclusion. This resonated in Turkey’s National Oath, a manifesto in 1920 that areas with a majority Arab population would remain outside its borders. Therefore, foreign occupation of the Arab provinces, a topic which has its own historians is not part of this study. For the occupation of Ottoman Arab provinces and Egypt see the companion article “Occupation during and after the War (Middle East)“.
This article primarily addresses Allied (British, French, Italian, Greek, U.S. and Japanese) occupation of Istanbul, which lasted from November 1918 to October 1923. The last two had a symbolic presence in Istanbul and were there more as observers than occupiers. Secondly, this article highlights the French, British, Greek and Italian occupation of provincial cities in the southeast, south and Aegean Anatolia. These practically lasted from 1918-1919 to 1922, and in some regions even shorter. Finally, the political-diplomatic vagaries which affected the occupiers as well as the occupied concludes with the end of occupation and the path to a negotiated peace conference on near eastern affairs in Lausanne between 1922-1923. The conclusions cover the main points of this period as well as political and social changes that ten years of war (1912-1922) brought to Turkey.
Besides the frequently mentioned patriotism or nationalist awakening, one must take into account the psychological dimensions of the trauma involving the loss of the core territories in the Ottoman Empire, the Balkans and the Arab provinces. The occupations that followed the armistice that ended WWI were embedded in the Eastern Question. Further, the motivation to defend the last remaining homeland became an existential matter in addition to the leadership profiles, most of whom had been born in lost territories. The Allied forces of occupation assumed that there would not be serious resistance. Nonetheless, war weariness, rivalries, the Red scare and the priority of concluding peace in Europe were also factors that weakened the Allied position. The two-year period spanning from the beginning of occupation in 1918 to the Sèvres peace treaty imposed on the Ottoman government in 1920 provided ample time for resistance to foreign occupation to consolidate. A brief background on the factors that motivated the final resistance in a failed state follows.
The Ottoman Empire as a Failed State
The Ottoman Empire was unquestionably a failed state by the second half of the 19th century. It was bankrupt by 1875, its debts to European powers were governed by the Ottoman Public Debt Administration (Caisse de la Dette Publique Ottomane). Almost all state income went to finance debt. In 1881 came the International Tobacco Regime Company as an extension of the latter (the infamous Reji). The Ottoman state was forced to establish a 6,700-strong police force to prevent tobacco growers from smuggling their own crop. Armed conflict between this force, whose salaries were paid by the state, resulted in at least 50,000 deaths of the peasantry in the Aegean and western Black Sea coastal regions.
Added to financial failure were incessant wars and territorial loss: the 1877-1879 Russo-Ottoman war, whereby the latter lost all its Balkan territories except for Macedonia; British occupation of Egypt in 1881; the brief Greek-Ottoman war of 1897; internecine guerrilla warfare against armed bands of various ethnic origins in Macedonia; the 1911-1912 Italo-Ottoman war over Libya (Cyneraica and Tripolitania); and the Balkan Wars of 1912 on four fronts against a coalition of Serbs, Montenegrins, Greeks and Bulgarians. This war ended in a chaotic route of the Ottoman troops who had no contingencies for orderly retreat. The Bulgarian army would have occupied Istanbul had it not been for depletion caused by cholera and typhus. Of further significance for the proximate memory of belligerents in WWI as well as resistance fighters to occupation in its aftermath were the thousands of refugees, desperate survivors of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans who took shelter in Istanbul. Many sons of Rumelia (Rumeli, the Balkans in Turkish) were attending the Ottoman War Academy at the time or were already young officers. This experience contributed to their political socialization, along with the realization that there was no longer a home to which to return. One group was that of Mustafa Kemal (-1938), known as Atatürk, and his close friends from Salonica, ceded to Greece in 1912. They were to become the future leaders of independent Turkey.
The Eastern Question, basically how to divide the Ottoman territories between the Great Powers without inducing a European war since the late 18th century, remained on paper until 1915. The unexpected defeat of the Allies in the Gallipoli wars that year bought the Ottomans time until 1918 when there were fewer Great Powers left to carry out the mission of partition set out in the Eastern Question.
Occupation and Resistance in Istanbul
War-weary people on all sides welcomed the Mudros Armistice signed by the Ottomans and British on board the HMS Agamemnon on 30 October 1918. Although there was no stipulation in the agreement about occupation except in places where there was an imminent threat to Allied security, British troops began landing in the capital by 13 November 1918, soon to be followed by the French and other Allies. While neither Berlin, Vienna, Budapest or Sofia was occupied, why was Istanbul treated differently? In the short span between armistice and occupation, Lord Nathaniel Curzon (1859-1925), the British foreign secretary, decided on occupation and the Allies followed in tandem. Official reports do not reveal much, but a plausible analysis is found in Philip Mansel’s book in the last chapter entitled “Death of a Capital City”. According to Mansel, the overt reasons for occupation were imperialism, revenge and anti-communism. Moreover, the Allies wanted to expedite disarmament and keep the partition of territories under strict control. London and Paris were out to prove that losses incurred during the fateful Gallipoli campaign were not for naught. Besides, the Allies needed space to deploy military equipment to extend logistical support to the White Russian armies fighting against the Bolsheviks in the civil war (but not successfully at that). Curzon even proposed a very old-fashioned solution for Istanbul, namely that it should be converted into a city-state and the sultan/caliph should move to Bursa or Konya.
Mansel stated that Curzon’s actual aim was to break down the image of Istanbul as the seat of Islam in order to suppress the Khilafat movement among the Indian Muslims and sustain hegemony in India. On 13 November 1918 an Ottoman official confronted the commander of the British troops who were disembarking and told him that this was against the rules of armistice. He was, however, taken aback when the British officer told him that Istanbul was designated as military headquarters.
By 1919 the Allied governance of Istanbul was organized with British, French, Italian, U.S., Greek and Japanese high commissioners as the top echelon, although the authority among them was distributed in the order cited. The Military Command of the Allied Forces of Occupation with its British president was responsible for passport control, special elements (civil police), inter-Allied tribunals and courts martial (1920) as well as prisons. The French had one prison in Kumkapı and the British had five: Galata Tower, Arabian Han, Sansarian Han, Hotel Kroecker and Şahin Pasha Hotel. Under the high commissioners was the inter-Allied Commissions of Control and Organization, a Directing Committee of Generals that controlled sub-commissions such as disarmament, gendarmerie, censor, requisitions and saluting. Orders specified that only those residences that belonged to Muslims were to be requisitioned. The saluting commission, strange as it seems, had to enforce the rule that Turkish officers salute Allied soldiers regardless of rank but not expect to be saluted back. The latter stopped wearing uniforms in public.
The city was divided into zones of occupation: the Galata and Pera districts were under British responsibility, the old city and southwest under French, and Üsküdar (Scutari) on the Anatolian side was under Italian control. Top military command became problematic at first when General George Milne (1866-1948) was appointed as commander of the Army of the Black Sea and Admiral Arthur G. Calthorpe (1865-1937) was high commissioner in 1918-1919. Paris simultaneously sent General Louis Franchet d’Espèrey (1856-1942), commander in chief of the Allied Armies in the Orient, to assume military command of Istanbul. His position remained in flux until 16 March 1920, when London decided to re-occupy the city de jure. This was not the only action carried out under British auspices. From then on the numerous exchange of letters between London and Paris resulted in the removal of Franchet d’Espèrey and early in 1921, General Charles Harington (1872-1940) was assigned as commander in chief of the Allied Forces of Occupation, Constantinople. He remained in this position until Allied evacuation in October 1923.
Meanwhile, the Ottoman government changed numerous times depending on the collaborative actions of the Grand Viziers or the lack thereof. This was apparent in connection with the smuggling of military equipment from arsenals filled by disarmament. Governors who procrastinated to tighten control were removed, but even when collaborative viziers were in power, the smuggling of arms and men to Anatolia continued with ever growing underground forces of resistance. On the one hand, between 1920-1921 the Allies had their hands full with exerting control in a less than friendly environment (except for the majority of Istanbul Greeks and whomever they employed). On the other, they had to accommodate close to 200,000 White Russian refugees they helped evacuate from the Crimea upon Bolshevik victories in the Russian civil war. Among those were Bolshevik agents towards whom the Allies had to be vigilant. General Harington deported some people who were deemed to be Bolshevik agents. And by 1920, there was the Ankara government of the Turkish National Assembly which began to conduct a full scale resistance-turned-to-war against occupation.
How the parliament in Ankara came about has to do with resistance to occupation, first by local militia, which evolved into organized groups, and then to a legal and legitimate parliament because of British conduct in Istanbul. The Ottoman Empire had been a parliamentary monarchy since 1908 and remained so until 1920. When the Allies decided to occupy Istanbul de jure in March 1920, they had no intention of closing down the parliament. However, there were a number of nationalist deputies in the parliament from Istanbul (who were also prominent members of the underground resistance) as well as from the provinces who had allegiance to the Association for Defence of the Legal Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia (Anadolu-Rumeli Müdafa-i Hukuk Cemiyeti).
This association sprang from two congresses held in 1919 in Erzurum and Sivas respectively under the auspices of Mustafa Kemal Pasha and before long had women’s chapters. Its authority extended to umbrella organizations for local resistance as seen in the next section. The next step that the association assumed was to promulgate a parliament in Ankara on 23 April 1920, which was ironically facilitated by British action. When British soldiers walked into the Ottoman parliament and arrested patriotic deputies who sponsored reading the National Oath (that the non-Arab regions populated by Muslim majorities were to remain sovereign) written in Ankara, the parliament closed down in protest. Soon after Mehmed VI, Sultan of the Turks (1861-1926) abrogated the non-existent parliament. The road was now open to the Association to declare that since the Istanbul government and Sultan were captives of the Allies, they had no say in national affairs and that the national assembly in Ankara was the only representative organ of the people. Nonetheless it would take another year until Ankara was recognized, first by France in 1921 with the Franklin Bouillon (Ankara) Treaty. A separate Treaty of Friendship and Neutrality was signed with Bolshevik Russia in 1921 that confirmed delineation of borders in northeast Anatolia, which included previous agreements with the Republics of Georgia and Armenia as their regimes were taken over by indigenous Bolsheviks.
Occupation and Resistance in Anatolia as Allies Part Ways
On 11 November 1918 an armistice was concluded to end WWI. Although armed forces were to halt where they were at the time, the rule did not apply to the Ottoman realm. British and French troops continued to move towards south-eastern Anatolia and the eastern Mediterranean coast, while Italian troops, albeit in smaller contingents, began occupation of previously designated zones. Few, if any in Turkey remembered the secret treaties among the Allies that partitioned the Empire. Revealed by the Bolsheviks in 1917, partition plans spelled out in the Constantinople Treaty (1915), London (1915), Sykes-Picot (1916) and St. Jean de Maurienne (1917) treaties were now being followed with the exception of the first, which had promised Constantinople to Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia (1868-1918). One will probably never know whether London was sincere about this promise or not, because the Bolshevik Revolution rendered that null and void when Russia unilaterally withdrew from the war in 1917-1918.
Article 9 of the London Treaty of 1915 read, “…in the event of total or partial partition [of the Ottoman Empire] in Asia, she [Italy] ought to obtain a just share of the Mediterranean region adjacent to the province of Adalia.” The Treaty of St. Jean de Maurienne reconciled conflicting interests of France and Italy in southwest Anatolia. Accordingly, France was awarded the Adana region and left the rest of the southwest to Italy, including the Vilayet (province) of Aydın with its regional capital Izmir (Smyrna). The Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France divided the Arab provinces of the Empire as respective zones of interest. Consequently, Britain, France and Italy were abiding by the secret agreements that were to seal the Eastern Question.
Having lost the Arab provinces at war was one thing, but occupation in the heartland was another issue, deemed illegal and unjust by inhabitants. Before British and French mandates were spelled out at the Hythe Conference of 1920, British troops proceeded to occupy Mosul, Iskenderun (Alexandretta), Kilis, Antep, Maraş and Urfa in the southeast. Disarmament, arrests and deportation of local notables followed between late 1918 and 1919. Both the British and French were aided by resident or returning Armenians from the forced relocation of 1915. In January 1919, the French occupied Mersin, Osmaniye and Adana. They sent resident commanding Turkish officers to prisoner of war camps in Syria. Later in 1919, the British and French came to an understanding about zones of influence whereby the former delivered Kilis, Antep, Maraş, and Urfa to the French.
Inspired by the national defence organizations that reflected resolutions from the Erzurum and Sivas Congresses of 1919, the local people established regional defence organizations buttressed by officers assigned from Ankara in 1920. Consequently, war was renewed on the southern front of the independence war. The southern front theoretically extended to cover Palestine and Syria, and in 1921 a Turkish officer who was originally from the region with good contacts was sent there in the hope of joining with the Arabs in revolt against the British and French. But the plan failed plausibly because Arab nationalism had no room for the Turks. Maraş fought between 20 January and 20 February 1920; Urfa fought between 9 February and 11 April 1920; Antep fought between 1 April 1920 and 8 February 1921 before surrendering the city; Adana fought between 21 January 1920 and 20 October 1921. That day also marks the Franklin-Bouillon Treaty signed in Ankara which conceded French defeat and confirmed Paris’ recognition of the Ankara government to the chagrin of the British. Although French troops from Cilicia (Adana region) were not withdrawn until 5 January 1922, the split between the Allied ranks was clear. From then on, French officers in the disarmament control missions throughout Anatolia began to fraternize with the Turkish military, invoking the British High Commissioner in Istanbul, Sir Horace Rumbold (1869-1941), to write in a personal letter that “the French are always playing the dirty on us.”
In essence, Italians were the first to cede from the Alliance, albeit subtly. When in 1919 the Greek Premier Eleutherios Venizelos (1864-1936) convinced the Supreme Council of the Paris Peace Conference that they should be allowed to occupy Izmir and was granted his wish, the Italians were disappointed because they were short-changed. Nonetheless, Italians occupied Antalya on 21 January 1919 and proceeded to claim Fethiye, Marmaris, Kuşadası, Bodrum, Milas and Konya, all of which today are known as tourist centres. They had all the trappings necessary, with occupation headquarters in Antalya, commanded by Colonel Alessandro Ciano (1871-1945) and High Commissioner Marquis Eugenio Camillo Garroni (1852-1935), the former Italian ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Rome instructed its occupation troops not to use force or any coercion towards the people in their zones. The Italians seemed content when their occupation of the Dodecanese islands in 1912 was accorded permanency in the secret Treaty of St. Jean de Maurienne of 1917, and now that they linked their presence on the islands with southwestern lands of the Mediterranean. They had long been interested in Marmaris, not because of aesthetics but because it had one of the three bays in the eastern Mediterranean which was most suitable to use as a base for the navy (the other two were the bays of Iskenderun (Alexandretta) and Iskenderiye (Alexandria) of Egypt.
On 11 April 1922, a separate treaty on commercial concessions to Italy was signed between the Ottoman Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmed Izzet Pasha (1864-1937) and Marquis Garroni. Whether Izzet Pasha, known to be clandestinely supportive of Ankara, did this to sustain peaceful Italian actions is not clear. Nonetheless, the Italians proved to be helpful to the national cause in more ways than one. First, they ignored when arms and men were smuggled through their zone in Üsküdar, on the Anatolian side of Istanbul. Secondly, they started selling arms, ammunition and clothing to the Turks, paid for by the Ottoman Red Crescent. The director of the Ottoman Bank and deputy director of the Red Crescent, Berch Kerestejian, was instrumental in depositing money in the Banko di Roma, acquired by selling assets of the Red Crescent. Kerestejian was a friend of Mustafa Kemal from Salonica, so the network built between Ankara and Istanbul proved beneficial to the latter in terms of gathering intelligence, opening channels of informal diplomacy for Ankara’s representatives, operating the underground resistance in Istanbul as well as buying military equipment from the commercially minded Italians.
Although there was a diplomatic war going on throughout, the Turkish war of independence is a military history which focuses on the Greek-Turkish war between 1919 and 1922. The Greek occupation of Izmir on 15 May 1919 met with protests and bloodshed in the city. The occupation was extended to Aydın, Manisa, Turgutlu, Ayvalık, and Tekirdağ (Rodosto) in Thrace. Greek military landings in Thrace were facilitated by British naval vessels, but as soon as the Greco-Turkish war began, London declared neutrality. In 1919, local armed bands displayed resistance to occupation using hit and run tactics. The Greeks did not remain within confines of the Milne Line, named after the British General George Milne who drew the lines of the occupation zone. As they began to expand towards the inner Aegean and then towards Ankara, war became imminent. At one point in early 1921, they reached the outskirts of the city and the Ankara parliament evacuated families and treasure to Konya.
However, the Greek army had moved too far from its logistical support base to its disadvantage. They were isolated in a proxy war on behalf of the British as well as for greater Greece. And, following setbacks received in 1921, another extremely bloody confrontation took place in July 1922 at the Battle of Sakarya that ended in a final Turkish offensive on 30 August 1922. Greek commanders were taken as prisoners of war, and remnants of the Greek army were practically chased towards Izmir. Much human drama accompanied the victory as the receding Greeks destroyed villages and towns on the way and the Greek population in Izmir desperately fought their way to get on board the naval and civilian vessels in the bay to escape to the Greek islands or to Greece proper. On 9 September 1922 the Turkish army entered Izmir. Greek historians were to call this venture the “disaster in Asia Minor”, which depleted the idea of a greater Greece as well as British policy.
It fell on the British to call for an armistice treaty. An armistice conference took place in Mudanya, a suburb of Bursa on the Marmara Sea between 3-11 October 1922. In attendance were the British General Harington, Turkish İsmet İnönü (1884-1973), French General Georges Charpy (1865-1945), Italian General Ernesto Mombelli (1867-1932). The Greeks refused to attend the meetings but signed the armistice treaty three days after it was concluded. The venue was now open to the call for a conference on near eastern affairs where the British were almost sure, though Lord Curzon had reservations, that they could dictate their terms. The Lausanne negotiations and the final peace treaty proved otherwise.
Istanbul remained under occupation, but Refet Bele Pasha (1881-1963), known as Bele, arrived in 1922 to gradually take over the administration. Requisitioned homes were returned to their owners, customs control was taken over by Turks, Istanbul Greeks were required to either register as citizens or if not, obtain passports to remain as foreigners. Sultan Vahideddin found it prudent to leave the country on a British naval vessel and later settled in San Remo, Italy. On 1 November 1922 the Ankara parliament abrogated the sultanate. The regime change from empire to republic officially followed on 29 October 1923 after Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Greece, Romania and the Serb-Croat-Slovene state signed the Lausanne Treaty on 24 July 1923. Istanbul was evacuated during the first week of October 1923 and the Allied military commanders left on 6 October 1923 while Turkish troops entered the city.
Conclusion
The Eastern Question was not overtly on the agenda as far as the war aims of belligerents were concerned. But the notion lurked behind in rhetoric and was operationalized on paper in the secret agreements of WWI, discussed previously. Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859-1941) had welcomed the Balkan War of 1912, exclaiming “The Eastern Question must be resolved by blood and iron!” The Greek Patriarch of Constantinople during the occupation stated in a letter sent to the Paris Peace Conference that the Eastern Question would never be solved until Constantinople was Greek again. The original title of Fabio Grassi’s book İtalya ve Türk Sorunu 1919-1923 was L’Italia e la questione turca 1919-1923, which reflects the problematique aptly. Copts, Maronites and Assyrians, peoples of the ancient eastern Christian denominations of the former Arab provinces of the Empire, accepted foreign occupation as liberation just like the Istanbul Greeks and, to a lesser extent, the Armenians did; a non-negligible dimension of the Question had been to protect the Christians of the Empire. In contrast, the leading Jewish Rabbi Chaim Nahum Effendi (1872-1960) spoke to the European occupiers in favour of Turks. By 1923, however, the Eastern Question was forced outside the borders of Turkey.
Domestic opponents of resistance to foreign occupation also abounded as observed from newspapers and diplomatic records. These people were to be labelled in the Republic “defeatist” and/or “collaborators”. On the one hand, opponents thought that resistance was pure adventurism like that of the CUP which led the country into WWI. On the other, the Palace thought that it may receive favourable peace conditions if cooperation with the occupiers was maintained. But the failed state once again failed to exert authority or control over resistance.
In 1918, Anatolia and part of Thrace were the last realms of the Ottoman Empire akin to contemporary borders. Scions of numerous refugees from the old borderlands in addition to those expelled from tsarist Russia (Tatars and Circassians) in the late 19th century, Muslim Greeks who arrived during the population exchange with Karaman Christians of Turkey in 1923-1924, as well as emigrants from the southern provinces are included in the human profile of the country. Along with them came cultural patterns and an intellectual outlook which facilitated adaptation to social and political change. This was most apparent in women’s public presence as individuals, professional and voluntary alike, a trend visible from the beginning of the 20th century’s era of wars. Occupations, as painful as they were both materially and mentally, stirred many Turks to come of age.
Nur Bilge Criss, Bilkent University | ||||
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] | 2005-05-01T08:00:00-04:00 | en | /profiles/contrib/lightning/favicon.ico | American Academy of Arts & Sciences | https://www.amacad.org/publication/daedalus/ottoman-experience | When those states which have been acquired are accustomed to live at liberty under their own laws, there are three ways of holding them. The first is to despoil them; the second is to go and live there in person; the third is to allow them to live under their own laws, taking tribute of them and creating within the country a government composed of a few who will keep it friendly to you.
–Machiavelli, The Prince, 1532
Toward the end of the fifteenth century, an Ottoman scribe named Bali was charged with surveying the newly acquired island of Limnos in the northern Aegean. The Ottoman treasury needed to know what sorts of revenues the island could be expected to provide. Bali went out of his way to explain the animal husbandry practices of the peasants so that the treasury would understand his calculation of the sheep tax:
because the climate of the island is temperate and is not excessively cold, they apparently are not accustomed to separating their rams from their ewes. For this reason their lambs are not particular to one season. Were they to be counted along with the sheep it would cause the peasants some distress; because they were desirous of and agreed to give 1 akçe per head of sheep, their lambs were not counted with them. It was recorded that only their sheep be counted, and that 1 akçe be given per head of sheep.
It is an arresting image: an Ottoman scribe, pen in hand, listens patiently to the inhabitants’ explanations and then copies their words into the imperial survey that will find its way to the palace in Istanbul. But it is more than an image. This detail from the 1490 survey of the island of Limnos is an early example of what would prove to be an enduring imperial style that had two essential, and closely related, features. First, the empire possessed an extraordinary ability to find those few local residents who were willing and able to keep vast territories friendly to the House of Osman. Second, the Ottoman imperial administration had an uncanny knack for going into a newly conquered area and figuring out how things were done there. Having read the local landscape, it would adjust imperial rule accordingly.
In short, the extraordinary sensitivity of the Ottoman elite to local conditions allowed them to build an empire across three continents that endured for many centuries.
The Ottomans first emerge on the historical stage at the very end of the thirteenth century. In the royal myth, the dynasty stretches much further back, of course, but it was only under the leadership of Osman (1299–1326) that this small group of warriors managed to move out from its base in northwestern Anatolia and start conquering territory. Their first significant victories occurred in the Balkans, and these conquests allowed them to return to western Anatolia flush with men and money. By the middle of the fifteenth century they had surrounded the Byzantine capital Constantinople. Their capture of the great city in 1453 marked the beginning of the imperial phase of Ottoman history.
Over the course of the next century they pushed steadily eastward and then southward. First they defeated the remaining Turkish principalities in Anatolia and then, in 1516 and 1517, they conquered the heartlands of the Islamic world–Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. With these latter-day conquests they could now claim leadership of the Islamic world. The empire reached its greatest territorial extent under Suleyman (1520 –1566), who conquered Hungary in the north (1526), Iraq in the east (1534), and North Africa in the west–the last in a series of incremental gains dating from the earlier part of his reign.
Except for the loss of Hungary at the end of the seventeenth century, the territory of the empire remained relatively stable until the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Serbian (1804) and Greek (1821) insurrections were the beginning of what proved to be an unstoppable hemorrhaging of territory in the empire’s European heartland. A combination of nationalist aspirations and Great Power interference led to the end of the Ottoman Empire in Europe by the eve of World War I. The Ottoman entry into the war on the German side had fatal consequences for the survival of what remained of the empire. The victorious British and French armies took over the Middle East and carved it up into colonies, although these were called ‘mandates’ in deference to rising anticolonialist sentiment. Anatolia, which was all that remained, was also in danger of being parceled out to various contenders. It was only the unexpected military resistance of a group of disaffected Ottoman army officers–led by the remarkable Mustafa Kemal, later known as Atatürk–that saved the day.
But Kemal was not interested in saving the empire. Rather, he wanted to create a modern state that would replace a defeated empire whose leaders had proved unable to fashion a response to European imperialism. Thus it was a Turk, ironically enough, who brought about the end of the Ottoman Empire. Under Atatürk’s leadership, the Grand National Assembly abolished the sultanate in 1922 and declared the new Republic of Turkey in 1923.
In 1490, when Bali wrote to Istanbul about Limniot practices of animal husbandry, the Ottoman army was plowing through the Balkan Peninsula, subduing one city after another in rapid succession. The army would soon do the same in Anatolia and the Arab lands. Naturally enough, then, it is the janissary, and not the scribe, who figures prominently in conventional depictions of the empire during the golden age of conquest.
The janissary, with his crashing cymbals as he marched onto the battlefield, was the terror of Christendom. Compared to European military forces, the janissary corps was famously disciplined; it was said that when janissaries bowed their heads at the same time, they resembled a field of ripe corn rippling in the breeze. The janissary seemed to embody everything that was believed–and to a great extent is still believed–to account for the greatness of the Ottomans in their prime in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Plucked from his (Christian) mother’s breast at a young age, he proved the sultan’s ability to reach down into society and remake individuals at will. Once trained, the janissary was believed to possess unsurpassed martial virtue. At the same time, he, like the rest of the Ottoman bureaucracy, gave the sultan absolute obedience. The end result has often been described as a perfectly ordered machine.
It is not surprising that war and conquest, rather than the more mundane activities of scribes, are still at the center of our view of the Ottomans. We are the inheritors of a long tradition of European writings on the empire, and the Europeans wrote with their own concerns in mind. The Ottomans were the threat to European civilization. “This most powerful emperor’s forces are of two kinds, those of the sea and those of the land and both are terrifying,” wrote a Venetian diplomat in 1573. The Ottomans were the first state to maintain a standing army in Europe since Roman days, and this impressed the Europeans to no end. The Byzantine Chalcocondyle marveled that “there is no prince who has his armies and camps in better order, both in abundance of victuals and in the beautiful order they use in encamping without any confusion or embarrassment.”
But an undue emphasis on the Ottoman war machine has deflected our attention from an appreciation of how the Ottomans actually ruled their vast territories for over six hundred years. Military conquest created the empire, but it did not, and could not, sustain it. For that the Ottomans needed scribes, not janissaries. Limnos is one of the earliest examples of an imperial style that relied heavily on local people to run things for Istanbul. This example undermines the view that the empire was administered by a central bureaucracy whose dictates were enforced by military power.
Limnos was contested territory on the edge of the Ottoman Empire in 1490. Over the previous half century, the island had gone back and forth between Latin and Ottoman rule; the most recent exchange dated back only a decade to when the Venetians surrendered the island to Sultan Beyazit II. Yet a mere nineteen janissaries garrisoned the island (a number of them, recent converts to Islam, spoke Greek). The real work of securing the island’s defense was done by several hundred local Christian troops who enjoyed a reduced tax status in exchange for their military service, and who had been recruited by the Ottomans for the very reason that they had served a similar function under the Byzantines. The local nobility retained their holdings, and church and monastic property went undisturbed.
Even in this brief account we can see the Ottomans’ keen attentiveness to the local, in terms not just of accommodation, but also of an ability to size up the situation and turn it to Ottoman advantage. A predilection for co-optation had been evident from the very moment the Ottomans entered the historical record. In the case of Limnos, they were able to discern who had traditionally undertaken the defense of the island and to enlist them. We do not know who Bali was; he may have been a Greek by birth who converted to Islam and joined the bureaucracy. Or he could have been accompanied by a translator who communicated his queries to the Limniots. Whichever the case, the Ottomans were able to deploy adequately trained individuals who effectively turned conquests into tax-producing provinces.
If we turn to newly conquered, mid-sixteenth-century Palestine, the same method is on display. By now the Ottoman bureaucracy was fully developed and the Palestinian provinces received a full compliment of officials, many more than Limnos had in 1490. But these officials were quick to bring village leaders into the hierarchy of government, albeit informally. The office of village leader, known as rais, was already a very old one by the time the Ottomans arrived in the Fertile Crescent. They retained the rais as a useful liaison to the tax-paying population and rewarded him with robes (the traditional gift to officials from the earliest days of Islam), thereby integrating local leaders into the symbolic structure of the empire.
Local people also figured prominently in the proceedings of the Ottoman court, where many lines of authority converged. The kadi, or judge, routinely called upon local experts to assist him in investigating the cases that came before him, such as disputes over taxation. Impressed by the neat categories in Ottoman survey registers, we have failed to adequately appreciate that taxation was a complicated business. Palestinian olive trees, for example, were taxed differently depending on their age, which affected their fruit-bearing ability. It was unlikely that someone from Istanbul would have been able to determine the age of those trees.
Even those who officially served in the name of the sultan were a more heterogeneous group than has commonly been presented. Prior to the seventeenth century, the link between the military and provincial administration was an essential device of Ottoman governance. In return for their work, the sultan’s soldiers, known as timariots, were assigned one or multiple villages whose revenue they were entitled to collect. When they were not off on campaign, these soldiers resided in or near their holdings. In this way the state both supported an army and gained a class of provincial administrators who were charged with tax collection and the maintenance of law and order.
But rural administration did not rest in the hands of timariots alone. When the province of Aintab in southeastern Anatolia was wrested from the Mamluks and joined to the empire’s domains in 1517, not all the villages were assigned to the soldiers of the standing army. Some went to local Turkmen tribal chiefs, while others stayed in the hands of the urban magnates from Aintab or from nearby Aleppo who had privately owned them. For example, the village of Caǧdiǧin belonged to a very special family indeed, namely, the heirs of the last powerful Mamluk sultan, from whom the Ottomans had wrested Egypt and Greater Syria. The Ghawri family resided in Aleppo and employed a local agent to manage its estates and collect taxes. Over time the family was absorbed into the Ottoman elite; the governor-general of Aleppo in 1574 was one Mehmed Pasha al-Ghawri.
The cases of Palestine and Aintab that I have just discussed are particularly significant because they occurred in the middle of the sixteenth century, traditionally seen as the era when the Ottomans were at the very height of their power. As we have seen, an important part of this power was administrative; the Ottomans recruited, developed, and deployed a class of imperial bureaucrats across the empire. These bureaucrats, who ironed out and smoothed over local peculiarities, it is said, gave the empire its effectiveness and uniformity. In this story of the empire, local elites either failed to develop or were bypassed, and would only become important later on when the central bureaucracy was less effective.
This description overstates the case and misclassifies what was a rather fleeting moment as the classical juncture from which all future developments are said to have deviated. After all, the Ottomans only assigned a career officer to Palestine in 1520; by the end of the century the entire region was back under the control of Bedouin chiefs who were officially recognized by the Ottomans as local governors.
In a classic article written many years ago, Albert Hourani coined the phrase “the politics of notables” to characterize the constellation of forces that governed the empire as a whole in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He described a class of conservative notables who were firmly entrenched in local society and equipped with their own private militias, and who offered themselves as mediators between the Ottoman authorities and provincial society. The Ottomans were content to rely on these informal elites, bestowing tax-gathering privileges and political office on them in exchange for loyalty.
Rather than framing this development as decline, historians are now asking more open-ended questions about the experience of provincial life in the Ottoman Empire of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In one historian’s felicitous phrase, we would like to know more about “the meaning of autonomy.” Beshara Doumani’s recent study of Nablus and its hinterland– once again, in Palestine–provides us with a particularly vivid sense of place.
As was true across the Ottoman Empire, the Nablusis had a strong sense of local identity that was nurtured by the imperial style of rule. They were proud of the beauty of their city, whose twenty-two gushing springs fed the olive groves, vineyards, and fruit orchards that surrounded it. Localism was buttressed by the fact that the city was ruled by local sons, most of whom had descended from the same families for generations. Many of the patriarchs of the ruling families had originally come to the city as Ottoman soldiers, but they quickly melted into the local population, marrying into wealthy merchant and religious families. They vied with one another for appointment to political office, a process controlled and shrewdly exploited by the Ottoman governor of Damascus.
Their conservative rule endured even through the upheavals of the nineteenth century. While they were disinclined to fight for the sultan in faraway places, they were quick to defend themselves when threatened. In the course of Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, it was the Nablusis who handed the French emperor his first defeat in Palestine. Moneylending and trade networks, rather than military power and tax collection, tied the countryside to the city. Long-standing clientage relationships between peasants and urban merchants were passed from father to son, and the rootedness of these networks allowed trading activity to flourish across a wide area, despite an often unpredictable political environment. Even today, elderly Palestinians can remember how their grandfathers were expected to host their rural clients when they came into the city. The peasants had to be put up and fed well, lest their urban patrons suffer a loss of honor.
Besides stressing militarism, the tradition of European writing on the Ottoman Empire has also firmly fixed the empire’s Islamic identity in the mind of the general reader. The term ‘Muslim empire’ has been more than simply descriptive; it has been a sort of shorthand for what we think the Ottomans represented. Their successful military conquests, it is said, were driven by the religious obligation of holy war against the infidel. There is the standard nod to Suleyman the Magnificent, who brought the empire’s legal system into accordance with Islamic precepts. European scholarship also typically hauls in Islam to explain that old saw, the decline of the Ottoman Empire. According to this theory, the decline was brought about in part by the rise of an intolerant Islamic spirit that smothered creativity.
It is a mistake to describe the Ottomans in terms of some sort of essential Islamic mission. The impulse to do so is, I think, a reflection of the fact that any discussion of empire today is very hard to disentangle from the ideology of imperialism. We must separate the practice of empire from the ideology of imperialism if we wish to understand the Ottoman Empire. Empire as governance existed long before imperialism as ideology. Particularly in the Mediterranean world, which had been subject to imperial rule from the time of the Romans, the Ottomans were able to draw on a number of rich political and cultural traditions, only some of which were Islamic. The challenge was not to justify empire. What other aspiration could a potential ruler possibly have? The challenge was to justify themselves as the proper leaders of a new empire. It was the House of Osman, not empire, that was on trial as the new state slowly took shape.
Ottoman claims of legitimacy drew on several sources, of which the Islamic tradition was only one. In the words of one historian, “the Ottomans were highly flexible in their use of legitimizing ideologies.” One of the earliest tropes to emerge was the celebration of the early Ottomans as ghazis, or warriors for Islam, whose raids and wars were part of a divinely imposed obligation. This was a straightforward enough claim with regard to the Balkans, where the population was Christian. To get around the somewhat awkward fact that many of the early wars in Anatolia were fought against other Muslim rulers, two traditions developed. First, it was asserted that oftentimes territory was acquired through peaceful acquisition rather than force of arms. Second, rulers who had been vanquished were charged with having oppressed Muslims, thus justifying Ottoman intervention. Some historians have gone so far as to wonder whether the Ottomans saw themselves as Islamic warriors or if they adhered to a more general, and religiously nonspecific, ideal of heroism and honorable conduct.
The Ottomans also asserted a more illustrious genealogy than that of the other Turkish emirs in Anatolia. They claimed that their sultans descended from Oǧuz Khan, a legendary great ruler and ancestor of the Turks, while their Turkish neighbors were only distant relations.
Once Mehmet the Conqueror took Constantinople, the imperial capital par excellence, in 1453, he adopted many imperial motifs, including the Golden Apple, a commonly recognized symbol of universal sovereignty. Prior sultans in the former capitals of Bursa, then Edirne, had lived simply and prayed alongside fellow Muslims in the mosque. The palace that Mehmet had constructed for himself on the ancient acropolis of Byzantium was designed to ensure imperial seclusion, as was the dynastic law code he drew up toward the end of his reign. Among other things, it abolished the practice of eating in the presence of his courtiers and strictly limited the occasions on which petitions could be presented to him in person. Mehmet was famously inspired by the empires of the past and saw himself as the heir to the Roman Empire. His identification with Alexander the Great was so strong that he commissioned a biography of himself, in Greek, on the same paper and in the same format as his copy of Arrian’s The Life of Alexander the Great. The latter was read to him daily.
The beginning of the sixteenth century saw the rise of an enemy more formidable than the patchwork of Turkish emirates that the Ottomans had swept away in Anatolia. In Iran, the Safavid dynasty, established by the charismatic mystical leader Ismail Shah, proclaimed a militant Shiism that was presented as morally, religiously, and politically superior to the Sunni form of Islam observed in the Ottoman Empire. The consolidation of Spanish Hapsburg rule at the other end of the Mediterranean also contributed to an age of strenuous ideological competition.
In response, the Ottomans increasingly portrayed themselves as pious orthodox Muslims. Suleyman, assisted by his energetic and long-serving religious advisor, sought to reconcile sultanic with Islamic law in an ambitious program of legal reform that included the strengthening of Islamic courts and the extension of state purview over matters that had previously been of little official concern, such as marriage. In the 1540s, Suleyman added the Islamic term ‘caliph’ to his list of titles.
A lesser-known image of Suleyman is that of the Lawgiver as Messiah; the prophetic and messianic currents that were so strong in Europe and the Mediterranean in the sixteenth century had their counterpart in the Ottoman Empire. Those around him, and Suleyman himself, proclaimed him as the Emperor of the Last Age, who would soon establish universal dominion. The sultan’s geomancer wrote that the ultimate victory and establishment of the universal rule of Islam would be ensured by an army of invisible saints fighting by the sultan’s side.
Yet even before Suleyman’s death in 1566 there was a new emphasis on the institutional and judicial perfection of the sultan. No longer the restless world conqueror, he was lauded as the creator and quiet center of the perfect order; he was the Refuge of the World. As the Ottoman war machine wound down, seventeenth-century writers would further encourage the idea of consolidation. Citing the theories and biological metaphors of Ibn Khaldun, they stated that the empire was no longer in the heroic phase of expansion, but had entered the more mature stage of security and tranquility.
Throughout all the permutations of the imperial image, the provision of justice, to the peasantry in particular, remained absolutely central to sultanic legitimacy. This was not an empty rhetoric. It is clear that both the population and the sultan took the latter’s responsibility for justice seriously; the Ottoman archives are stuffed with thousands of petitions that were recorded in the registers, and responded to, year after year. The council hall in the palace where petitions were read was built with open walls to symbolize the free access of the empire’s subjects, Muslim and nonMuslim, to imperial justice. This duty of the ruler to provide justice, to embody imperial benevolence, was something the Ottomans shared with all premodern states. In the Near Eastern tradition, it was expressed through the Circle of Justice, which said that the ruler could not exist without the military, nor the military without the sword, nor the sword without money, nor money without the peasants, nor the peasants without justice. The Chinese also tied royal legitimacy to the provision of justice to the peasants. The right to petition the king was limited in Europe, but there too justice was the jewel in the crown of the Christian King.
The Circle of Justice represented a consensus on the proper ordering of society that was shared by both rulers and ruled. This consensus would come apart in the nineteenth century, and it was the state itself that would launch its dismantling.
Through the skillful co-optation of military and financial leaders, the Ottomans had achieved a form of rule that was extremely stable, even though its maintenance required constant bargaining. The other side of the coin, however, was that the government could attract only a low level of commitment from most of its subjects. Its ability to mobilize manpower and money was limited. The residents of Nablus, for example, were perfectly willing to battle Napoleon, but they undertook this in the defense of local interests and not on behalf of the sultan.
This was sufficient for a time. The last quarter of the eighteenth century, however, was marked by war, war, and more war. Russia, whose power had been growing steadily, managed to wrest the Crimea and the northern shores of the Black Sea from the Ottomans. The shock of these losses was great, since both were areas of dense Muslim settlement. The Ottomans also fought with the Hapsburgs. Then came the French occupation of Egypt in 1798, which signaled the return of Great Power conflict to the Mediterranean after a long hiatus. Turmoil continued throughout the Napoleonic Wars, including an internal uprising in Serbia that received external support, due to European designs on the Ottoman Empire.
Faced with these threats, the Ottoman sultans, beginning with Selim III, initiated a series of reforms that, at the most basic level, sought to mobilize the people and the resources of the empire in the service of the state. Military reform, naturally enough, was the initial priority, but initiatives soon spread to other areas such as education. A medical school was set up in 1827 to train doctors for the new army. In the 1830s, schools proliferated as Sultan Mahmud II, sometimes described as the Peter the Great of the Ottoman Empire, sought to create not just an officer corps but also a new civil service to implement and enforce his measures.
A famous decree of 1839, which was henceforth known as Tanzimat, laid down the essential themes of Ottoman reform. These themes would be modified, diluted, or strengthened over the course of the next eighty years or so, but they remained the basis for state policy nevertheless. Tanzimat declared the security of life, honor, and property for all Ottoman subjects. Tax farming was abolished and an elaborate centralized provincial administration–modeled on the French system–was laid down. Equality before the law for all subjects, for Muslim and non-Muslim, was decreed.
These measures, as well as an assortment of more minor reforms, were linked by the wish to mobilize society and to effectively direct it through a newly energized, centralized state. By making property rights more secure, it was hoped that a new class of private property owners would increase agriculture revenues. The proclamation of religious equality before the law sought to facilitate the creation of a new, secular elite–a group of ardent Ottoman citizens who would become loyal patriots, not unlike those in France, England, and the other ascendant European nation-states.
The Ottoman reforms were ambitious and wide-ranging. Not surprisingly, some were resisted and many others were only imperfectly or partially executed. In the Balkans, the Ottomans, hemmed in by Great Power competition and the territorial ambitions of the new nation-states on the peninsula, were racing against the clock. A bad harvest in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1874 led to a peasant revolt the following year. One hundred years earlier this would have been purely an internal matter, but it quickly turned into an international crisis that, through a long and convoluted series of events, ended with the creation of the new state of Bulgaria in 1878. By the eve of World War I, the Ottoman Empire had lost almost all its European territories.
Elsewhere, however, in Anatolia and the Arab lands, the Ottoman Empire in fact became more powerful, more rational, and more capable of imposing its will on society. Faced with European encroachment, it did not disintegrate, as did so many other non-Western empires–for example, in Iran and India. Bureaucrats managed not only to centralize many of the empire’s activities, but also to establish effective rule in places that had always been notoriously difficult to rule, such as the tribal areas of Arabia and Transjordan. Through the application of reformist land laws, Transjordan recovered a level of demographic and economic growth not seen since Byzantine times. In the last quarter of the century, the British, who were busy concluding local agreements with Arab sheikhs, were alarmed by the new influence of the Ottomans in the Arabian Gulf.
Yet the reforms, by launching such a determined attack on traditional powersharing arrangements, by their radical rethinking of the relationship between ruler and ruled, required the government to embark on an ambitious project of ideological legitimation. Its response was very similar to that of other modernizing empires, such as Austria, Russia, and Japan, in the pressure cooker of the nineteenth century. The ‘invention of tradition’ dramatically increased the pomp and circumstance surrounding the sultan and all activities of state. By the end of the nineteenth century, for example, curious onlookers lined the road to watch the Friday prayer ceremony as Abdulhamid and his entourage departed from the palace and headed for the Yıldız Mosque. Albanian house guards in livery, their spears glinting in the sun, escorted the imperial landau while a military band struck up the Hamidiye, the musical salute to the sultan. A sort of dais was built to accommodate foreign visitors who were permitted to watch the procession and to salute the monarch.
The state also tried to define a new basis for loyalty to the House of Osman. The novel concept of Ottoman patriotism, which declared the unity and equality of all Ottoman subjects, was favored at midcentury. As time wore on and the European provinces dropped away, Islamic and then Turkish nationalism rendered the earlier concept of an Ottoman citizenry increasingly problematic. Throughout this last century of the empire, the project of Ottoman subjecthood was fraught with tensions and contradictions that undermined formerly stable traditions of rule. The regime’s use of the Islamic heritage was complex and multifaceted. The Ottomans sought to exploit Islam for imperial advantage in a sort of ‘Islamic etatism,’ just as Catherine II had used Christian orthodoxy in Russia and Maria Theresa had turned to Catholicism in the Hapsburg lands. Among other things, Islam was used to try and enlist the empire’s Muslim subjects in the state’s modernizing goals. After the destruction of the janissaries, Mahmud II turned to the conscription of Ottoman Muslim subjects and dubbed his new army the “Trained Victorious Soldiers of Muhammad.” This is just one example. Again and again over the course of the next century, political leaders turned to Islam as a way of establishing a connection between them and their Muslim subjects.
At the same time, the Ottomans settled on Islam to articulate and proclaim their fundamental difference from the West in an era of rampant Westernization. It is ironic that the Europeans, too, saw Islam as the defining characteristic of the East, although the conclusions they drew from this fact were very different. And yet, as we have seen in the Tanzimat reforms, the Ottoman Empire relentlessly pursued a policy of secularization.
How can these seeming oppositions be reconciled? We must understand that there was a central tension in Ottoman reform. The goal was not just to strengthen the state; it was to strengthen it in a certain way, so that the state looked bureaucratic, tolerant, and, most of all, modern. The Tanzimat was, in this sense, an internalization of European representations of the Orient and its problems. But the Ottomans were also duty-bound to resist the West, because the West denied the possibility of progress for the Muslim world. The embrace of Islam was their way of defying the fate that was predicted for them.
It is ironic that Arab elites were never more Ottoman than at the moment of the empire’s dissolution. Abandoning the looser style of rule that had been typical of earlier centuries, nineteenth-century reforms succeeded in creating several generations of Arab bureaucrats who were closely tied to the imperial project. An Arab official in 1900 was more likely to speak Turkish, and to send his son to study in Istanbul at one of the new academies, than his predecessor would have been one hundred years prior. This helps explain why, the myth of Lawrence of Arabia notwithstanding, the vast majority of Arabs remained loyal to the empire till the very end.
This loyalty left the Arab world singularly ill-equipped to deal with the changes that were suddenly thrust upon it in the wake of World War I. Not only was it forcibly cut off from the state that had defined its political existence for the past four hundred years; it also had to contend with an unprecedented level of Great Power involvement in the region as the British and the French went about establishing their respective spheres of influence. In the critical days and months following the Ottoman defeat in 1918, the Arabs failed to produce a leader of Atatürk’s caliber. This could not have been simply a coincidence. The political class was, in the end, a provincial elite that did not have the same habits of leadership the Turks possessed. Even worse, draconian Ottoman policies against Arab nationalists during World War I had created tremendous polarization (some of those executed were the relatives of older, more conservative politicians who supported the empire), and this made solidarity against Western imperialism even harder to accomplish.
Finally, an effective response was hampered by the intense localism of Arab elites. Part of this was due to the opportunities presented by imperial rivalries in the region. The Syrian leadership, for example, was eager to cooperate with the British in the hope that they would pressure the French to leave Syria. But the Palestinians thought the Syrians should resolutely confront the British plan to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine. However, the localism ran deeper than the dilemmas of the moment.
This essay began with an Ottoman scribe explaining the conditions of animal husbandry on the island of Limnos to his superiors back in Istanbul. Even during the ambitious nineteenth century, when the state worked to create a more uni½ed society, the Ottomans were always very willing to accommodate local realities and to work with homegrown elites. This style of rule encouraged a corresponding provincialism on the part of the Arabs. The men who directed their societies in the waning decades of the empire knew how to mediate local concerns, but they found it very dif½cult to respond to broader crises, such as the imposition of European mandates throughout the Near East. Their inability to resist Western colonialism would have serious and fateful consequences that are still with us today. | |||
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] | null | [] | null | null | A SUMMARY OF ARMENIAN HISTORY
UP TO AND INCLUDING
THE YEAR 1915.
I. THE EUROPEAN WAR AND ARMENIA.
The War has brought us into a new relation with Armenia and the Armenian people. We knew them before as the name of an ancient civilisation, a stubborn rearguard of Christendom in the East, a scene of mission work and massacres and international rivalry ; but only a few of us---missionaries, geographers, travellers and an occasional newspaper correspondent---were personally acquainted with the country and its inhabitants. To most people they remained a name, and when we read of their sufferings or traditions or achievements they made little more impression than the doings of the Hittites and Assyrians, who moved across the same Near Eastern amphitheatre several millenniums ago. We had no living contact, no natural relation, with Armenia in our personal or even in our political life.
Such a relation has suddenly been created between us by the War, and it is one of the strangest ironies of war that it fuses together and illuminates the very fabric it destroys. The civilisation in which we lived was like a labyrinth, so huge and intricate that none of the dwellers in it could altogether grasp its structure, while most of them were barely conscious that it had any structural design at all. But now that the War has caught it and it is all aflame, the unity and symmetry of the building are revealed to the common eye. As the glare lights it up from end to end, it stands out in its glory, in matchless outline and perspective ; for the first time (and possibly for the last) we see its parts simultaneously and in proper relation, and realise for one moment the marvel and mystery of this civilisation that is perishing---the subtle, immemorial, unrelaxing effort that raised it up and maintained it, and the impossibility of improvising any equivalent structure in its place. Then the fire masters its prey ; the various parts of the labyrinth fall in one by one, the light goes out of them, and nothing is left but smoke and ashes. This is the catastrophe that we are witnessing now, and we do not yet know whether it will be possible to repair it. But if the future is not so dark as it appears, and what has perished can in some measure be restored, our best guide and inspiration in the task will be that momentary, tragic, unique vision snatched out of the catastrophe itself.
The Armenians are not protagonists in the War ; they bear none of the guilt for its outbreak and can have little share in the responsibility of building up a better future. But they have been seared more cruelly than any of us by the flames, and, under this fiery ordeal, their individual character as a nation and their part in the community of the civilised world have been thrown into their true relief.
For the first time, England and the Armenians are genuinely in touch with one another. In this desperate struggle between freedom and reaction we are fighting on the same side, striving for the same end. Our lot in the struggle has not, indeed, been the same, for while England is able to act as well as to suffer, the Armenians have suffered with hardly the power to strike a blow. But this difference of external fortune only strengthens the inward moral bond; for we, who are strong, are fighting not merely for this or that political advantage, this or that territorial change, but for a principle. The Powers of the Entente have undertaken the championship of small nationalities that cannot champion themselves. We have solemnly acknowledged our obligation to fulfil our vow in the case of Belgium and Serbia, and now that the Armenians have been overtaken by a still worse fate than the Serbians and the Belgians, their cause, too, has been taken up into the general cause of the Allies. We cannot limit our field in doing battle for our ideal.
It is easier, of course, for the people of France, Great Britain and America to sympathise with Belgium than with a more unfamiliar nation in a distant zone of the War. It needs little imagination to realise acutely that the Belgians are "people like ourselves," suffering all that we should suffer if the same atrocities were committed upon us; and this realisation was made doubly easy by the speedy publication of minute, abundant, first-hand testimony. The Armenians have no such immediate access to our sympathies, and the initial unfamiliarity can only be overcome by a personal effort on the part of those who give ear to their case; but the evidence on which that case rests has been steadily accumulating, until now it is scarcely less complete or less authoritative than the evidence relating to Belgium. The object of the present volume has been to present the documents to English and American readers in as accurate and orderly a form as possible.
Armenia has not been without witness in her agony. Intense suffering means intense emotional experience, and this emotion has found relief in written records of the intolerable events which obsessed the witnesses' memories. Some of the writers are Armenians, a larger number are Americans and Europeans who were on the spot, and who were as poignantly affected as the victims themselves. There are a hundred and forty-nine of these documents, and many of them are of considerable length; but in their total effect they are something more than an exhaustive catalogue of the horrors they set out to describe. The flames of war illuminate the structure of the building as well as the destruction of it, and the testimony extorted under this fiery ordeal gives an extraordinarily vivid impression of Armenian life---the life of plain and mountain, town and village, intelligenzia and bourgeoisie and peasantry---at the moment when it was overwhelmed by the European catastrophe.
In Armenia, though not in Europe, the flames have almost burnt themselves out, and, for the moment, we can see nothing beyond smoke and ashes. Life will assuredly spring up again when the ashes are cleared away, for attempts to exterminate nations by atrocity, though certain of producing almost infinite human suffering, have seldom succeeded in their ulterior aim. But in whatever shape the new Armenia arises, it will be something utterly different from the old. The Armenians have been a very typical element in that group of humanity which Europeans call the "Near East," but which might equally well be called the "Near West" from the Indian or the Chinese point of view(189). There has been something pathological about the history of this Near Eastern World. It has had an undue share of political misfortunes, and had lain for centuries in a kind of spiritual paralysis between East and West-belonging to neither, partaking paradoxically of both, and wholly unable to rally itself decidedly to one or the other, when it was involved with Europe in the European War. The shock of that crowning catastrophe seems to have brought the spiritual neutrality of the Near East to a violent end, and however dubious the future of Europe may be, it is almost certain that it will be shared henceforth by all that lies between the walls of Vienna and the walls of Aleppo and Tabriz(190). This final gravitation towards Europe may be a benefit to the Near East or another chapter in its misfortunes---that depends on the condition in which Europe emerges from the War; but, in either case, it will be a new departure in its history. It has been drawn at last into a stronger orbit, and will travel on its own paralytic, paradoxical course no more. This gives a historical interest to any record of Near Eastern life in the last moments of the Ancient Régime, and these Armenian documents supply a record of a very intimate and characteristic kind. The Near East has never been more true to itself than in its lurid dissolution; past and present are fused together in the flare.
.
II. AN OUTLINE OF ARMENIAN HISTORY.
The documents in this volume tell their own story, and a reader might be ignorant of the places with which they deal and the points of history to which they refer, and yet learn from them more about human life in the Near East than from any study of text-books and atlases. At the same time a general acquaintance with the geographical setting and historical antecedents is clearly an assistance in understanding the full significance of the events recorded here. and as this information is not widely spread or very easily accessible, it has seemed well to publish an outline of it, for the reader's convenience, in the same volume as the documents themselves. As many as possible of the places referred to are marked on the map at the end of the book, while here, in this historical summary, a brief account may be given of who the Armenians are and where they live.
Like the English, the French and most other nations, the Armenians have developed a specific type of countenance, and yet it would not always be easy to tell them by sight, for they are as hybrid in their physical stock as every other European or Near Eastern people. There are marked differences of pigmentation, feature and build between the Armenians of the East, West and South, and between the mountaineers, plain-dwellers and people of the towns, and it would be rash to speculate when these various strains came in, or to lay it down that they were not all present already at the date at which we first begin to know something about the inhabitants of the country(191).
We hear of them first in the annals of Assyria, where the Armenian plateau appears as the land of Nairi---a no-man's-land, raided constantly but ineffectually by Assyrian armies from the lowlands of Mosul. But in the ninth century B.C. the petty cantons of Nairi coalesced into the Kingdom of Urartu(192), which fought Assyria on equal terms for more than two hundred years and has left a native record of its own. The Kings of Urartu made their dwelling on the citadel of Van(193). The face of the rock is covered with their inscriptions, which are also found as far afield as the neighbourhood of Malatia, Erzeroum and Alexandropol. They borrowed from Assyria the cuneiform script, and the earliest inscriptions at Van are written in the Assyrian language; but they quickly adapted the foreign script to their native tongue, which has been deciphered by English and German scholars, and is considered by them to be neither Semitic nor Indo-European, nor yet to have any discernible affinity with the still obscurer language of the Hittites further west. We can only assume that the people who spoke it were indigenous in the land. Probably they were of one blood with their neighbours in the direction of the Caucasus and the Black Sea, Saspeires(194) and Chalybes and others ; and if, as ethnology seems to show, an indigenous stock is practically ineradicable, these primitive peoples of the plateau are probably the chief ancestors, in the physical sense, of the present Armenian race(195).
The modern Armenian language, on the other hand, is not descended from the language of Urartu, but is an Indo-European tongue. There is a large non-Indo-European element in it---larger than in most known branches of the Indo-European family---and this has modified its syntax as well as its vocabulary. It has also borrowed freely and intimately from the Persian language in all its phases---a natural consequence of the political supremacy which Iran asserted over Armenia again and again, from the sixth century B.C. to the nineteenth century A.D. But when all these accretions have been analysed and discarded, the philologists pronounce the basis of modern Armenian to be a genuine Indo-European idiom---either a dialect of the Iranian branch or an independent variant, holding an intermediate, position between Iranian and Slavonic.
This language is a much more important factor in the national consciousness of the modern Armenians than their ultimate physical ancestry, but its origin is also more difficult to trace. Its Indo-European character proves that, at some date or other, it must have been introduced into the country from without(196), and the fact that a non-Indo-European language held the field under the Kings of Urartu suggests that it only established itself after the Kingdom of Urartu fell. But the earliest literary monuments of the modern tongue only date from the fifth century A.D., a thousand years later than the last inscription in the Urartian language, so that, as far as the linguistic evidence is concerned, the change may have occurred at any time within this period. One language, however, does not usually supplant another without considerable displacements of population, and the only historical event of this kind sufficient in scale to produce such a result seems to be the migration of the Cimmerians and Scythians in the seventh century B.C. These were nomadic tribes from the Russian steppes, who made their way round the eastern end of the Caucasus, burst through into the Moghan plains and the basin of Lake Urmia, and terrorised Western Asia for several generations, till they were broken by the power of the Medes and absorbed in the native population. It was they who made an end of the Kingdom of Urartu, and the language they brought with them was probably an Indo-European dialect answering to the basic element in modern Armenian. Probability thus points to these seventh century invaders as being the source of the present language, and perhaps also of the equally mysterious names of "Hai(k)" and "Haiasdan," by which the speakers of this language seem always to have called themselves and their country. But this is a conjecture, and nothing more(197), and we are left with the bare fact that Armenian(198) was the established language of the land by the fifth century A.D.
The Armenian language might easily have perished and left less record of its existence than the Urartian. It is a vigorous language enough, yet it would never have survived in virtue of its mere vitality. The native Anatolian dialects of Lydia and Cilicia, and the speech of the Cappadocians(199), the Armenians' immediate neighbours on the west, were extinguished one by one by the irresistible advance of Greek, and Armenian would assuredly have shared their fate if it had not become the canonical language of a national church before Greek had time to penetrate so far eastward. Armenia lay within the radius of Antioch and Edessa (Ourfa), two of the earliest and strongest centres of Christian propaganda. King Tiridates (Drdat) of Armenia was converted to Christianity some time during the latter half of the third century A.D.(200) and was the first ruler in the world to establish the Christian Faith as his State religion. Christianity in Armenia adopted a national garb from the first. In 410 A.D. the Bible was translated into the Armenian language, in a new native script specially invented for the purpose, and this achievement was followed by a great outburst of national literature during the course of the fifth century. These fifth century works are, as has been said, the earliest monuments of the Armenian language. Most of them, it is true, are simply rather painstaking translations of Greek and Syriac theology, and the bulk of the creative literature was theological too. But there was also a notable school of historical writers (Moses of Khorene is its most famous representative), and the really important result of the stimulus that Christianity brought was the permanent preservation of the language's existence and its development into a medium for a national literature of a varied kind.
Thus the conversion of Armenia to Christianity, which took place at a more or less ascertainable date, was an even more important factor in the evolution of Armenian nationality than the original introduction of the national language, and the Armenians have done well to make St. Gregory the Illuminator, the Cappadocian Missionary to whom the conversion was due, their supreme national hero(201). Henceforth, church and language mutually sustained each other, to the great enhancement of the vital power of both. They were, in fact, merely complementary aspects of the same national consciousness, and the national character of the church was further emphasised when it diverged in doctrine from the main body of Christendom---not by the formulation of any new or heretical dogma, but by omission to ratify the modifications of the primitive creed which were introduced by the (Ecumenical Councils of the fifth century A.D.(202)
This nationalisation of the church was the decisive process by which the Armenians became a nation, and it was also this that made them an integral part of the Near Eastern world. Christianity linked the country with the West as intimately as the cuneiform script of Urartu had linked it with the civilisation of Mesopotamia ; and the Near Eastern phenomenon consists essentially in the paradox that a series of populations on the borderland of Europe and Asia developed a national life that was thoroughly European in its religion and culture, without ever succeeding in extricating themselves politically from that continual round of despotism and anarchy which seems to be the political dispensation of genuinely Oriental countries.
No communities in the world have had a more troubled political history than these Near Eastern nationalities, and none have known how to preserve their church and their language so doggedly through the most appalling vicissitudes of conquest and oppression. In this regard the history of Armenia is profoundly characteristic of the Near East as a whole.
The strong, compact Kingdom of Urartu lies at the dawn of Armenian history like a golden age. It had only existed two centuries when it was shattered by the invaders from the Russian steppes, and the anarchy into which they plunged the country had to be cured by the imposition of a foreign rule. In 585 B.C. the nomads were cowed and the plateau annexed by Cyaxares, the Mede, and, after the Persians had taken over the Medes' inheritance, the great organiser Darius divided this portion of it into two governments or satrapies. One of these seems to have included the basins of Urmia and Van, and part of the valley of the Aras(203); the other corresponded approximately to the modern Vilayets of Bitlis, Mamouret-ul-Aziz and Diyarbekir, and covered the upper valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates(204). They were called respectively the satrapies of Eastern and Western Armenia, and this is the origin of the name by which the Haik and their Haiasdan are now almost universally known to their neighbours. The word "Armenia" (Armina) (205) first appears in Darius' inscriptions ; the Greeks adopted it from the Persian official usage, and from the Greeks it has spread to the rest of the world, including the Osmanli Turks(206)
Under the Persian Dynasty of the Achæmenids and their Macedonian successors, the two Armenian satrapies remained mere administrative divisions. Subject to the payment of tribute the satraps were practically independent and probably hereditary, but the rulers' autonomy did not enable their subjects to develop any distinctive national life. In religion and culture the country took on a strong Persian veneer ; and the situation was not essentially changed when, early in the second century B.C., the two reigning satraps revolted simultaneously from their overlord, the Seleucid King of Western Asia(207), and each founded a royal dynasty of their own. The decisive change was accomplished by Tigranes (Dikran) the Great (94 to 56 B.C.), a scion of the Eastern Dynasty, who welded the two principalities into one kingdom, and so created the first strong native sovereignty that the country had known since the fall of Urartu five centuries before.
If Gregory the Illuminator is the ecclesiastical hero of Armenia, King Tigranes is his political forerunner and counterpart. He was connected by marriage with Mithradates, the still more famous King of Pontic Cappadocia, who may be taken as the first exponent of the Near Eastern idea. Mithradates attempted to build an empire that should be at once cosmopolitan and national, Hellenic and Iranian, of the West and of the East, and Tigranes was profoundly influenced by his brilliant neighbour and ally. He set himself the parallel ambition of reconstructing round his own person the kingdom of the Seleucids, which had been shaken a century before by a rude encounter with Rome, weakened still further by the defection of Tigranes' own predecessors, and was now in the actual throes of dissolution. He laid himself out a new capital on the northern rim of the Mesopotamian steppe, somewhere near the site of Ibrahim Pasha's Viran Shehr, and peopled it with masses of exiles deported from the Greek cities he devastated in Syria and Cilicia. It was to be the Hellenistic world-centre for an Oriental King of Kings ; but all his dreams, like Mithradates', were shattered by the methodical progress of the Roman power. A Roman army ignominiously turned Tigranes out of Tigranokerta, and sent back his Greek exiles rejoicing to their homes. The new Armenian kingdom failed to establish its position as a great power, and had to accept the position of a buffer state between Rome on the west and the Parthian rulers of Iran. Nevertheless, Tigranes' work is of supreme political importance in Armenian history. He had consolidated the two satrapies of Darius into a united kingdom, powerful enough to preserve its unity and independence for nearly five hundred years. It was within this chrysalis that the interaction of religion and language produced the new germ of modern Armenian nationality; and when the chrysalis was rent at last, the nation emerged so strongly grown that it could brave the buffets of the outer world.
Before Tigranes, Armenia had belonged wholly to the East. Tigranes loosened these links and knit certain new links with the West. The period that followed was marked by a perpetual struggle between the Roman and Parthian Governments for political influence over the kingdom, which was really a battle over Armenia's soul. Was Armenia to be wrested away altogether from Oriental influences and rallied to the European world, or was it to sink back into being a spiritual and political appanage of Iran ? It seemed a clear issue, but it was not destined to be decided in either sense. Armenia was to be caught for two millenniums in the uncertain eddy of the Nearer East.
In this opposition of forces, the political balance inclined from the first in favour of the Oriental Power. The Parthians succeeded in replacing the descendants of Tigranes by a junior branch of their own Arsacid Dynasty; and when, in 387 A.D., the rivals agreed to settle the Armenian question by the drastic expedient of partition, the Sassanid kings of Persia (who had superseded the Parthians in the Empire of Iran) secured the lion's share of the spoils, while the Romans only received a strip of country on the western border which gave them Erzeroum and Diyarbekir for their frontier fortresses. In the cultural sphere, on the other hand, the West was constantly increasing its ascendancy. King Tiridates was an Arsacid, but he accepted Christianity as the religion of the State he ruled ; and when, less than a century after his death, his kingdom fell and the greater part of the country and the people came directly under Persian rule, the Persian propaganda failed to make any impression. No amount of preaching or persecution could persuade the Armenians to accept Zoroastrianism, which was the established religion of the Sassanian State. They clung to their national church in despite of their political annihilation, and showed thereby that their spiritual allegiance was given irrevocably to the West.
The partition of 387 A.D. produced as long a political interregnum in Armenian history as the fall of Urartu in the seventh century B.C. In the second quarter of the seventh century A.D., the mastery of Western Asia passed from the Persians to the Arabs, and the Armenian provinces changed masters with the rest. Persian governors appointed by the Sassanid King of Kings were superseded by Arab governors appointed by the Omayyad and Abbasid Caliphs, and the intolerance of Zoroastrianism was replaced by the far stronger and hardly less intolerant force of Islam. Then, in the ninth century, the political power of the Abbasid Caliphate at Baghdad began to decline, the outlying provinces were able to detach themselves, and three independent dynasties emerged on Armenian soil:
(a) The Bagratids founded a Christian principality in the north. Their capital was at Ani, in the upper basin of the Aras, and their rule in this district lasted nearly two centuries, from 885 to 1079 A.D.
(b) The Ardzrounids founded a similar Christian principality in the basin of Van. They reigned here from 908 to 1021 A.D.
(c) The Merwanids, a Kurdish dynasty, founded a Moslem principality in the upper basin of the Tigris. Their capital was at Diyarbekir, but their power extended northward over the mountains into the valley of the Mourad Su (Eastern Euphrates), which they controlled as far upwards as Melazkerd. They maintained themselves for a century, from 984 to 1085 A.D.
The imposing remains of churches and palaces at Ani and elsewhere have cast an undue glamour over the Bagratid House, which has been extended, again, to all the independent principalities of early medieval Armenia. In reality, this phase of Armenian history was hardly more happy than that which preceded it, and only appeared a Golden Age by comparison with the cataclysms that followed. From the national point of view it was almost as barren as the century of satrapial independence which preceded the reign of Tigranes, and in the politics of this period parochialism was never transcended. Bagratids and Ardzrounids were bitter rivals for the leadership of the nation, and did not scruple to call in Moslem allies against one another in their constant wars. The south-western part of the country remained under the rule of an alien Moslem dynasty, without any attempt being made to cast them out. Armenia had no second Tigranes in the Middle Ages, and the local renewals of political independence came and went without profit to the nation as a whole, which still depended for its unity upon the ecclesiastical tradition of the national Gregorian Church.
In the eleventh century A.D., a new power appeared in the East. The Arab Empire of the Caliphs had long been receiving an influx of Turks from Central Asia as slaves and professional soldiers, and the Turkish bodyguard had assumed control of politics at Baghdad. But this individual infiltration was now succeeded by the migration of whole tribes, and the tribes were organised into a political power by the clan of Seljuk. The new Turkish dynasty constituted itself the temporal representative of the Abbasid Caliphate, and the dominion of Mohammedan Asia was suddenly transferred from the devitalised Arabs to a vigorous barbaric horde of nomadic Turks.
These Turkish reinforcements brutalised and at the same time stimulated the Islamic world, and the result was a new impetus of conquest towards the borderlands. The brunt of this movement fell upon the unprepared and disunited Armenian principalities. In the first quarter of the eleventh century the Seljuks began their incursions on to the Armenian Plateau. The Armenian princes turned for protection to the East Roman Empire, accepted its suzerainty, or even surrendered their territory directly into its hands. But the Imperial Government brought little comfort to the Armenian people. Centred at Constantinople and cut off from the Latin West, it had lost its Roman universality and become transformed into a Greek national state, while the established Orthodox Church had developed the specifically Near Eastern character of a nationalist ecclesiastical organisation. The Armenians found that incorporation in the Empire exposed them to temporal and spiritual Hellenisation, without protecting them against the common enemy on the east. The Seljuk invasions increased in intensity, and culminated, in 1071 A.D., in the decisive battle of Melazkerd, in which the Imperial Army was destroyed and the Emperor Romanos II. taken prisoner on the field. Melazkerd placed the whole of Armenia at the Seljuk's mercy---and not only Armenia, but the Anatolian provinces of the Empire that lay between Armenia and Europe. The Seljuks carried Islam into the heart of the Near East.
The next four-and-a-half centuries were the most disastrous period in the whole political history of Armenia. It is true that a vestige of independence was preserved, for Roupen the Bagratid conducted a portion of his people south-westward into the mountains of Cilicia, where they were out of the main current of Turkish invasion, and founded a new principality which survived nearly three hundred years (1080-1375). There is a certain romance about this Kingdom of Lesser Armenia. It threw in its lot with the Crusaders, and gave the Armenian nation its first direct contact with modern Western Europe. But the mass of the race remained in Armenia proper, and during these centuries the Armenian tableland suffered almost ceaseless devastation.
The Seljuk migration was only the first wave in a prolonged outbreak of Central Asiatic disturbance, and the Seljuks were civilised in comparison with the tribes that followed on their heels. Early in the thirteenth century came Karluks and Kharizmians, fleeing across Western Asia before the advance of the Mongols ; and in 1235 came the first great raid of the Mongols themselves---savages who destroyed civilisation wherever they found it, and were impartial enemies of Christendom and Islam. All these waves of invasion took the same channel. They swept across the broad plateau of Persia, poured up the valleys of the Aras and the Tigris, burst in their full force upon the Armenian highlands and broke over them into Anatolia beyond. Armenia bore the brunt of them all, and the country was ravaged and the population reduced quite out of proportion to the sufferings of the neighbouring regions. The division of the Mongol conquests among the family of Djengis Khan established a Mongol dynasty in Western Asia which seated itself in Azerbaijan, accepted Islam and took over the tradition of the Seljuks, the Abbasids and the Sassanids. It was the old Asiatic Empire under a new name, but it had now incorporated Armenia and extended north-westwards to the Kizil Irmak (Halys). For the first time since Tigranes, the whole of Armenia was reabsorbed again in the East, and the situation grew still worse when the Empire of these "Ilkhans" fell to pieces and was succeeded in the fifteenth century by the petty lordship of Ak Koyunli, Kara Koyanli and other nomadic Turkish clans.
The progressive anarchy of four centuries was finally stilled by the rise of the Osmanli power. The seed of the Osmanlis was one of those Turkish clans which fled across Western Asia before the Mongols. They settled in the dominions of the Seljuk Sultans, who had established themselves at Konia, in Central Anatolia, and who allowed the refugees to carve out an obscure appanage on the marches of the Greek Empire, in the Asiatic hinterland of Constantinople. The son and successor of the founder was here converted from Paganism to Islam(208), towards the end of the thirteenth century A.D., and the name of Osman, which he adopted at his conversion, has been borne ever since by the subjects of his House.
The Osmanli State is the greatest and most characteristic Near Eastern Empire there has ever been. In its present decline it has become nothing but a blight to all the countries and peoples that remain under its sway ; but at the outset it manifested a faculty for strong government which satisfied the supreme need of the distracted Near Eastern world. This was the secret of its amazing power of assimilation, and this quality in turn increased its power of organisation, for it enabled the Osmanlis to monopolise all the vestiges of political genius that survived in the Near East. The original Turkish germ was quickly absorbed in the mass of Osmanlicised native Greeks(209). The first expansion of the State was westward, across the Dardanelles, and before the close of the fourteenth century the whole of South-Eastern Europe had become Osmanli territory, as far as the Danube and the Hungarian frontier. The seal was set on these European conquests when Sultan Mohammed II. entered Constantinople in 1453, and then the current of expansion veered towards the east. Mohammed himself absorbed the rival Turkish principalities in Anatolia, and annexed the Greek "Empire" of Trebizond. In the second decade of the sixteenth century, Sultan Selim I. followed this up with a sweeping series of campaigns, which carried him with hardly a pause from the Taurus barrier to the citadel of Cairo. Armenia was overrun in 1514 ; the petty Turkish chieftains were overthrown, the new Persian Empire was hurled back to the Caspian, and a frontier established between the Osmanli Sultans and the Shahs of Iran, which has endured, with a few fluctuations, until the present day.
In the sixteenth century the whole Near Eastern world, from the gates of Vienna(210) to the gates of Aleppo and Tabriz, found itself united under a single masterful Government, and once more Armenia was linked securely with the West. From 1514 onwards the great majority of the Armenian nation was subject to the Osmanli State. It is true that the province of Erivan (on the middle course of the Aras) was recovered by the Persians in the seventeenth century, and held by them till its cession to Russia in 1834. But, with this exception, the whole of Armenia remained under Osmanli rule until the Russians took Kars, in the war of 1878. These intervening centuries of union and pacification were, on the whole, beneficial to Armenia ; but with the year 1878 there began a new and sinister epoch in the relations between the Osmanli State and the Armenian nation.
III. DISPERSION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE ARMENIAN NATION.
We have now traced the political vicissitudes of Armenia down to its incorporation in the Ottoman Empire, and are in a position to survey the effects of this troubled political history on the social life and the geographical extension of the Armenian people.
At the present day the Armenians are, next to the Jews, the most scattered nation in the world, but this phenomenon does not begin to appear until a comparatively late stage in their history. At the time of the Partition of 387 A.D. they were still confined to a compact territory between the Euphrates, Lake Urmia and the River Kur. It was the annexation of the western marches to the Roman Empire that gave the first impetus to Armenian migration towards the west. After 387 A.D. the Roman frontier garrisons were moved forward into the new Armenian provinces, and these troops were probably recruited in the main, according to the general Roman custom, from the local population. But in the middle of the seventh century the Roman frontiers were shorn away by the advance of the new Arab power; the garrisons beyond the Euphrates were withdrawn towards the north-west, and, after a century of darkness and turmoil, during which all the old landmarks were effaced, we find that the "Armeniac Army Corps District" has shifted from the banks of the Euphrates to the banks of the Halys (Kizil Irmak) and become approximately coincident with the modern Vilayet of Sivas. This transference of the troops must have meant in itself a considerable transference of Armenians, and it can be taken for granted that the retiring armies were accompanied by a certain portion of the civilian population. We can thus date back to the seventh century the beginning of those flourishing Armenian colonies in the towns of north-eastern Anatolia which suffered so terribly in the ordeal of 1915.
The mountain zone between the Roman fortress of Sivas (Sebasteia) on the Halys and the Arab posts along the Euphrates, from Malatia to Erzeroum, was now debatable territory between the Moslem and the Christian Empires, and in the eighth century it was held by an independent community of Armenian heretics called Paulikians. These Paulikians led an untamed, Ishmaelitish existence. They were excommunicated for their tenets by the Gregorian Armenian Church, as well as by the Orthodox Patriarch at Constantinople, and they raided impartially in the territories of the Roman Empire and the Arab Caliphate. The Emperors waged against them a war of extermination, and anticipated the present Ottoman policy by deporting them from their mountain fastnesses to the opposite ends of the Imperial territory. In 752 A.D. a number of them were settled in Thrace, to exercise their military prowess in holding the frontier against the Bulgars ; and, in 969 A.D., the Emperor John Tzimiskes (himself an Armenian) transplanted a further body of them to Philippopolis. It may be doubted whether there is any direct connexion between them and the present (Gregorian) Armenian colony in the latter city, but their numbers and influence must have been considerable, if one may judge by the vigorous spread of their tenets among the Bulgars and the Southern Slavs, and they are noteworthy as the forerunners of the Armenian Dispersion in Europe, as well as of the Protestant Reformation.(211)
Migrations on a larger scale were produced by the Turkish invasions of the eleventh century. In 1021 A.D., for instance, the Ardzrounian Dynasty of Van surrendered its home territory to the Roman Empire in exchange for a more sheltered principality at Sivas. It only reigned sixty years in exile before it was overwhelmed there also by the advance of the Turkish tide; but the present Armenian villages in the Sivas Vilayet are doubtless derived from these Ardzrounian refugees. In the very year, again, in which the sovereignty of the Ardzrounids was extinguished at Sivas, the Bagratids of Ani founded themselves a second kingdom in Cilicia. We have spoken of this kingdom already: it is represented to-day by a chain of Armenian mountain towns and villages which stretches all the way from the headwaters of the Silioun (Saros) and Djihoun (Pyramos) to the shores of the Gulf of Alexandretta.
The still more terrible invasions of the thirteenth century scattered the Armenians even further afield. The relations of Lesser Armenia with the Crusader Principalities opened for the Armenians a door into Western Europe. When the Roupenian Dynasty became extinct, it was succeeded by a branch of the French House of Lusignan summoned from Cyprus, and in 1335 there was the first secession from the national Gregorian Church to the Communion of Rome. These new adherents to the Papal allegiance spread far and wide over Latin Christendom. A strong colony of Armenian Catholics established itself at Lemberg, recently won by Polish conquest for the Catholic Church; and others settled at Venice, the European focus of the Levantine trade. In this Venetian settlement the tradition of Armenian culture was kept alive by the famous brotherhood of Mekhitarist Monks. They founded the first Armenian printing press here, in 1565, and maintained a constant issue of Armenian publications. Their greatest work was a magnificent thesaurus of the Armenian .language, which appeared in 1836.
This Roman Catholic connexion has been of very great importance in preserving the link between Armenia and the west, and since the beginning of the nineteenth century the bonds have been strengthened by a Protestant strand. The American Missions in Turkey were founded in 1831. Debarred by the Ottoman Government from entering into relations with the Moslem population, they devoted themselves to the Christian elements, and the Armenians availed themselves more eagerly than any other Near Eastern nationality(212) of the gifts which the Americans offered. Four generations of mission work have produced a strong Protestant Armenian community, but proselytism has not been the deliberate object of the missionaries. They have set themselves to revive and not to convert the national Armenian Church, and their schools and hospitals have been open to. all who would attend them, without distinction of creed. Their wide and well-planned educational activity has always been the distinctive feature of these American Missions in the Ottoman Empire. Besides the famous Robert College and the College for Women on the Bosphorus, they have established schools and other institutions in many of the chief provincial towns, with fine buildings and full staffs of well-trained American and Armenian teachers. Due acknowledgment must also be given to the educational work of the Swiss Protestants and of the Jesuits; but it can hardly compare with the work of the Americans in scale, and will scarcely play the same part in Armenian history. There is little need here to speak in praise of the American missionaries ; their character will shine out to anyone who reads the documents in this volume. Their religion inspires their life and their work, and their utter sincerity has given them an extraordinary influence over all with whom they come in contact.
The Ottoman Government has trusted and respected them, because they are the only foreign residents in Turkey who are entirely disinterested on political questions ; the Gregorian Church cooperates with them and feels no jealousy, and all sections of the Armenian nation love them, because they come to give and not to get, and their gifts are without guile (213). America is exercising an unobtrusive but incalculable influence over the Near East. In the nineteenth century the missionaries came to its rescue from America ; in the twentieth century the return movement has set in, and the Near Eastern people are migrating in thousands across the Atlantic. The Armenians are participating in this movement at least as actively as the Greeks, the Roumans, the Serbs, the Montenegrins and the Slovaks, and one can already prophesy with assurance that their two-fold contact with America is the beginning of a new chapter in Armenian history.
Meanwhile the subjection of Armenia proper to the Mongol Ilkhans for nearly two centuries, and subsequently to the Shahs of modern Persia for certain transitory periods, produced a lesser, but not unimportant, dispersion towards the east. In the seventeenth century the skilled and cultured Armenian population of Djoulfa, on the River Aras, was carried away captive to the Persian capital of Ispahan, where the exiles started a printing press and established a centre of Armenian civilisation. Ever since then the Armenian element has been a factor in the politics and the social development of Iran, and from this new centre they have spread over the Indian Peninsula hand in hand with the extension of British rule.
Thus the Armenian nation has been scattered, in the course of the centuries, from Calcutta to New York, and has shown remarkable vitality in adapting itself to every kind of alien environment(214). The reverse side of the picture is the uprooting of the nation from its native soil. The immigrant tribes from Central Asia did not make a permanent lodgment in the Armenian homelands. Some of them drifted back into Azerbaijan and the steppe country along the coast of the Caspian and the lower courses of the Aras and the Kur; others were carried on towards the north-west, along the ancient Royal Road, and imposed the Moslem faith and the Turkish language upon the population of Central Anatolia. The Armenian plateau, entrenched between Tigris, Euphrates and Aras, stood out like a rock, dividing these two Turkish eddies. Nevertheless, the perpetual shock of the Seljuk and the Mongol raids relaxed the hold of the Armenians on the plateau. The people of the land were decimated by these invasions, and when the invaders had passed on beyond or vanished away, the terrible gaps in the ranks of the sedentary population of Armenia proper were filled by nomadic Kurdish shepherds from the south-east, who drifted into Old Armenia from the mountain girdle of Iran, just as the Albanians drifted into the Kossovo Plain from their own less desirable highlands, after the population of Old Serbia had been similarly decimated by the constant passage of the Ottoman armies.
This Kurdish penetration of Armenia had begun already by the tenth century A.D. ; it was far advanced when the Osmanlis annexed the country in 1514, and it was confirmed by the policy of the Ottoman Government, which sought to secure its new territories by granting privileges to the Kurdish intruders and inviting their influx in greater numbers from their homelands in the sphere of influence of the rival Persian Empire. The juxtaposition of nomad and cultivator, dominant Moslem and subject Giaour, was henceforth an ever-present irritant in the social and political conditions of the land ; but it did not assume a fatal and sinister importance until after the year 1878, when it was fiendishly exploited by the Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid.
But before we examine the relations between the Armenian nation and the Ottoman Government, it will be well to survey the distribution of the Armenian element in the Ottoman Empire, as it had developed during the four centuries of Ottoman rule that elapsed between the campaign of Selim I. and the intervention of Turkey in the present European War. The survey shall be brief, for it has been anticipated, sometimes in greater detail, in the separate notes prefixed to the different groups of documents in the volume.
A traveller entering Turkey by the Oriental Railway from Central Europe would have begun to encounter Armenians at Philippopolis in Bulgaria, and then at Adrianople, the first Ottoman city across the frontier. Had he visited any of the lesser towns of Thrace, he would have found much of the local trade and business in Armenian hands, and when he arrived at Constantinople he would have become aware that the Armenians were one of the most important elements in the Ottoman Empire. He would have seen them as financiers, as export and import merchants, as organisers of wholesale stores ; and when he crossed the Bosphorus and explored the suburban districts on the Asiatic side, he might even have fancied that the Armenian population in the Empire was numerically equal to the Turkish. The coast of the Sea of Marmora was overlooked by flourishing Armenian villages; at Armasha, above Ismid, there was a large Theological Seminary of the Gregorian Church, and there were important Swiss and American institutions at Bardizag (Baghtehedjik) and Adapazar. At Adapazar alone the Armenian population numbered 25,000.
Beyond Adapazar, however, the Armenian element dwindled, and anyone who followed the Anatolian Railway across Asia Minor to the rail-head in the northern spurs of Taurus, would have felt that he was travelling through an essentially Turkish land.
There were colonies of Armenian artisans and shopkeepers and business men in important places on the line, like Afiun Kara Hissar or Konia : but there were an equal number of Greeks, and both in town and country the Turks outnumbered them all. But once Taurus was crossed, the Armenians came again to the fore. They were as much at, home in the Cilician plain and coastland as on the littoral of the Sea of Marmora and the Bosphorus. Adana, Tarsus and Mersina, with their Armenian churches and schools, had the same appearance of being Armenian cities as Adapazar or Ismid ; and if at this point the traveller had left the beaten track and worked his way up north-eastward into the Cilician highlands, he would have found himself for the first time in an almost exclusively Armenian country, and would have remarked a higher percentage of Armenians in the population than in any other district of Turkey till he came to Van. But this belt of Armenian villages, though thickly set, was quickly passed, and when you emerged on the south-eastern side of it and stepped out on to the rim of the Mesopotamian amphitheatre, you had reached one of the boundaries of the Armenian Dispersion There were Armenian outposts in the cities of the fringe---Marash, Aintab, Ourfa, Aleppo---but as soon as you plunged into the Mesopotamian steppe or the Syrian desert You were in the Arabic world, and had left Armenia behind(215).
The traveller would have seen more of the Armenians if he had turned off from the Anatolian Railway at Eski Shehr, a few hours' journey south of Adapazar, and taken the branch line eastward to Angora. At Angora the Armenians were again a conspicuous element, and the further east you went from Angora the more they increased in social and numerical importance. Beyond the Kizil Irmak (Halys), in the Sandjak of Kaisaria and the Vilayet of Sivas, they constituted the great majority of the urban middle class. The strongest centres of Armenian national life in Turkey were towns like Marsovan, Amasia, Zila, Tokat, Shabin Kara-Hissar or the City of Sivas itself, or such smaller places as Talas and Everek in the neighbourhood of Kaisaria. In all this region Turks and Armenians were about equally balanced, Turks in the country and Armenians in the town, and the proportions were the same in the riviera zone along the Black Sea coast---Samsoun and Kerasond and Trebizond---though here other racial elements were intermingled---Lazes and Greeks, and the advance guards of the Kurds.
Trebizond in ancient times was the last Greek colony towards the east, and it is always a place that beckons travellers forward, for it is the terminus of that ancient caravan route which stretches away across Persia into the far interior of the Asiatic continent. Anyone who started to follow this highway across the mountains, through Gumushkhané and Baibourt to Erzeroum, would have noticed little change in these first stages of his journey from what he had seen in the Vilayet of Sivas. There were the same Turkish countryside and the same Armenian towns, with, perhaps, an increasing Armenian element in the rural population, culminating in an actual preponderance of Armenian villages when you reached the plain of Erzeroum. With Erzeroum the second section of the caravan road begins ; it crosses from valley to valley among the headwaters of the Aras and the Eastern Euphrates (Mourad Su), and winds away eastward at the foot of Ararat in the direction of Bayazid and Tabriz. But here the explorer of Armenia must turn his face to the south, and, as he does so, his eyes are met by a rampart of mountains more forbidding than those he has traversed on his journey from the coast, which stretch across the horizon both east and west.
This mountain barrier bears many names. It is called the Bingöl Dagh where it faces Erzeroum; further westward it merges into the ill-famed Dersim; but the whole range has a common character. Its steeper slope is towards the north, and this slope is washed by the waters of the Aras and the Kara Su (Western Euphrates), which flow east and west in diametrically opposite directions, flanking the foot of the mountain wall with a deep and continuous moat.
Whoever crosses this moat and penetrates the mountains passes at once into a different world. The western part of Turkey, which we have been describing so far, is a more or less orderly, settled country---as orderly and settled, on the whole,. as any of the other Near Eastern countries that lie between the Euphrates and Vienna. The population is sedentary; it lives in agricultural villages and open country towns. But when you cross the Euphrates, you enter a land of insecurity and fear. The peasant and townsman live on sufferance; the mastery is with the nomad ; you are setting foot on the domain of the Kurd.
This insecurity was the chronic condition of Armenia proper, and it was not merely due to the unfortunate political experiences of the land. In its geographical configuration, as well as in its history, the Armenian plateau is a country of more accentuated characteristics and violent contrasts than the Anatolian Peninsula which adjoins it on the west. It contains vast stretches of rolling, treeless down, where the climate is too bleak and the soil too thin for cultivation ; and, again, there are sudden depressions where the soil is as rich and the climate as favourable as anywhere in the world. There are the deep ravines of rivers, like the Mourad Su, which carve their course haphazard across tableland and plain. There are volcanic cones, like the Sipan and the Nimroud Dagh, and lacustrine areas, like the basin of Lake Van. The geography of the country has partitioned it eternally between the shepherd and the cultivator---the comparatively dense and sedentary population of the plains and the scattered and wandering inhabitants of the highlands---between civilisation and development on the one hand and an arrested state of barbarism on the other. The Kurd and the Armenian are not merely different nationalities ; they are also antagonistic economic classes, and this antagonism existed in the country before ever the Kurdish encroachments began. Most of the nomadic tribes that frequent the Armenian plateau now pass for Kurds, but many of them are only nominally so. In the Dersim country, for instance, which coincides roughly with the peninsula formed by the Western and Eastern branches of the Euphrates (Kara. Su and Mourad Su), the Kurds are strongly diluted with the Zazas, whose language, as far as it has been investigated, bears at least as much resemblance to Armenian as to Kurdish, and whose primitive paganism, though it may have taken some colour from Christianity, is free to this day from the slightest veneer of Islam.(216) These Zazas represent an element which must have existed in the land from the beginning and have harassed the national rulers of Medieval and Ancient Armenia as much as it harasses the modern Armenian townsman and peasant or the local Ottoman authorities.
On the eve of the catastrophe of 1915, this region beyond the Euphrates was a treasure-house of mingled populations and diversified forms of social life. Its north-western bastion is the Dersim, a no-man's-land of winding valleys and tiny upland plains, backing northwards on to the great mountain retaining-wall, with its sheer fall to the Euphratean moat. In the Dersim innumerable little clans of Zazas and Kurds lived, and continue to live, their pastoral, brigand life, secluded from the arm of Ottoman authority. A traveller proceeding south from Erzeroum would give the Dersim a wide berth on his right and cross the peninsula at its neck, by the headwaters of the Aras and the plain of Khnyss . He would strike the course of the Mourad Su where it cuts successively through the fertile, level plains of Melazkerd, Boulanik and Moush, and here he would find himself again for a moment (or would have done so two years ago) in peaceful, almost civilised surroundings---populous country towns, with a girdle of agricultural villages and a peasantry even more uniformly Armenian than the population of the plain of Erzeroum. The plain of Moush is the meeting-place of all the routes that traverse the plateau. If you ascend from its south-eastern corner and mount the southern spurs of the Nimroud volcano, you suddenly find yourself on the edge of the extensive basin of Lake Van, and can follow a mountain road along its precipitous southern shore ; then you descend into the open valley of Hayotz-Tzor, cross a final ridge with the pleasant village of Artamid on its slopes, and arrive a few hours later in the city of Van itself.
Van, again, before April, 1915, was the populous, civilised capital of a province, with a picturesque citadel-rock overlooking the lake and open garden suburbs spreading east of it across the plain. The City of Van, with the surrounding lowlands that fringe the eastern and north-eastern shores of the lake, was more thoroughly Armenian than any part of the Ottoman Empire. In the Van Vilayet(217) alone the Armenians not merely outnumbered each other racial element singly, but were an absolute majority of the total population. These Armenians of Van played a leading and a valiant part in the events of 1915.
Yet Van, though a stronghold of Armenian nationality, was also the extremity, in this direction, of Armenian territory; south-east of Van the upper valley of the Zab and the basin of Lake Urmia were jointly inhabited by Christian Syrians and Moslem Kurds, until the Syrians, too, were involved in the Armenians' fate. To complete our survey, we have to retrace our steps round the northern shores of Lake Van till we arrive once more in the plain of Moush.
The plain of Moush is closed in on the south and south-west by another rampart of mountains, which forms the southern wall of the plateau and repeats with remarkable exactness the structure of that northern wall which the traveller encounters when he turns south from the plain of Erzeroum. This southern range, also, falls precipitously towards the north, first into the plain of Moush, and, further westward, into the waters of the Mourad Su, which wash it like a moat all the way to their junction with the Kara Su, below Harpout. And, like the northern range, again, the southern rampart unfolds itself to the south in a maze of high hills and tangled valleys, which only sink by degrees into the plains of Diyarbekir---a detached bay of the great Mesopotamian steppe. These southern highlands are known as the Sassoun ; they are a physiographical counterpart to the highlands of Dersim, and are likewise the harbour of semi-independent mountaineers. But whereas the Dersimlis are pagan Zazas or Moslem Kurds, and were at constant feud with their Armenian neighbours, the Sassounlis were themselves Armenians, and were in the closest intercourse with their kinsmen in the valley of the Mourad Su and in the plains of Moush and Boulanik.
Sassoun was one of the most interesting Armenian communities in the Ottoman Empire. It was a federation of about forty mountain villages, which lived their own life in virtual independence of the Ottoman authorities at Bitlis or Diyarbekir, and held their own against the equally independent Kurdish tribes that ringed them round. They were prosperous shepherds and laborious cultivators of their mountain slopes---a perfect example of the cantonal phase of economic development, requiring nothing from outside and even manufacturing their own gunpowder. The Sassounli Armenians were in the same social stage as the Scottish Highlanders before 1745 ; the Armenians of Van, Sivas and Constantinople were people of the twentieth century, engaged in the same activities and living much the same life as the shopkeepers and business men of Vienna or London or New York.
Only an enterprising traveller would have struck up into Sassoun if he wished to make his way from Moush to Diyarbekir. The beaten track takes a longer course to the south-eastern corner of the plain, and then breasts the mountain wall to the south (where the branch-road turns eastward to Lake. Van). From Norshen, the last village of the plain, an easy pass leads over a saddle and brings the traveller unexpectedly to the important city of Bitlis, which lies under the shadow of the ridge, immediately south of the watershed. Bitlis is the capital of a vilayet, and before Djevdet Bey retreated upon it in June, 1915, there was a numerous Armenian element in its population. But Bitlis, again, was one of the limits of the Armenian dispersion. The waters which rise round the city flow southward to the Tigris, and the highroad winds down with them towards the plains, which are inhabited by a confused population of Jacobites(218) and Arabs, Turks and Kurds. If you had followed the Tigris upstream across the levels to Diyarbekir, you would have passed few Armenian villages on the road, even before June, 1915 ; and at Diyarbekir itself, a considerable city, there was only a weak Armenian colony---a feeble link in the chain of Armenian outposts on the fringe of the Mesopotamian steppe. But Diyarbekir is on the line of that Royal Road by which men have gone up from time immemorial from Baghdad and beyond to the coasts of the Bosphorus and the Egean. The highway runs on north-west across the flats, passes Arghana and Arghana Mines, climbs the southern escarpment of the Armenian plateau up the valley of the Arghana Su, skirts the Göldjik Lake on the watershed, and slopes down, still north-westwards, to Harpout, near the course of the Mourad Su. Many convoys of Armenian exiles traversed this road in the opposite direction during the summer months of 1915, on their way from their native plateau to the alien climate of the Arabian deserts. But our survey of the Armenians in Turkey is complete, and we can travel back in imagination from Harpout to Malatia, from Malatia to Sivas, and so on continually north-westward, till we return again to the point from which we started out.
This somewhat elaborate itinerary will have served its purpose if it has made clear the extraordinary vitality and versatility of the Armenian nation in the Ottoman Empire at the moment when its extermination was planned and attempted by the established Government of the country. The Government had been of little service to any of its subjects ; it had never initiated any social or economic developments on its own part, and had invariably made itself a clog upon the private enterprises of native or foreign individuals. Yet, under this pall of stagnation and repression, there were manifold stirrings of a new life. Wherever an opportunity presented itself, wherever the Government omitted to intervene, the Armenians were making indefatigable progress towards a better civilization. They were raising the pastoral and agricultural prosperity of their barren highlands and harassed plains; they were deepening and extending their education at the American schools ; they were laying the foundation of local industries in the Vilayet of Sivas ; they were building up Ottoman banking and shipping and finance at Trebizond and Adana and Constantinople. They were kindling the essential spark of energy in the Ottoman Empire, and anyone acquainted with Near Eastern history will inevitably compare their promise with the promise of the Greeks a century before. The apologists of the Ottoman Government will seize with eagerness upon this comparison. "The Greeks," they will say, "revolted as soon as they had fallen into this state of fermentation. The Young Turks did more prudently than Sultan Mahmoud in forestalling future trouble." But if we examine the relations between the Ottoman Government and the Armenian people we shall find that this argument recoils upon its authors' heads.
.
IV. THE ARMENIAN PEOPLE AND THE OTTOMAN GOVERNMENT.
When the Ottoman Government entered the European War in 1914 it had ruled Armenia for just four hundred years, and still had for its subjects a majority of the Armenian people. Anyone who inquires into the relations between the Government and the governed during this period of Near Eastern history will find the most contradictory opinions expressed. On the one hand he will be told that the Armenians, like the rest of the Christians in Turkey, were classed as "Rayah " (cattle[219]) by the dominant race, and that this one word sums up their irremediable position ; that they were not treated as citizens because they were not even treated as men. On the other hand, he will hear that the Ottoman Empire has been more liberal to its subject nationalities than many states in Western Europe ; that the Armenians have been perfectly free to live their own life under a paternal government, and that the friction between the Government and its subjects has been due to the native perversity and instability of the Armenian character, or, worse still, to a revolutionary poison instilled by some common enemy from without. Both these extreme views are out of perspective, but each of them represents a part of the truth.
It is undoubtedly true (to take the Turkish case first) that the Armenians have derived certain benefits from the Ottoman dispensation. The caste division between Moslem and Rayah, for instance, may stamp the Ottoman "State Idea" as mediaeval and incapable of progress ; but this has injured the state as a whole more appreciably than the penalised section of it, for extreme penalisation works both ways. The Government ruled out the Christians so completely from the dominant Moslem commonwealth that it suffered and even encouraged them to form communities of their own. The "Rayah" became "Millets"---not yoke-oxen, but unshackled herds.
These Christian Millets were instituted by Sultan Mohammed II, after he had conquered Constantinople in 1453 and set himself to reorganise the Ottoman State as the conscious heir of the East Roman Empire. They are national corporations with written charters, often of an elaborate kind. Each of them is presided over by a Patriarch, who holds office at the discretion of the Government, but is elected by the community and is the recognised intermediary between the two, combining in his own person the headship of a voluntary "Rayah" association and the status of an Ottoman official. The special function thus assigned to the Patriarchates gives the Millets, as an institution, an ecclesiastical character(220) ; but in the Near East a church is merely the foremost aspect of a nationality, and the authority of the Patriarchates extends to the control of schools, and even to the administration of certain branches of civil law. The Millets, in fact, are practically autonomous bodies in all that concerns religion, culture and social life ; but it is a maimed autonomy, for it is jealously debarred from any political expression. The establishment of the Millets is a recognition, and a palliation, of the pathological anomaly of the Near East---the political disintegration of Near Eastern peoples and the tenacity with which they have clung, in spite of it, to their corporate spiritual life.
The organisation of the Millets was not a gain to all the Christian nations that had been subjected by the Ottoman power. Certain orthodox populations, like the Bulgars and the Serbs, actually lost an ecclesiastical autonomy which they had enjoyed before, and were merged in the Millet of the Greeks, under the Orthodox Patriarch at Constantinople. The Armenians, on the other hand, improved their position. As so-called schismatics, they had hitherto existed on sufferance under Orthodox and Catholic governments, but the Osmanlis viewed all varieties of Christian with an impartial eye. Mohammed II. summoned the Gregorian Bishop of the Armenian colony at Broussa, and raised him to the rank of an Armenian Patriarch at Constantinople. The Ottoman conquest thus left the Gregorian Armenians their religious individuality and put them on a legal equality with their neighbours of the Orthodox Faith, and the same privileges were extended in time to the Armenians in communion with other churches. The Gregorian Millet was chartered in 1462, the Millet of Armenian Catholics in 1830, and the Millet of Armenian Protestants in the 'forties of the nineteenth century, as a result of the foundation of the American Missions.
The Armenians of the Dispersion, therefore, profited, in that respect, by Ottoman rule, and even in the Armenian homeland the account stood, on the whole, in the Ottoman Government's favour. The Osmanlis are often blamed for having given the Kurds a footing in this region, as a political move in their struggle with Persia; but the Kurds were not, originally, such a scourge to the Armenians as the Seljuks, Mongols, or Kara Koyunli, who had harried the land before, or as the Persians themselves, whom the Osmanlis and the Kurds ejected from the country. The three centuries of Kurdish feudalism under Ottoman suzerainty that followed Sultan Selim's campaign of 1514 were a less unhappy period for the Armenians than the three centuries and more of anarchy that had preceded them. They were a time of torpor before recuperation, and it was the Ottoman Government again that, by a change in its Kurdish policy, enabled this recuperation to set in. In the early part of the nineteenth century a vigorous anti-feudal, centralising movement was initiated by Sultan Mahmoud, a reformer who has become notorious for his unsuccessful handling of the Greek and Serbian problems without receiving the proper credit for his successes further east. He turned his attention to the Kurdish chieftains in 1834, and by the middle of the century his efforts had practically broken their power. Petty feudalism was replaced by a bureaucracy centred in Constantinople. The new officialdom was not ideal; it had new vices of its own ; but it was impartial, by comparison, towards the two races whom it had to govern, for the class prejudice of the Moslem against the well-behaved Rayah was balanced by the exasperation of the professional administrator with the unconscionable Kurd. In any case, this remodelling of the Ottoman State in the early decades of the nineteenth century introduced a new epoch in the history of the Armenian people. Coinciding, as it did, with the establishment of the American Missions and the chartering of the Catholic and Protestant Millets, it opened to the Armenians opportunities of which they availed themselves to the full. An intellectual and economic renaissance of Armenian life began, parallel in many respects to the Greek renaissance a century before.
This comparison brings us back to the question: Was the Armenian revival of the nineteenth century an inevitable menace to the sovereignty and integrity of the Ottoman State ? Is the disastrous breach between Armenian and Turk, which has actually occurred, simply the fruit of wrong-headed Armenian ambitions ? That is the Turkish contention; but here the Turkish case breaks down, and we shall find the truth on the Armenian side.
The parallel with the Greek renaissance is misleading, if it implies a parallel with the Greek revolution. The Greek movement towards political separatism was, in a sense, the outcome of the general spiritual movement that preceded it; but it was hardly an essential consequence, and certainly not a fortunate one. The Greek War of Independence liberated one fraction of the Greek race at the price of exterminating most of the others and sacrificing the favoured position which the Greek element had previously enjoyed throughout the Ottoman Empire. It was not an encouraging precedent for the Armenians, and the objections to following it in their own case were more formidable still. As we have seen, no portion of Ottoman territory was exclusively inhabited by them, and they were nowhere even in an absolute majority, except in certain parts of the Province of Van, so that they had no natural rallying point for a national revolt, such as the Greeks had in the Islands and the Morea. They were scattered from one end to another of the Ottoman Empire; the whole Empire was their heritage, and it was a heritage that they must necessarily share with the Turks, who were in a numerical majority and held the reins of political power. The alternative to an Ottoman State was not an Armenian State, but a partition among the Powers, which would have ended the ambitions of Turk and Armenian alike. The Powers concerned were quite ready for a partition, if only they could agree upon a division of the spoils. This common inheritance of the Armenians and the Turks was potentially one of the richest countries in the Old World, and one of the few that had not yet been economically developed. Its native inhabitants, still scanty, backward and divided against themselves, were not yet capable of defending their title against spoilers from without ; they only maintained it at present by a fortuitous combination in the balance of power, which might change at any moment. The problem for the Armenians was not how to overthrow the Ottoman Empire but how to preserve it, and their interest in its preservation was even greater than that of their Turkish neighbours and co-heirs. Our geographical survey has shown that talent and temperament had brought most of the industry, commerce, finance and skilled intellectual work of Turkey into the Armenians' hands. The Greeks may still have competed with them on the Ægean fringe, and the Sephardi Jews in the Balkans, but they had the whole interior of the Empire to themselves, with no competition to fear from the agricultural Turks or the pastoral Kurds. And if the Empire were preserved by timely reforms from within, the position of the Armenians would become still more favourable, for they were the only native element capable of raising the Empire economically, intellectually and morally to a European standard, by which alone its existence could permanently be secured. The main effort must be theirs, and they would reap the richest reward.
Thus, from the Armenian point of view, a national entente with the Turks was an object of vital importance, to be pursued for its ultimate results in spite of present difficulties and drawbacks. About the middle of the nineteenth century there seemed every likelihood of its being attained. The labours of Sultan Mahmoud and the influence of Great Britain and France had begun to inoculate the Turkish ruling class with liberal ideas. An admirable "Law of Nationalities" was promulgated, and there was a project for a parliamentary constitution. It looked, to an optimist, as if the old mediaeval caste-division of Moslem and Rayah might die away and allow Armenian, Turk and Kurd to find their true relation to one another---not as irreconcilable sects or races, but as different social elements in the same community, whose mutual interest was to co-operate for a common end.
This was the logical policy for the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire to pursue, and the logic of it was so clear that they have clung to it through difficulties and drawbacks sufficient to banish logic altogether ---" difficulties" which amounted to a bankruptcy of political sense in the Imperial Government, and "drawbacks" which culminated in official massacres of the Armenian population. There were two causes of this sinister turn of events: the external crisis through which the Empire passed in the years 1875-8, and the impression this crisis made upon Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid, who came to the throne in 1876, when it was entering upon its gravest phase.
In these years the Empire had been brought to the verge of ruin by the revolt of a subject Christian population, the Bosniak Serbs, which spread to the other subject races in the Balkan provinces, and by a momentary breakdown in the diplomatic mechanism of the European balance of power, which enabled Russia to throw her military force into the scales on the Balkan rebels' behalf. The ruin was arrested and partially repaired, when Turkey lay prostrate under Russia's heel, by a reassertion of the balance of power, which deprived Russia of most of her gains and half the Balkan Christians of their new-won liberties. Abd-ul-Hamid was clever enough to learn from these experiences, but not, unfortunately, to learn aright, and he devoted all his astuteness to carrying out a policy far more injurious to the Empire than the troubles it was meant to avert. He seems to have inferred from the war with Russia that Turkey was not and never would be strong enough to hold its own against a first-class power ; it was not her internal strength that had saved her, but the external readjustment of forces. Therefore, any attempt to strengthen the Empire from within, by reconciling its racial elements and developing its natural resources, was Utopian and irrelevant to the problem. The only object of importance was to insure against an attack by any single Power by keeping all the Great Powers in a state of jealous equilibrium. Now the breakdown of this equilibrium, in 1877, which had been so disastrous for Turkey, had been directly caused by an antecedent disturbance of equilibrium within the Empire itself. A subject Christian nationality had tried to break away violently from the Ottoman body-politic. Here was the root of the whole trouble, to Abd-ul-Hamid's mind, and the primary object of his policy must be to prevent such a thing from happening again. The subject nationalities of the Empire were not for him unrealised assets; they were potential destroyers of the State, more formidable even than the foreign Powers. Their potentialities must be neutralised, and the surest course, with them as with the Powers, was to play them off against one another. In fine, the policy of Abd-ul-Hamid was the exact antithesis of the instinctive Armenian policy which we have indicated above; it was not to strengthen the Empire by bringing the nationalities into harmony, but to weaken the nationalities, at whatever cost to the Empire, by setting them to cut each other's throats. Abd-ul-Hamid applied this policy for forty years. The Macedonians and the Armenians were his special victims, but only the Armenians concern us here.
It was inevitable that the Armenians should be singled out by Abd-ul-Hamid for repression. When Turkey sued for peace in 1878, the Russian troops were in occupation of the greater part of the Armenian plateau, and the Russian plenipotentiaries inserted an Article (No. 16) in the Treaty of San Stefano making the evacuation of these provinces conditional upon the previous introduction of reforms in their administration by the Ottoman Government. A concrete scheme for the reorganisation of the six vilayets in question(221) had already been drawn up by a delegation of their Armenian inhabitants. It provided for the creation of an Armenian Governor-General, empowered to appoint and remove the officials subordinate to him; a mixed gendarmerie of Armenians and the sedentary elements in the Moslem population, to the exclusion of the nomadic Kurds; a general assembly, consisting of Moslem and Christian deputies in equal numbers; and equal rights for every creed. The Ottoman Government had approved and even encouraged this project of provincial autonomy when it feared that the alternative was the cession of the provinces to Russia. As soon as it had made certain of the Russian evacuation, its approval turned to indifference; and when the European Congress met at Berlin to revise the San Stefano Treaty, the Ottoman emissaries exerted themselves to quash the project altogether. In this they were practically successful, for the Treaty drawn up at Berlin by the Congress merely engaged the Ottoman Government, in general terms(222), to introduce "ameliorations" in the " provinces inhabited by Armenians," without demanding any guarantee at all(223). The Russian troops were withdrawn and the ameliorations were a dead letter. The Ottoman Government was reminded of them, in 1880, by a collective Note from the six Powers. But it left the Note unanswered, and after the diplomatic démarches had dragged on for two years the question was shelved, on Bismarck's suggestion, because no Power except Great Britain would press it.
The seed of the "Armenian Reforms" had thus fallen upon stony ground, except in the mind of Abd-ul-Hamid, where it lodged and rankled till it bore the fruit of the "Armenian Massacres." The project had not really been a menace to Ottoman sovereignty and integrity. It was merely a proposal to apply in, six vilayets that elementary measure of "amelioration" which was urgently needed by the Empire as a whole, and without, which it could never begin to develop its internal strength. But, to Abd-ul-Hamid it was unforgivable, for to him every concession to a subject Christian nationality was suspect. He had seen the Bulgars given ecclesiastical autonomy by the Ottoman Government in 1870 and then raised by Russia, within eight years, into a semi-independent political principality. Armenian autonomy had been averted for the moment, but the parallel might still hold good, for Russia's influence over the Armenians had been increasing.
Russia had conquered the Armenian provinces of Persia in 1828(224), and this had brought within her frontier the Monastery of Etchmiadzin, in the Khanate of Erivan, which was the seat of the Katholikos of All the Armenians. The power of this Katholikos was at that time very much in abeyance. He was an ecclesiastical relic of, the ancient united Armenian Kingdom of Tigranes and Tiridates, which had been out of existence for fourteen hundred years. There was another Katholikos at Sis, a relic of the mediaeval kingdom of Cilicia, who did not acknowledge his supremacy, and he was thrown into the shade altogether by the Armenian Patriarch at Constantinople, who was the official head of the Armenian Millet in the Ottoman Empire---at that time an overwhelming majority of the Armenian people.
But Russian diplomacy succeeded in reviving the Katholikos of Etchmiadzin's authority. In the 'forties of the nineteenth century, when Russian influence at Constantinople was at its height and Russian protection seemed the only recourse for Turkey against the ambition of Mehemet Ali, the ecclesiastical supremacy of Etchmiadzin over Constantinople and Sis was definitely established, and the Katholikos of Etchmiadzin, a resident in Russian territory, became once more the actual as well as the titular head of the whole Gregorian Church. Russia had thus acquired an influence over the Armenians as a nation, and individual Armenians were acquiring a reciprocal influence in Russia. They had risen to eminence, not only in commerce, but in the public service and in the army. They had distinguished themselves particularly in the war of 1877. Loris Melikov, Lazarev and Tergoukasev, three of, the most successful generals on the Russian side, were of Armenian nationality. Melikov had taken the fortress of Kars, and the Treaty of Berlin left his conquest in Russia's possession with a zone of territory that rounded off the districts ceded by Persia fifty years before. The Russian frontier was thus pushed forward on to the Armenian plateau, and now included an important Armenian population---important enough to make its mark on the general life of the Russian Empire(225) and to serve as a national rallying-point for the Armenians who still remained on the Ottoman side of the line.
Such considerations outweighed all others in Abd-ul-Hamid's mind. His Armenian subjects must be deprived of their formidable vitality, and he decided to crush them by resuscitating the Kurds. From 1878 onwards he encouraged their lawlessness, and in 1891 he deliberately undid the work of his predecessor, Mahmoud. The Kurdish chieftains were taken again into favour and decorated with Ottoman military rank; their tribes were enrolled as squadrons of territorial cavalry ; regimental badges and modern rifles were served out to them from the Government stores, and their retaining fee was a free hand to use their official status and their official weapons as they pleased against their Armenian neighbours. At the same time the latter were systematically disarmed ; the only retaliation open to them was the formation of secret revolutionary societies, and this fitted in entirely with Abd-ul-Hamid's plans, for it made a racial conflict inevitable. The disturbances began in 1893 with the posting up of revolutionary placards in Yozgad and Marsovan. This was soon followed by an open breach between Moslem and Christian in the. districts of Moush and Sassoun, and there was a rapid concentration of troops---some of them Turkish regulars, but most of them Hamidié Kurds. Sassoun was besieged for several months, and fell in 1894. The Sassounlis---men, women and children---were savagely massacred by the Turks and Kurds, and the attention of Great Britain was aroused. In the winter of 1894-5 Great Britain persuaded France and Russia to join her in reminding the Ottoman Government of its pledge to introduce provincial reforms, and in the spring they presented a concrete programme for the administration of the Six Vilayets. In its final form it was a perfunctory project, and the counter-project which the Ottoman Government announced its intention of applying in its stead was more illusory still. It was promulgated in 1895, but the first of a new series of organised massacres had already taken place a few days earlier, at Trebizond, and in the following months the slaughter was extended to one after another of the principal towns of the Empire. These atrocities were nearly all committed against peaceful, unarmed urban populations. The only place that resisted was Zeitoun, which held out. for six months against a Turkish army, and was finally amnestied by the mediation of the Powers. The anti-Armenian outbreaks were instigated and controlled by the Central Government, and were crowned, in August, 1896, by the great massacre at Constantinople, where for two days the Armenians, at the Government's bidding, were killed indiscriminately in the streets, until the death-roll amounted to many thousands. Then Abd-ul-Hamid held his hand. He had been feeling the pulse of public opinion, both abroad and at home, and he saw that he had gone far enough(226). In all more than 100,000 men, women and children had perished, and for the moment he had sufficiently crippled the Armenian element in his Empire.
Yet this Macchiavellian policy was ultimately as futile as it was wicked. In the period after the massacres the Armenian population in Turkey was certainly reduced, partly by the actual slaughter and partly by emigration abroad. But this only weakened the Empire without permanently paralysing the Armenian race. The emigrants struck new roots in the United States and in the Russian Caucasus, acquired new resources, enlisted new sympathies ; and Russia was the greatest gainer of all. The Armenians had little reason, at the time, to look towards Russia with special sympathy or hope. In Russia, as in Turkey, the war of 1877-8 had been followed by a political reaction, which was aggravated by the assassination of the Tsar, Alexander II., in 1881 ; and the Armenians, as an energetic, intellectual, progressive element in the Russian Empire, were classed by the police with the revolutionaries, and came under their heavy hand. Yet once an Armenian was on the Russian side of the frontier his life and property at least were safe. He could be sure of reaping the fruits of his labour, and had not to fear sudden death in the streets. During the quarter of a century that followed the Treaty of Berlin, the Armenian population of the Russian provinces increased remarkably in prosperity and numbers, and now, after the massacres, they were reinforced by a constant stream of Ottoman refugees. The centre of gravity of the Armenian race was shifting more and more from Ottoman to Russian territory. Russia has profited by the crimes of her neighbours. The Hamidian régime lasted from 1878 to 1908, and did all that any policy could do to widen the breach between the Ottoman State and the Armenian people. Yet the natural community of interest was so strong that even thirty years of repression did not make the Armenians despair of Ottoman regeneration.
Nothing is more significant than the conduct of the Armenians in 1908, when Abd-ul-Hamid was overthrown by the Young Turkish Revolution, and there was a momentary possibility that the Empire might be reformed and preserved by the initiative of the Turks themselves. At this crisis the real attitude of the different nationalities in the Empire was revealed. The Kurds put up a fight for Abd-ul-Hamid, because they rejoiced in the old dispensation. The Macedonians---Greek, Bulgar and Serb---who had been the Armenians' principal fellow-victims in the days of oppression, paid the Constitution lip-homage and secretly prepared to strike. They were irreconcilable irredentists, and saw in the reform of the Empire simply an obstacle to their secession from it. They took counsel with their kinsmen in the independent national States of Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece, and, four years later, the Balkan League attacked Turkey and tore away her Macedonian provinces by force.
The Armenians, on the other hand, threw themselves wholeheartedly into the service of the new régime. As soon as the Ottoman Constitution was restored, the Armenian political parties abandoned their revolutionary programme in favour of parliamentary action, and co-operated in Parliament with the Young Turkish bloc so long as Young Turkish policy remained in any degree liberal or democratic. The terrible Adana massacres, which occurred less than a year after the Constitution had been proclaimed, might have damped the Armenians' enthusiasm (though at first the proof that the Young Turks were implicated in them was not so clear as it has since become). Yet they showed their loyalty in 1912, when the Turks were fighting for their existence. It was only under the new laws that the privilege and duty of military service had been extended to the Christian as well as the Moslem citizens of the Empire, and the disastrous Balkan Campaign was the first opportunity that Armenian soldiers were given of doing battle for their common heritage. But they bore themselves so well in this ordeal that they were publicly commended by their Turkish commanders. Thus, in war and peace, in the Army and in Parliament, the Armenians worked for the salvation of the Ottoman Commonwealth, from the accession of the Young Turks in 1908 till their intervention in the European War in 1914. It is impossible to reconcile with this fact the Turkish contention that in 1914 they suddenly reversed their policy and began treacherously to plot for the Ottoman Empire's destruction. | ||||||||
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Historical Summary:
The War and Armenia
AJ Toynbee
I. THE EUROPEAN WAR AND ARMENIA.
The War has brought us into a new relation with Armenia and the Armenian people. We knew them before as the name of an ancient civilization, a stubborn rearguard of Christendom in the East, a scene of mission work and massacres and international rivalry; but only a few of us -- missionaries, geographers, travellers and an occasional newspaper correspondent -- were personally acquainted with the country and its inhabitants. To most people they remained a name, and when we read of their sufferings or traditions or achievements they made little more impression than the doings of the Hittites and Assyrians, who moved across the same Near Eastern amphitheatre several millenniums ago. We had no living contact, no natural relation, with Armenia in our personal or even in our political life.
Such a relation has suddenly been created between us by the War, and it is one of the strangest ironies of war that it fuses together and illuminates the very fabric it destroys. The civilisation in which we lived was like a labyrinth, so huge and intricate that none of the dwellers in it could altogether grasp its structure, while most of them were barely conscious that it had any structural design at all. But now that the War has caught it and it is all aflame, the unity and symmetry of the building are revealed to the common eye. As the glare lights it up from end to end, it stands out in its glory, in matchless outline and perspective; for the first time (and possibly for the last) we see its parts simultaneously and in proper relation, and realise for one moment the marvel and mystery of this civilization that is perishing -- the subtle, immemorial, unrelaxing effort that raised it up and maintained it, and the impossibility of improvising any equivalent structure in its place. Then the fire masters its prey; the various parts of the labyrinth fall in one by one, the light goes out of them, and nothing is left but smoke and ashes. This is the catastrophe that we are witnessing now, and we do not yet know whether it will be possible to repair it. But if the future is not so dark as it appears, and what has perished can in some measure be restored, our best guide and inspiration in the task will be that momentary, tragic, unique vision snatched out of the catastrophe itself.
The Armenians are not protagonists in the War; they bear none of the guilt for its outbreak and can have little share in the responsibility of building up a better future. But they have been seared more cruelly than any of us by the flames, and, under this fiery ordeal, their individual character as a nation and their part in the community of the civilized world have been thrown into their true relief.
For the first time, England and the Armenians are genuinely in touch with one another. In this desperate struggle between freedom and reaction we are fighting on the same side, striving for the same end. Our lot in the struggle has not, indeed, been the same, for while England able to act as well as to suffer, the Armenians have suffered with hardly the power to strike. But this difference of external fortune only strength inward moral bond; for we, who are strong, are fight merely for this or that political advantage, this or that territorial change, but for a principle. The Powers of the Entente have undertaken the championship of small nationalities that cannot champion themselves. We have solemnly acknowleded obligation to fulfil our vow in the case of Belgium and and now that the Armenians have been overtaken by a still worse fate than the Serbians and the Belgians, their cause, too, been taken up into the general cause of the Allies. We cannot limit our field in doing battle for our ideal.
It is easier, of course, for the people of France, Great Britain and America to sympathize with Belgium than with a more unfamiliar nation in a distant zone of the War. It needs little imagination to realize acutely that the Belgians are " people like ourselves," suffering all that we should suffer if the same atrocities were committed upon us; and this realisation was made easy by the speedy publication of minute, abundant, first-hand testimony. The Armenians have no such immediate access to our sympathies, and the initial unfamiliarity can only be overcome by a personal effort on the part of those who give ear to their case; but the evidence on which that case rests has been steadily accumulating, until now it is scarcely less complete or less authoritative than the evidence relating to Belgium. The object of the present volume has been to present the documents to English and American readers in as accurate and orderly a form as possible.
Armenia has not been without witness in her agony. Intense suffering means intense emotional experience, and this emotion has found relief in written records of the intolerable events which obsessed the witnesses' memories. Some of the writers are Armenians, a larger number are Americans and Europeans who were on the spot, and who were as poignantly affected as the victims themselves. There are a hundred and forty-nine of these documents, and many of them are of considerable length; in their total effect they are something more than an exhaustive catalogue of the horrors they set out to describe. The flames of war illuminate the structure of the building as well as the destruction of it, and the testimony extorted under this fieru ordeal gives an extraordinarily vivid impression of Armenian life -- the life of plain and mountain, town and village, intelligentzia and bourgeoisie and peasantry -- at the moment when it was overwhelmed by the European catastrophe.
In Armenia, though not in Europe, the flames have almost burnt themselves out, and, for the moment, we can see nothing beyond smoke and ashes. Life will assuredly spring up when the ashes are eleared away, for attempts to exterminate nations by atrocity, though certain of producing, almost infinite human suffering, have seldom succeeded in their ulterior aim. But in whatever shape the new Armenia arises, it will be some- thing utterly different from the old. The Armenians have been a very typical element in that group of humanity which Europeans call the "Near East," but which might equally well be called the ''Near West" from the Indian or the Chinese point of view*. There has been something pathological about the history of this Near Eastern World. It has had an undue share of political misfortunes, and had lain for centuries in a kind of spiritual paralysis between East and West -- belonging to neither, partaking paradoxically of both, and wholly unable to rally itself decidedly to one or the other -- when it was involved with Europe in the European War. The shock of that crowning catastrophe seems to have brought the spiritual neutrality of the Near East to a violent end, and however dubious the future of Europe may be, it is almost certain that it will be shared henceforth by all that lies between the walls of Vienna and the walls of Aleppo and Tabriz**. This final gravitation towards Europe may be a benefit to the Near East or another chapter in its misfortunes -- that depends on the condition in which Europe emerges from the War; but, in either case, it will be a new departure in its history. It has been drawn at last into a stronger orbit, and will travel on its own paralytic, paradoxical course no more. This gives a historical interest to any record of Near Eastern life in the last moments of the Ancient Regime, and these Armenian documents supply a record of a very intimate and characteristic kind. The Near East has never been more true to itself than in its lurid dissolution; past and present are fused together in the flare.
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* There seems to be no available name to convey the Janus-character of this region. "Balkan " has all the connotation, but the word is allocated already to a much too limited geographical area. " Levantino " covers a wider geographical field, but suggests merely the superficial characteristics which the Near Eastern peoples share with many others in a certain transient stage of development.
** The limits of the Near East are not easy to define. On the north-west, Vienna is the most conspicuous boundary-mark, but one might almost equally well single out Trieste or Lvov or even Prag. Towards the southeast, the boundaries are even more shadowy. It is perhaps best to equate them with the frontiers of the Arabic language, yet the genius of the Near East overrides linguistic barriers, and encroaches on the Arabic-speaking world on the one side as well as on the German-speaking world on the other. Syria is essentially a Near Eastern country, and a physical geographer would undoubtedly carry the Near Eastern frontiers up to the desert belt of the Sahara, Nefud and Kevir.
II. AN OUTLINE OF ARMENIAN HISTORY.
The documents in this volume tell their own story, and a reader might be ignorant of the places with which they and the points of history to which they refer, and yet learn from them more about human life in the Near East than from study of text-books and atlases. At the same time a general acquaintance with the geographical setting and historical antecedents is clearly an assistance in understanding the full significance of the events recorded here, and as this information is not widely spread or very easily accessible, it has seemed well to publish an outline of it, for the reader's convenience, in the same volume as the documents themselves. As many as possible of the places referred to are marked on the map at the end of book, while here, in this historical summary, a brief account may be given of who the Armenians are and where they live.
Like the English, the French and most other nations, Armenians have developed a specific type of countenance, yet it would not always be easy to tell them by sight, for they are as hybrid in their physical stock as every other European or Near Eastern people. There are marked differences of pigmentation, feature and build between the Armenians of the East, and South and between the mountaineers, plain-dwellers and people of the towns and it would be rash to speculate when these various strains came in, or to lay it down that they were not all present already at the date at which we first begin know something about the inhabitants of the country*.
We hear of them first in the annals of Assyria, where the Armenian plateau appears as the land of Nairi -- a no-man'sland, raided constantly but ineffectually by Assyrian armies fron the lowlands of Mosul. But in the ninth century B.C. the petty cantons of Nairi coalesced into the Kingdom of Urartu**, which fought Assyria on equal terms for more than two hundred years has left a native record of its own. The Kings of Urartu made their dwelling on the citadel of Van+. The face of the rock is covered with their inscriptions, which are also found as far afield
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* There is one physical type, classified by ethnologists as " Armenoid" or Anatolian," which seems to be both indigenous and persistent in the Anatolian Peninsula and in the triangle included between the Black the Mediterranean and the Caspian. Its characteristics are very individual -- a " sugarloaf " skull, broad from side to side and sliced off at the back; prominent cheek-bones; a fleshy, hooked nose; and a rather clumsy, thick-set body. These features are distinguishable in the ancient Hitites of Eastern Anatolia, as they are portrayed in the native and Egytian monuments of the I4th and 13th centuries B.C.; in the modern Tchatchadze nomads of Lycia (the extreme South-West of the Peninsula), and in a considerable percentage of the living Armenian people, scattered all the Near East.
** Called "Ararat " in the Bible and "Alarodioi " by Herodotus.
+ " The City of Dhuspas (Tosp) in the land of Biaina (Van)." In the course of history the names have been transposed, Van is now the town and Tosp the district.
as the neighbourhood of Malatia, Erzeroum and Alexandropol. They borrowed from Assyria the cuneiform script, and the earliest inscriptions at Van are written in the Assyrian language; but they quickly adapted the foreign script to their native tongue, which has been deciphered by English and German scholars, and is considered by them to be neither Semitic nor Indo-European, or yet to have any discernible affinity with the still obscurer anguage of the Hittites further west. We can only assume that the people who spoke it were indigenous in the land. Probably they were of one blood with their neighbours in the direction of the Caucasus and the Black Sea, Saspeires* and Chalybes and others; and if, as ethnology seems to show, an indigenous stock is practically ineradicable, these primitive peoples of the plateau are probably the chief ancestors, in the physical sense, of the present Armenian races.
The modern Armenian language, on the other hand, is not descended from the language of Urartu, but is an Indo-European tongue. There is a large non-Indo-European element in it -- larger than in most known branches of the Indo-European family -- and this has modified its syntax as well as its vocabulary. It has also borrowed freely and intimately from the Persian language in all its phases -- a natural consequence of the political supremacy which Iran asserted over Armenia again and again, from the sixth century B.C. to the nineteenth century A.D. But when all these accretions have been analysed and discarded, the philologists pronounce the basis of modern Armenian to be a genuine Indo-European idiom -- either a dialect of the Iranian branch or an independent variant, holding an intermediate position between Iranian and Slavonic.
This language is a much more important factor in the national consciousness of the modern Armenians than their ultimate physical ancestry, but its origin is also more difficult to trace. Its Indo-European character proves that, at some date or other, it must have been introduced into the country from without++, and the fact that a non-Indo-European language held the field under the Kings of Urartu suggests that it only established itself after the Kingdom of Urartu fell. But the earliest literary monuments of the modern tongue only date from the fifth century
------------------------------
* Round the present town of Isbir, in the Tchorok Valley.
+ The chief evidence for the racial unity of all these primitive populations is the survival of the name of Khaldis, the national god of Urartu, throughout the Armenian plateau. On the banks of the Aras we have the district of Khaldiran, and the northern affluents of the river are fed by Lake Khaldir. Further west, the modern Vilayet of Trebizond was called the Province of Khaldia under the late Roman Empire, and there is still a Diocese of Khaldia maintained by the Orthodox Greek Church in the immediate hinterland of Trebizond.
+ +The original focus from which the Indo-European languages spread having been situated apparently in what is now Austria-Hungary and the Ukraine.
A.D., a thousand years later than the Vast inscription Urartian language, so that, as far as the linguistic evidence is concerned, the change may have occurred at any time within this period. One language, however, does not usually supplant another without considerable displacements of population, and the only historical event of this kind sufficient in scale to produce such a result seems to be the migration of the Cimmerians and Scythians in the seventh century B.C. These were nomadic tribes from the Russian steppes, who made their way roound the eastern end of the Caucasus, burst through into the Moghan plains and the basin of Lake Urmia, and terrorised Western Asia for several generations, till they were broken by the power of the Medes and absorbed in the native population. It was they who made an end of the Kingdom of Urartu, and the language they brought with them was probably an Indo-European dialect answering to the basic element in modern Armenian. Probaility thus points to these seventh century invaders as being the source of the present language, and perhaps also of the the mysterious names of " Hai(k) " and " Haiasdan," by which the speakers of this language seem always to have called themselves and their country. But this is a conjecture, and nothing more* and we are left with the bare fact that Armenian** was the established language of the land by the fifth century A.D.
The Armenian language might easily have perished and left less record of its existence than the Urartian. It is a vigorous language enough, yet it would never have survived in virtue of its mere vitality. The native Anatolian dialects of Lydia Cilicia, and the speech of the Cappadocians+, the Armenians' immediate neighbours on the west, were extinguished one by one by the irresistible advance of Greek, and Armenian would assuredly have shared their fate if it had not become the canonical language of a national church before Greek had time to penetrate so far eastward. Armenia lay within the radius of Antioch and Edessa (Ourfa), two of the earliest and strongest centres of Christian propaganda. King Tiridates (Drdat) of Armenia converted to Christianity some time during the latter half of the third century A.D.++ and was the first ruler in the world to
---------------------------------------
* It is equally possible that the modern Armenian language was introduced into the country at an earlier date and existed there side by side with the official language of the Urartu inscriptions. Egyptian reords] show that an Iranian people, the Mitanni (Matienoi), were established in Northern Mesopotamia as early as the I6th century B.C., and they clung to the Urmia basin as late as Strabo's day. They were the western outposts of lndo-European settlement on the Iranian plateau. On the whole, however the Mitanni are more likely to have been the originators of the Kurdish language than of the Armenian.
** In the classical form, of which the spoken language of to-day is a development.
+ Probably a synthesis of Hittite and Cimmerian, corresponding to the Uraltu-Scythian blend which we have suggested as the origin of Armenia.
++ The traditional date varies from 261 to 301 A.D
establish the Christian Faith as his State religion. Christianity in Armenia adopted a national garb from the first. In 410 A.D. the Bible was translated into the Armenian language, in a new native script specially invented for the purpose, and this achievement was followed by a great outburst of national literature during the course of the fifth century. These fifth century works are, as has been said, the earliest monuments of the Armenian language. Most of them, it is true, are simply rather painstaking translations of Greek and Syriac theology, and the bulk of the creative literature was theological too. But there was also a notable school of historical writers (Moses of Khorene is its most famous representative), and the really important result of the stimulus that Christianity brought was the permanent preservation of the language's existence and its development into a medium for a national literature of a varied kind.
Thus the conversion of Armenia to Christianity, which took place at a more or less ascertainable date, was an even more important factor in the evolution of Armenian nationality than the original introduction of the national language, and the Armenians have done well to make St. Gregory the Illuminator, the Cappadocian Missionary to whom the conversion was due, their supreme national hero*. Henceforth, church and language mutually sustained each other, to the great enhancement of the vital power of both. They were, in fact, merely complementary aspects of the same national consciousness, and the national character of the church was further emphasized when it diverged in doctrine from the main body of Christendom -- not by the formulation of any new or heretical dogma, but by omission to ratify the modifications of the primitive creed which were introdtlced by the OEcumenical Councils of the fifth century A.D.+
This nationalization of the church was the decisive process by which the Armenians became a nation, and it was also this that made them an integral part of the Near Eastern world. Christianity linked the country with the West as intimately as the cuneiform script of Urartu had linked it with the civilisation of Mesopotamia; and the Near Eastern phenomenon consists essentially in the paradox that a series of populations on the borderland of Europe and Asia developed a national life that was thoroughly. European in its religion and culture, without ever succeeding in extricating themselves politically from that continual round of despotism and anarchy which seems to be the political dispensation of genuinely Oriental countries.
No communities in the world have had a more troubled political history than these Near Eastern nationalities, and none
---------------------------
* A suggestive parallel to the way in which another foreign missionary St Patrick, has become the national hero at Ireland.
+ In 553 A.D. the national individuality of the Gregorian (Armenian) Church was given formal expression by the foundation as a new ecclesiastical era.
have known how to preserve their church and their language doggedly through the most appalling vicissitudes of conque oppression. In this regard the history of Armenia is profoundly characteristic of the Near East as a whole.
The strong, compact Kingdom of Urartu lies at the dawn of Armenian history like a golden age. It had only existed two centuries when it was shattered by the invaders from the Russian steppes, and the anarchy into which they plunged the country had to be cured by the imposition of a foreign rule. In 58 the nomads were cowed and the plateau annexed by Cyaxares the Mede, and, after the Persians had taken over the Medes' inheritance, the great organizer Darius divided this portion into two governments or satrapies. One of these seems to have included the basins of Urmia and Van, and part of the valley of the Aras*; the other corresponded approximately to the modern Vilayets of Bitlis, Mamouret-ul-Aziz and Diyarbekir, and covered the the upper valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates+. They were respectively the satrapies of Eastern and Western Armenia, and this is the origin of the name by which the Haik and their Haiasdan are now almost universally known to their neighbours. The word "Armenia" (Armina)++: first appears in Darius' inscriptions; Greeks adopted it from the Persian official usage, and from the Greeks it has spread to the rest of the world, including the Osmanli Turks+++.
Under the Persian Dynasty of the Achaemenids and their Macedonian successors, the two Armenian satrapies remained mere administrative divisions. Subject to the payment of tribute the satraps were practically independent and probably hereditary, but the rulers' autonomy did not enable their subjects to develop any distinctive national life. In religion and culture the country took on a strong Persian veneer; and the situation was not essentially changed when, early in the second century B.C., two reigning satraps revolted simultaneously from their overlord, the Seleucid King of Western Asia**, and each founded a royal dynasty of their own. The decisive change was accomplished by
---------------------------
* Herodotus' "Province of the Matienoi, Alarodioi and Saspeires."
**This is the probable extent of Herodotus' puzzling " Province Armenians and Paktyes," and the certain extent of the later Sophene.
+ The provenance of this name is as obscure as every other problem of of Armenian origins. It may mean "the land of Erimenas " a king of Urartu, known from an inscription on a votive offering at Van, just as the neighbouring province of Azerbaijan derives its.name from the: Atropates; or (as Lord Bryce suggests) it may be a "portmanteau word" perhaps compounded of Urartu and Minni, the Assyrian name for the upper basin of the Greater Zab. The name of Kat-Patuka (Cappadocia) is a possible analogy to this latter suggestion.
++ Turkish "Ermen-ler."
*** The Seleucid Dynasty had inherited most of the Asiatic dominions acquired by Alexander the Great when he conquered the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire.
Tigranes (Dikran) the Great (94 to 56 B.C.), a scion of the Eastern Dynasty, who welded the two principalities into one kingdom, and so created the first strong native sovereignty that the country had known since the fall of Urartu five centuries before.
If Gregory the Illuminator is the ecclesiastical hero of Armenia, King Tigranes is his political forerunner and counterpart. He was connected by marriage with Mithradates, the still more famous King of Pontic Cappadocia, who may be taken as the first exponent of the Near Eastern idea. Mithradates attempted to build an empire that should be at once cosmopolitan and national, Hellenic and Iranian, of the West and of the East, and Tigranes was profoundly influenced by his brilliant neighbour and ally. He set himself the parallel ambition of reconstructing round his own person the kingdom of the Seleucids, which had been shaken a century before by a rude encounter with Rome, weakened still further by the defection of Tigranes' own predecessors, and was now in the actual throes of dissolution. He laid hiimself out a new capital on the northern rim of the Mesopotamian steppe, somewhere near the site of Ibrahim Pasha's Viran Shehr, and peopled it with masses of exiles deported from the Greek cities he devastated in Syria and Cilicia. It was to be the Hellenistic world-centre for an Oriental King of Kings; but all his dreams, like Mithradates', were shattered by the methodical progress of the Roman power. A Roman army ignominiously turned Tigranes out of Tigranokerta, and sent back his Greek exiles rejoicing to their homes. The new Armenian kingdom failed to establish its position as a great power, and had to accept the position of a buffer state between Rome on the west and the P arthian rulers of Iran. Nevertheless, Tigranes' work is of supreme political importance in Armenian history. He had consolidated the two satrapies of Darius into a united kingdom, powerful enough to preserve its unity and independence for nearly five hundred years. It was within this chrysalis that the interaction of religion and language produced the new germ of modern Armenian nationality; and when the chrysalis was rent at last, the nation emerged so strongly grown that it could brave the buffets of the outer world.
Before Tigranes, Armenia had belonged wholly to the East. Tigranes loosened these links and knit certain new links with the West. The period that followed was marked by a perpetual struggle between the Roman and Parthian Governments for political influence over the kingdom, which was really a battle over Armenia's soul. Was Armenia to be wrested away altogether from Oriental influences and rallied to the European world, or was it to sink back into being a spiritual and political appenage of Iran? It seemed a clear issue, but it was not destined to be decided in either sense. Armenia was to be caught for two millenniums in the uncertain eddy of the Nearer East.
In this opposition of forces, the political balance inclined from the first in favour of the Oriental Power. The Parthians in replacing the descendants of Tigranes by a junior branch of their own Arsacid Dynasty; and when, in 387 A.D., the rivals agreed to settle the Armenian question by the drastic expedient of partition, the Sassanid kings of Persia (who had superseded the Parthians in the Empire of Iran) secured the lion's share of the spoils, while the Romans only received a strip of country on the western border which gave them Erzeroum and Diyarbekir for their frontier fortresses. In the cultural sphere, on the other hand, the West was constantly increasing its ascendancy. King Tiridates was an Arsacid, but he accepted Christianity as the religion of the State he ruled; and when, less than a century after his death, his kingdom fell and the greater part of the country and the people came directly under Persian rule, the Persian propaganda failed to make any impression. No amount of preaching or persecution could persuade the Armenians to accept Zoroastrianism, which was the established religion of the Sassanian State. They clung to their national church in despite of their political annihilation, and showed thereby that their spiritual allegiance was given irrevocably to the West.
The partition of 387 A.D. produced as long a political interregnum in Armenian history as the fall of Urartu in the seventh century B.C. In the second quarter of the seventh century A.D., the mastery of Western Asia passed from the Persians to the Arabs, and the Armenian provinces changed masters with the rest. Persian governors appointed by the Sassanid King of Kings were superseded by Arab governors appointed by the Omayyad and Abbasid Caliphs, and the intolerance of Zoroastrianism was replaced by the far stronger and hardly less intolerant force of Islam Then, in the ninth century, the political power of the Abbasid Caliphate at Baghdad began to decline, the outlying provinces were able to detach themselves, and three independent dynasties emerged on Armenian soil: --
(a) The Bagratids founded a Christian principality in the north. Their capital was at Ani, in the upper basin of the Aras, and their rule in this district lasted nearly two centuries, from 885 to 1079 A.D.
(b) The Ardzrounids founded a similar Christian principality in the basin of Van. They reigned here from 908 to 1021 A.D.
(c) The Merwanids, a Kurdish dynasty, founded a Moslem principality in the upper basin of the Tigris. Their capital was at Diyarbekir, but their power extended northward over the mountains into the valley of the Mourad Su (Eastern Euphrates), which they controlled as far up as Melazkerd. They maintained themselves for a century from 984 to 1085 A.D.
The imposing remains of churches and palaces at Ani and elsewhere have cast an undue glamour over the Bagratid House which has been extended, again, to all the independent principalities of early medieval Armenia. In reality, this phase of Armenian history was hardly more happy than that which preceded it, and only appeared a Golden Age by comparison with the cataclysms that followed. From the national point of view it was almost as barren as the century of satrapial independence which preceded the reign of Tigranes, and in the politics of this period parochialism was never transcended. Bagratids and Ardrzounids were bitter rivals for the leadership of the nation, and did not scruple to call in Moslem allies against one another in their constant wars. The south-western part of the country remained under the rule of an alien Moslem dynasty, without any attempt being made to cast them out. Armenia had no second Tigranes in the Middle Ages, and the local renewals of political independence came and went without profit to the nation as a whole, which still depended for its unity upon the ecclesiastical tradition of the national Gregorian Church.
In the eleventh century A.D., a new power appeared in the East. The Arab Empire of the Caliphs had long been receiving an influx of Turks from Central Asia as slaves and professional soldiers, and the Turkish bodyguard had assumed control of politics at Baghdad. But this individual infiltration was now succeeded by the migration of whole tribes, and the tribes were organised into a political power by the clan of Seljuk. The new Turkish dynasty constituted itself the temporal representative of the Abbasid Caliphate, and the dominion of Mohammedan Asia was suddenly transferred from the devitalized Arabs to a vigorous barbaric horde of nomadic Turks.
These Turkish reinforcements brutalised and at the same time stimulated the Islamic world. and the result was a new impetus of conquest towards the borderlands. The brunt of this movement fell upon the unprepared and disunited Armenian principalities. In the first quarter of the eleventh century the Seljuks began their incursions on to the Armenian plateau. The Armenian princes turned for protection to the East Roman Empire, accepted its suzerainty, or even surrendered their territory directly into its hands. But the Imperial Government brought little comfort to the Armenian people. Centred at Constantinople and cut off from the Latin West, it had lost its Roman universality and become transformed into a Greek national state, while the established Orthodox Church had developed the specifically Near Eastern character of a nationalist ecclesiastical organisation. The Armenians found that incorporation in the Empire exposed them to temporal and spiritual Hellenisation, without protecting them against the common enemy on the east. The Seljuk invasions increased in intensity, and culminated, in 1071 A.D., in the decisive battle of Melazkerd, in which the Imperial Army was destroyed and the Emperor Romanos II. taken prisoner on the field. Melazkerd placed the whole of Armenia at the Seljuk's mercy -- and not only Armenia, but the Anatolian provinces of the Empire that lay between Armenia and Europe. The Seljuks carried Islam into the heart of the Near East.
The next four-and-a-half centuries were the most disasttrous period in the whole political history of Armenia. It is true that a vestige of independence was preserved, for Roupen the Bagratid, conducted a portion of his people south-westward into the mountains of Cilicia, where they were out of the main current of Turkish invasion, and founded a new principality which survived nearly three hundred years (1080-1375). There is a certain romance about this Kingdom of Lesser Armenia. It threw in its lot with the Crusaders, and gave the Armenian nation its first direct contact with modern Western Europe. But the mass of the race remained in Armenia proper, and during these centuries the Armenian tableland suffered almost ceaseless devastation.
The Seljuk migration was only the first wave in a prolonged outbreak of Central Asiatic disturbance, and the Seljuks were civilized in comparison with the tribes that followed on their heels. Early in the thirteenth century came Karluks and Kharizmians, fleeing across Western Asia before the advance of the Mongols; and in 1235 came the first great raid of the Mongols themselves -- savages who destroyed civilisation wherever they found it, and were impartial enemies of Christendom and Islam All these waves of invasion took the same channel. They swept across the broad plateau of Persia, poured up the valleys of Aras and the Tigris, burst in their full force upon the Armenian highlands and broke over them into Anatolia beyond. Armenia bore the brunt of them all, and the country was ravaged and population reduced quite out of proportion to the sufferings of the neighbouring regions. The division of the Mongol dynasty among the family of Djengis Khan established a Mongol dynasty in Western Asia which seated itself in Azerbaijan, accepted Islam and took over the tradition of the Seljuks, the Abbasids and Sassanids. It was the old Asiatic Empire under a new name, but it had now incorporated Armenia and extended north-westwards to the Kizil Irmak (Halys). For the first time since Tigranes, the whole of Armenia was reabsorbed again in the East, and the situation grew still worse when the Empire of these "Ilkhans" fell to pieces and was succeeded in the fifteenth century by the petty lordship of Ak Koyunli, Kara Koyunli and other nomadic Turkish clans.
The progressive anarchy of four centuries was finally stilled by the rise of the Osmanli power. The seed of the Osmanlis was one of those Turkish clans which fled across Western Asia before the Mongols. They settled in the dominions of the Seljuk Sultans, who had established themselves at Konia, in Central Anatolia, and who allowed the refugees to carve out an obscure appanage on the marches of the Greek Empire, in the Asiatic hinterland of Constantinople. The son and successor of the founder was here converted from Paganism to Islam*, towards the end of the thirteenth century A.D., and the name of Osman, which he adopted at his conversion, has been borne ever since by the subjects of his House.
The Osmanli State is the greatest and most characteristic Near Eastern Empire there has ever been. In its present decline it has become nothing but a blight to all the countries and peoples that remain under its sway; but at the outset it manifested a faculty for strong government which satisfied the supreme need of the distracted Near Eastern world. This was the secret of its amazing power of assimilation, and this quality in turn increased its power of organization, for it enabled the Osmanlis to monopolise all the vestiges of political genius that survived in the Near East. The original Turkish germ was quickly absorbed in the mass of Osmanlicised native Greeks+. The first expansion of the State was westward, across the Dardanelles, and before the close of the fourteenth century the whole of South-Eastern Europe had become Osmanli territory, as far as the Danube and the Hungarian frontier. The seal was set on these European conquests when Sultan Mohammed II. entered Constantinople in 1453, and then the current of expansion veered towards the east. Mohammed himself absorbed the rival Turkish principalities in Anatolia, and annexed the Greek "Empire" of Trebizond. In the second decade of the sixteenth century, Sultan Selim I. followed this up with a sweeping series of campaigns, which carried him with hardly a pause from the Taurus barrier to the citadel of Cairo. Armenia was overrun in 1514; the petty Turkish chieftains were overthrown, the new Persian Empire was hurled back to the Caspian, and a frontier established between the Osmanli Sultans and the Shahs of Iran, which has endured, with a few fluctuations, until the present day.
In the sixteenth century the whole Near Eastern world, from the gates of Vienna** to the gates of Aleppo and Tabriz, found itself unuted under a single masterful Government, and once Lore Armenia was linked securely with the West. From 1514 onwards the great majority of the Armenian nation was subject
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* This is the view of Mr. Herbert Adams Gibbons, the most recent historian of the early Ottoman Empire.
+ The people of the East Roman Empire in its latter days were Greeks in the sense that they spoke the "Romaic " modification of the Anclent Greek language; bud most of them had only become Greeks by the loss of their native language at the date when the Armenians, unlike them, had successfully preserved theirs.
** The Osmanlis besieged Vienna twice, and held a frontier within ninety miles of it for a century and a half.
to the Osmanli State. It is true that the province of Erivan (on the middle course of the Aras) was recovered by the Persians the seventeenth century, and held by them till its cession to Russia in 1834. But, with this exception, the whole of Armenia remained under Osrmanli rule until the Russians took Kars, in the war of 1878. These intervening centuries of union and pacification were, on the whole, beneficial to Armenia, but with the year 1878 there began a new and sinister epoch in the relations between the Osmanli State and the Armenian nation.
III. DISPERSION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE ARMENIAN NATION.
We have now traced the political vicissitudes of Armenia down to its incorporation in the Ottoman Empire, and are in a position to survey the effects of this troubled political history on the social life and the geographical extension of the Armenian people.
At the present day the Armenians are, next to the Jews, the most scattered nation in the world, but this phenomenon does not begin to appear until a comparatively late stage in their history At the time of the Partition of 387 A.D. they were still confined to a compact territory between the Euphrates, Lake Urmia and the River Kur. It was the annexation of the western marches to the Roman Empire that gave the first impetus to Armenian migration towards the west. After 387 A.D. the Roman frontier garrisons were moved forward into the new Armenian provinces, and these troops were probably recruited in the main, according to the general Roman custom, from the local population. But in the middle of the seventh century the Roman frontiers were shorn away by the advance of the new Arab power; the garrisons beyond the Euphrates were withdrawn towards the north-west, and, after a century of darkness and turmoil, during which all the old landmarks were effaced, we find that the "Armenian Army Corps District" has shifted from the banks of the Euphrates to the banks of the Halys (Kizil Irmak) and become approximately coincident with the modern Vilavet of Sivas. This transference of the troops must have meant in itself a considerable transference of Armenians, and it can be taken for granted that the retiring armies were accompanied by B certain portion of the civilian population. We can thus date back to the seventh century the beginning of those flourishing Armenian colonies in the towns of north-eastern Anatolia which suffered so terribly in the ordeal of 1915.
The mountain zone between the Roman fortress of Sivas (Sebasteia) on the Halys and the Arab posts along the Euphrates, from Malatia to Erzeroum, was now debatable territory between the Moslem and the Christian Empires, and in the eighth century was held by an independent community of Armenian heretics called Paulikians. These Paulikians led an untamed, Ishmaelitish existence. They were excommunicated for their tenets by the Gregorian Armenian Church, as well as by the Orthodox Patriarch at Constantinople, and they raided impartially in the territories of the Roman Empire and the Arab Caliphate. The Emperors waged against them a war of extermination, and anticipated the present Ottoman policy by deporting them from their mountain fastnesses to the opposite ends of the Imperial territory. In 752 A.D. a number of them were settled in Thrace, to exercise their military prowess in holding the frontier against the Bulgars; and, in 969 A.D., the Emperor John Tzimiskes (himself an Armenian) transplanted a further body of them to Philipopolis. It may be doubted whether there is any direct connexion between them and the present (Gregorian) Armenian colony in the latter city, but their numbers and influence must have been considerable, if one may judge by the vigorous spread of their tenets among the Bulgars and the Southern Slavs, and they are noteworthy as the forerunners of the Armenian Dispersion in Europe well as of the Protestant Reformation.*
Migrations on a larger scale were produced by the Turkish invasions of the eleventh century. In 1021 A.D., for instance the Ardzrounian Dynasty of Van surrendered its home territory to the Roman Empire in exchange for a more sheltered principality at Sivas. It only reigned sixty years in exile before it was overwhelmed there also by the advance of the Turkish tide; but the present Armenian villages in the Sivas Vilayet are doubtless derived from these Ardzrounian refugees. In the very year, again, in which the sovereignty of the Ardzrounids was extinguished at Sivas, the Bagratids of Ani founded themselves a second kingdom in Cilicia. We have spoken of this kingdom already; it is represented to-day by a chain of Armenian mountain towns and villages which stretches all the way from the headwaters of Sihoun (Saros) and Djihoun (Pyramos) to the shores of the Gulf of Alexandretta.
The still more terrible invasions of the thirteenth century scattered the Armenians even further afield. The relations of Lesser Armenia with the Crusader Principalities opened for the Armenians a door into Western Europe. When the Roupenian Dynasty became extinct, it was succeeded by a branch of the French House of Lusignan summoned from Cyprus, and in 1335 there was the first secession from the national Gregorian Church to the Communion of Rome. These new adherents to Papal allegiance spread far and wide over Latin Christendom. A strong colony of Armenian Catholics established itself at Lemberg, recently won by Polish conquest for the Catholic Church; and others settled at Venice, the European focus of the Levant trade. In this Venetian settlement the tradition of Armenian culture was kept alive by the famous brotherhood of Mekhitarist Monks. They founded the first Armenian printing press here, in 1565, and maintained a constant issue of Armenian publications. Their greatest work was a magnificent thesaurus of the Armenian language, which appeared in 1836.
This Roman Catholic connexion has been of very great importance in preserving the link between Armenia and the west, and since the beginning of the nineteenth century the bonds have been strengthened by a Protestant strand. The
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* The Paulikian exiles inspired the South-Slavonic Bogomils; the Bogomils inspired the Albigenses of Languedoc, and possibly sowed some of the seeds of the Hussite movement among the Tchechs and Slovaks.
American Missions in Turkey were founded in 1831. Debarred the Ottoman Government from entering into relations with Moslem population, they devoted themselves to the Christian elements, and the Armenians availed themselves more eagerly an any other Near Eastern nationality** of the gifts which the Americans offered. Four generations of mission work have produced a strong Protestant Armenian community, but proselytism has not been the deliberate object of the missionaries. They have set themselves to revive and not to convert the national Armenian Church, and their schools and hospitals have been open to all who would attend them, without distinction of creed. Their wide and well-planned educational activity has always been the distinctive feature of these American Missions in the Ottoman Empire. Besides the famous Robert College and the College for Women on the Bosphorus, they have established schools and other institutions in many of the chief provincial towns, with fine buildings and full staffs of well-trained American and Armenian teachers. Due acknowledgment must also be given to the educational work of the Swiss Protestants and of the Jesuits; but it can hardly compare with the work of the Americans in scale, and will scarcely play the same part in Armenian history. There is little need here to speak in praise of the American missionaries; their character will shine out to anyone who reads the documents in this volume. Their religion inspires their life and their work, and their utter sincerity has given them an extraordinary influence over all with whom they come in contact. The Ottoman Government has trusted and respected them, because they are the only foreign residents in Turkey who are entirely disinterested on political questions; the Gregorian Church coperates with them and feels no jealousy, and all sections of the Armenian nation love them, because they come to give and not to get, and their gifts are without guile+. America is exercising an unobtrusive but incalculable influence over the Near East. In the nineteenth century the missionaries came to its rescue from America; in the twentieth century the return movement has set in, and the Near Eastern people are migrating in thousands across the Atlantic. The Armenians are participating in this movement at least as actively as the Greeks, the Roumans, the Serbs, the Montenegrins and the Slovaks, and one can already prophesy with assurance that their two-fold contact with America is the beginning of a new chapter in Armenian history.
Meanwhile the subjection of Armenia proper to the Mongol Ilkhans for nearly two centuries, and subsequently to the Shahs of modern Persia for certain transitory periods, produced a lesser, but not unimportant, dispersion towards the east. In the seventeenth century the skilled and cultured Armenian population
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* With the possible exception of the Bulgars.
+ The Armenian Protestants have even been admitted to the Gregorian National Assembly -- a notable departure from Near Eastern tradition.
of Djoulfa, on the River Aras, was carried away captive to the Persian capital of Ispahan, where the exiles started a printing press and established a centre of Armenian civilization. Ever since then the Armenian element has been a factor in the politics and the social development of Iran, and from this new centre they have spread over the Indian Peninsula hand in hand with the extension of British rule.
Thus the Armenian nation has been scattered, in the course of the centuries, from Calcutta to New York, and has shown remarkable vitality in adapting itself to every kind of environment*. The reverse side of the picture is the uprooting of the nation from its native soil. The immigrant tribes f Central Asia did not make a permanent lodgment in the Armenian homelands. Some of them drifted back into Azerbaijan and the steppe country along the coast of the Caspian and the lower courses of the Aras and the Kur; others were carried on towards the north-west, along the ancient Royal Road, and imposed the Moslem faith and the Turkish language upon the population of Central Anatolia. The Armenian plateau, entrenched between Tigris, Euphrates and Aras, stood out like a rock, dividing the two Turkish eddies. Nevertheless. the perpetual shock of Seljuk and the Mongol raids relaxed the hold of the Armenians on the plateau. The people of the land were decimated by the invasions, and when the invaders had passed on beyond or vanished away. the terrible gaps in the ranks of the sedentary population of Armenia proper were filled by nomadic Kurdish shepherds from the south-east who drifted into Old Armenia from the mountain girdle of Iran, just as the Albanians drifted into Kossovo Plain from their own less desirable highlands, after the population of Old Serbia had been similarly decimated by constant passage of the Ottoman armies.
This Kurdish penetration of Armenia had begun already by the tenth century A.D.; it was far advanced when the Osmalis annexed the country in 1514, and it was confirmed by the policy of the Ottoman Government, which sought to secure its new territories by granting privileges to the Kurdish intruders and inviting their influx in greater numbers from their homelands in the sphere of influence of the rival Persian Empire The juxtaposition of nomad and cultivator, dominant Moslem and subsject Giaour, was henceforth an ever-present irritant in the social and political conditions of the land; but it did not assume a fatal and sinister importance until after the year 1878, when it was fiendishly exploited by the Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid.
But before we examine the relations between the Armenian nation and the Ottoman Government, it will be well to survey the distribution of the Armenian element in the Ottoman Empire, as it had developed during the four centuries of Ottoman rule that
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* There is a flourishing colony of Armenian fruit-growers as far afield as Fresno. California.
elapsed between the campaign of Selim I. and the intervention of Turkey in the present European War. The survey shall be brief for it has been anticipated, sometimes in greater detail, in the separate notes prefixed to the different groups of documents in the volume.
A traveller entering Turkey by the Oriental Railway from Central Europe would have begun to encounter Armenians at Philippopolis in Bulgaria, and then at Adrianople, the first Ottoman city across the frontier. Had he visited any of the lesser towns of Thrace, he would have found much of the local trade and business in Armenian hands, and when he arrived at Constantinople he would have become aware that the Armenians were one of the most important elements in the Ottoman Empire. He would have seen them as financiers, as export and import merchants, as organizers of wholesale stores; and when he crossed the Bosphorus and explored the suburban districts on the Asiatic side, he might even have fancied that the Armenian population in the Empire was numerically equal to the Turkish. The coast of the Sea of Marmora was overlooked by flourishing Armenian villages; at Armasha, above Ismid, there was a large Theological Seminary of the Gregorian Church, and there were important Swiss and American institutions at Bardizag (Baghtchedjik) and Adapazar. At Adapazar alone the Armenian population numbered 25,000.
Beyond Adapazar, however, the Armenian element dwindled, and anyone who followed the Anatolian Railway across Asia Minor to the rail-head in the northern spurs of Taurus, would have felt that he was travelling through an essentially Turkish land. There were colonies of Armenian artisans and shopkeepers and business men in important places on the line, like Afiun Kara Hissar or Konia; but there were an equal number of Greeks, and both in town and country the Turks outnumbered them all. But once Taurus was crossed, the Armenians came again to the fore. They were as much at home in the Cilician plain and coastland as on the littoral of the Sea of Marmora and the Bosphorus. Adana, Tarsus and Mersina, with their Armenian churches and schools, had the same appearance of being Armenian cities as Adapazar or Ismid; and if at this point the traveller had left the beaten track and worked his way up north-eastward into the Cilician highlands, he would have found himself for the first time in an almost exclusively Armenian country, and would have remarked a higher percentage of Armenians in the population than in any other district of Turkey till he came to Van. But this belt of Armenian villages, though thickly set, was quickly passed, and when you emerged on the south-eastern side of it and stepped out on to the rim of the Mesopotamian amphitheatre, you had reached one of the boundaries of the Armenian Dispersion. There were Armenian outposts in the cities of the fringe -- Marash, Aintab, Ourfa, Aleppo -- but as soon as you plunged into the Mesopotamian steppe or the Syrian desert you were in Arabic world, and had left Armenia behind*.
The traveller would have seen more of the Armenians if he had turned off from the Anatolian Railway at Eski Shehr, a few hours' journey south of Adapazar, and taken the be eastward to Angora. At Angora the Armenians were again a conspicuous element, and the further east you went from the more they increased in social and numerical imporatance. Beyond the Kizil Irmak (Halys), in the Sandjak of Kaisaria and the Vilayet of Sivas, they constituted the great majority of urban middle class. The strongest centres of Armenian life in Turkey were towns like Marsovan, Amasia, Zila, Shabin Kara-Hissar or the City of Sivas itself, or such smaller places as Talas and Everek in the neighbourhood of Kaisaria. In all this region Turks and Armenians were about balanced, Turks in the country and Armenians in the town, and the proportions were the same in the riviera zone along the Black Sea coast -- Samsoun and Kerasond and Trebizond -- though here other racial elements were intermingled -- Lazes and Greeks and the advance guards of the Kurds.
Trebizond in ancient times was the last Greek colony towrds the east, and it is always a place that beckons travellers for it is the terminus of that ancient caravan route which stretches away across Persia into the far interior of the Asiatic continent. Anyone who started to follow this highway across the mountains, through Gumushkhane and Baibourt to Erzeroum, would have noticed little change in these first stages of his journey from what he had seen in the Vilayet of Sivas. There were the same countryside and the same Armenian towns, with, perhaps, an increasing Armenian element in the rural population, culminating in an actual preponderance of Armenian villages when you reached the plain of Erzeroum. With Erzeroum the second section of the caravan road begins; it crosses from valley to valley among the headwaters of the Aras and the Eastern Euphrates (Mourad Su), and winds away eastward at the foot of Ararat in the direction of Bayazid and Tabriz. But here the explorer of Armenia must turn his face to the south, and, as he does so, his eyes are met by a rampart of mountains more forbidding than those he has traversed on his journey from the coast, which stretch across the horizon both east and west.
This mountain barrier bears many names. It is called the Bingol Dagh where it faces Erzeroum further westward it merges into the ill-famed Dersim. but the whole range has a common character. Its steeper slope is towards the north, and this slope is washed by the waters of the Aras and the Kara Su (Western Euphrates), which flow east and west in diametrically opposite directions, flanking the foot of the mountain wall with a deep and continuous moat.
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* Though even in Irak there were Armenian settlers, especially at Baghdad .
Whoever crosses this moat and penetrates the mountains passes at once into a different world. The western part of Turkey, which we have been describing so far, is a more or less orderly, settled country -- as orderly and settled, on the whole, as any of the other Near Eastern countries that lie between the Euphrates and Vienna. The population is sedentary; it lives in agricultural villages and open country towns. But when you cross the Euphrates, you enter a land of insecurity and fear. The peasant and townsman live on sufferance; the mastery is with the nomad; you are setting foot on the domain of the Kurd.
This insecurity was the chronic condition of Armenia proper, and it was not merely due to the unfortunate political experiences of the land. In its geographical configuration, as well as in its history, the Armenian plateau is a country of more accentuated characteristics and violent contrasts than the Anatolian Peninsula which adjoins it on the west. It contains vast stretches of rolling treeless down, where the climate is too bleak and the soil too thin for cultivation; and, again, there are sudden depressions where the soil is as rich and the climate as favourable as anywhere in the world. There are the deep ravines of rivers, like the Mourad Su, which carve their course haphazard across tableland and plain. There are volcanic cones, like the Sipan and the Nimroud Dagh, and lacustrine areas, like the basin of Lake Van. The geography of the country has partitioned it eternally between the shepherd and the cultivator -- the comparatively dense and sedentary population of the plains and the scattered and wandering inhabitants of the highlands -- between civilization and development on the one hand and an arrested state of barbarism on the other. The Kurd and the Armenian are not merely different nationalities; they are also antagonistic economic classes, and this antagonism existed in the country before ever the Kurdish encroachments began. Most of the nomadic tribes that frequent the Armenian plateau now pass for Kurds, but many of them are only nominally so. In the Dersim country, for instance, which coincides roughly with the peninsula formed by the Western and Eastern branches of the Euphrates (Kara Su and Mourad Su), the Kurds are strongly diluted with the Zazas, whose language, as far as it has been investigated, bears at least as much resemblance to Armenian as to Kurdish, and whose primitive paganism, though it may have taken some colour from Christianity, is free to this day from the slightest veneer of Islam.* These Zazas represent an element which must have existed in the land from the beginning and have harassed the national rulers of Mediaeval and Ancient Armenia as much as it harasses the modern Armenian townsman and peasant or the local Ottoman authorities.
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* The nomadic Kurds, for that matter, are only skin-deep Mohammedans.
On the eve of the catastrophe of 1915, this region beyond Euphrates was a treasure-house of mingled populations and diversified forms of social life. Its north-western bastion is Dersim, a no-man's-land of winding valleys and tiny upland plains, backing northwards on to the great mountain retaining-wall, with its sheer fall to the Euphratean moat. In the Dersim innumerable little clans of Zazas and Kurds lived, and continue to live, their pastoral, brigand life, secluded from the arm of Ottoman authority. A traveller proceeding south from Erzer would give the Dersim a wide berth on his right and cross the peninsula at its neck, by the headwaters of the Aras and plain of Khnyss. He would strike the course of the Mourad Su where it cuts successively through the fertile, level plains of Melazkerd, Boulanik and Moush, and here he would find himself again for a moment (or would have done so two years ago) peaceful, almost civilized surroundings -- -populous country towns with a girdle of agricultural villages and a peasantry even more uniformly Armenian than the population of the plain of Erzerol The plain of Moush is the meeting-place of all the routes that traverse the plateau. If you ascend from its south-eastern corner and mount the southern spurs of the Nimroud volcano, suddenly find yourself on the edge of the extensive basin of Lake Van, and can follow a mountain road along its precipitous southern shore; then you descend into the open valley of Hayotz-Tzor, cross a final ridge with the pleasant village of Artamid on its slopes, and arrive a few hours later in the city of Van itself.
Van, again, before April, 1915, was the populous, civilised capital of a province, with a picturesque citadel-rock overlooking the lake and open garden suburbs spreading east of it across plain. The city of Van, with the surrounding lowlands that fringe the eastern and north-eastern shores of the lake, was more thoroughly Armenian than any part of the Ottoman Empire. In the Van Vilayet* alone the Armenians not merely outnumbered each other racial element singly, but were an absolute majority of the total population. These Armenians of Van played a leading and a valiant part in the events of 1915.
Yet Van, though a stronghold of Armenian nationality, was also the extremity, in this direction, of Armenian territory; south-east of Van the upper valley of the Zab and the basin Lake Urmia were jointly inhabited by Christian Syrians and Moslem Kurds, until the Svrians, too, were involved in the Armenians' fate. To complete our survey, we have to retrace our steps round the northern shores of Lake Van till we arrive once more in the plain of Moush. The plain of Moush is closed in on the south and south-west by another rampart of mountains, which forms the southern wall of the plateau and repeats with remarkable exactness the structure of that northern wall which the traveller encounters when he turns south from the plain of Erzeroum.
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*Excluding the district of Hakkiari.
This southern range, also, falls precipitously towards the north, first into the plain of Moush, and, further westward, into the waters of the Mourad Su, which wash it like a moat all the way to their junction with the Kara Su, below Harpout. And, like the northern range, again, the southern rampart unfolds itself to the south in a maze of high hills and tangled valleys, which only sink by degrees into the plains of Diyarbekir -- a detached bay of the great Mesopotamian steppe. These southern highlands are known as the Hiassoun; they are a physiographical counterpart to the highlands of Dersim, and are likewise the harbour of semi-independent mountaineers. But whereas the Dersimlis are pagan Zazas or Moslem Kurds, and were at constant feud with their Armenian neighbours, the Sassounlis were themselves Armenians, and were in the closest intercourse with their kinsmen in the valley of the Mourad Su and in the plains of Moush and Boulanik.
Sassoun was one of the most interesting Armenian communities in the Ottoman Empire. It was a federation of about forty mountain villages, which lived their own life in virtual independence of the Ottoman authorities at Bitlis or Diyarbekir, and held their own against the equally independent Kurdish tribes that ringed them round. They were prosperous shepherds and laborious cultivators of their mountain slopes -- a perfect example of the cantonal phase of economic development, requiring nothing from outside and even manufacturing their own gunpowder. The Sassounli Armenians were in the same social stage as the Scottish Highlanders before 1745; the Armenians of Van, Sivas and Constantinople were people of the twentieth century, engaged in the same activities and living much the same life as the shopkeepers and business men of Vienna or London or New York.
Only an enterprising traveller would have struck up into Sassoun if he wished to make his way from Moush to Diyarbekir. The beaten track takes a longer course to the south-eastern corner of the plain, and then breasts the mountain wall to the south (where the branch-road turns eastward to Lake Van). From Norshen, the last village of the plain, an easy pass leads over a saddle and brings the traveller unexpectedly to the important city of Bitlis, which lies under the shadow of the ridge, immediately south of the watershed. Bitlis is the capital of a vilayet, and before Djevdet Bey retreated upon it in June, 1'315, there was a numerous Armenian element in its population. But Bitlis, again, was one of the limits of the Armenian dispersion. The waters which rise round the city flow southward to the Tigris, and the highroad winds down with them towards the plains, which are inhabited by a confused population of Jacobites*
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* A Syrian sect whose doctrines diverged, like those of the Nestorians, from the creed of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, but in the contrary direction.
and Arabs, Turks and Kurds. If you had followed the Tigris stream across the levels to Diyarbekir, you would have passed few Armenian villages on the road, even before June, 1915; and at Diyarbekir itself, a considerable city, there was on weak Armenian colony -- a feeble link in the chain of Armenian outposts on the fringe of the Mesopotamian steppe. But Diyarbekir is on the line of that Royal Road by which men have gone up from time immemorial from Baghdad and beyond to coasts of the Bosphorus and the AEgean. The highway run north-west across the flats, passes Arghana and Arghana Mines, climbs the southern escarpment of the Armenian plateau up the valley of the Arghana Su, skirts the Goldjik Lake on the watershed, and slopes down, still north-westwards, to Harpout, near the course of the Mourad Su. Many convoys of Armenian exiles traversed this road in the opposite direction during the summer months of 1915, on their way from their native plateau to the alien climate of the Arabian deserts. But our survey of the Armenians in Turkey is complete, and we can travel back in imagination from Harpout to Malatia, from Malatia to Sivas, and so on continually north-westward, till we return again to the point from which we started out.
This somewhat elaborate itinerary will have served its purpose if it has made clear the extraordinary vitality and versatility of the Armenian nation in the Ottoman Empire at the moment when its extermination was planned and attempted by the established Government of the country. The Government been of little service to any of its subjects; it had never initiated any social or economic developments on its own part, and invariably made itself a clog upon the private enterprises of native or foreign individuals. Yet, under this pall of stagnation and repression, there were manifold stirrings of a new life. Wherever an opportunity presented itself, wherever the Government omitted to intervene, the Armenians were making indefatigable progress towards a better civilization. They were raising the pastoral and agricultural prosperity of their barren highlands and harassed plains; they were deepening and extending their education at the American schools; they were laying the foundation of local industries in the Vilayet of Sivas; they were building up Ottoman banking and shipping and finance at Trebizond and Adana and Constantinople. They were kindling the essential spark of energy in the Ottoman Empire, and anyone acquainted with Near Eastern history will inevitably compare their promise with the promise of the Greeks a century before. The apologists of the Ottoman Government will seize in eagerness upon this comparison. "The Greeks," they will say, "revolted as soon as they had fallen into this state of fermentation. The Young Turks did more prudently than Sultan Mahmoud in forestalling future trouble." But if we examine the relations between the Ottoman Government and the Armenian people we shall find that this argument recoils upon its authors' heads.
IV. THE ARMENIAN PEOPLE AND THE OTTOMAN GOVERNMENT.
When the Ottoman Government entered the European War in 1914, it had ruled Armenia for just four hundred years, and still had for its subjects a majority of the Armenian people. Anyone who inquires into the relations between the Government and the governed during this period of Near Eastern history will find the most contradictory opinions expressed. On the one hand he will be told that the Armenians, like the rest of the Christians in Turkey, were classed as " Rayah " (cattle*) by the dominant race, and that this one word sums up their irrenlediable position; that they were not treated as citizens because they were not even treated as men. On the other hand, he will hear that the Ottoman Empire has been more liberal to its subject nationalities than many states in Western Europe; that the Armenians have been perfectly free to live their own life under a paternal government, and that the friction between the government and its subjects has been due to the native perversity and instability of the Armenian character, or, worse still, to a revolutionary poison instilled by some common enemy from without. Both these extreme views are out of perspective, but each of them represents a part of the truth.
It is undoubtedly true (to take the Turkish case first) that the Armenians have derived certain benefits from the Ottoman dispensation. The caste division between Moslem and Rayah, for instance, may stamp the Ottoman "State Idea" as medieval and incapable of progress; but this has injured the state as a whole more appreciably than the penalised section of it, for extreme penalisation works both ways. The Government ruled out the Christians so completely from the dominant Moslem commonwealth that it suffered and even encouraged them to form communities of their own. The "Rayah" became "Millets" -- -not yoke-oxen, but unshackled herds.
These Christian Millets were instituted by Sultan Mohammed II, after he had conquered Constantinople in 1453 and set himself to reorganize the Ottoman State as the conscious heir of the Eastern Roman Empire. They are national corporations with written charters, often of an elaborate kind. Each of them is presided over by a Patriarch, who holds office at the discretion of the government, but is elected by the community and is the recognised intermediary between the two, combining in his own person the headship of a voluntary "Rayah" association and the status of an Ottoman official. The special function thus assigned to the Patriarchates gives the Millets, as an institution, an ecclesiastical character**; but in the Near East a church is merely
-------------------
* It appears to be uncertain whether this is really the literal meaning of the word, its current connotation being purely the political one.
** The word "Millet" means simply "Religious sect " in the Arabic languages from which it was borrowed by the Turks.
the foremost aspect of a nationality, and the authority of Patriaichates extends to the control of schools, and even to administration of certain branches of civil law. The Millets, fact, are practically autonomous bodies in all that concern religion, culture and social life; but it is a maimed autonomy, it is jealously debarred from any political expression. The establishment of the Millets is a recognition, and a palliation, of the pathological anomaly of the Near East -- the political disinteg tion of Near Eastern peoples and the tenacity with which they have clung, in spite of it, to their corporate spiritual life.
The organization of the Millets was not a gain to all the Christian nations that had been subjected by the Ottoman power. Certain orthodox populations, like the Bulgars and the Serbs, actually lost an ecclesiastical autonomy which they had enjoyed before, and were merged in the Millet of the Greeks under the Orthodox Patriarch at Constantinople. The Armenians on the other hand, improved their position. As so-called schismatics, they had hitherto existed on sufferance under Orthodox and Catholic governments, but the Osmanlis viewed all varieties of Christian with an impartial eye. Mohammed II. summoned the Gregorian Bishop of the Armenian colony at Broussa, and raised him to the rank of an Armenian Patriarch at Constantinople. The Ottoman conquest thus left the Gregorian Armenians their religious individuality and put them on a legal equality with th neighbours of the Orthodox Faith, and the same privileges were extended in time to the Armenians in communion with other churches. The Gregorian Millet was chartered in 1462, the Millet of Armenian Catholics in 1830, and the Millet of Armenian Protestants in the 'forties of the nineteenth century, as a result of the foundation of the American Missions.
The Armenians of the Dispersion, therefore, profited, in that respect, by Ottoman rule, and even in the Armenian homeland the account stood, on the whole, in the Ottoman Governmen favour. The Osmanlis are often blamed for having given the Kurds a footing in this region, as a political move in their struggle with Persia; but the Kurds were not, originally, such a scourge to the Armenians as the Seljuks, Mongols, or Kara Koyunli, who had harried the land before, or as the Persians themselves, who the Osmanlis and the Kurds ejected from the country. The three centuries of Kurdish feudalism under Ottoman suzerainty that followed Sultan Selim's campaign of 1514 were a less unhappy period for the Armenians than the three centuries and more anarchy that had preceded them. They were a time of torpor before recuperation, and it was the Ottoman Government again that, by a change in its Kurdish policy, enabled this recuperation to set in. In the early part off the nineteenth century a vigorous anti-feudal, centralising movement was initiated by Sultan Mahmoud, a reformer who has become notorious for his unsuccessful handling of the Greek and Serbian problems without receiving the proper credit for his successes further east. He turned his attention to the Kurdish chieftains in 1834, and by the middle of the century his efforts had practically broken their power. Petty feudalism was replaced by a bureaucracy centred in Constantinople. The new officialdom was not ideal; it had new vices of its own; but it was impartial, by comparison, towards the two races whom it had to govern, for the class prejudice of the Moslem against the well-behaved Rayah was balanced by the exasperation of the professional administrator with the ununconscionable Kurd. In any case, this remodelling of the Ottoman State in the early decades of the nineteenth century introduced a new epoch in the history of the Armenian people. Coinciding, as it did, with the establishment of the American Missions and the chartering of the Catholic and Protestant Millets, it opened to the Armenians opportunities of which they availed themselves to the full. An intellectual and economic renaissance of Armenian life began, parallel in many respects to the Greek renaissance a century before.
This comparison brings us back to the question: Was the Armenian revival of the nineteenth century an inevitable menace to the sovereignty and integrity of the Ottoman State? Is the disastrous breach between Armenian and Turk, which has actually occurred, simply the fruit of wrong-headed Armenian ambitions? That is the Turkish contention; but here the Turkish case breaks clown, and we shall find the truth on the Armenian side.
The parallel with the Greek renaissance is misleading, if it implies a parallel with the Greek revolution. The Greek movement towards political separatism was, in a sense, the outcome of the general spiritual movement that preceded it; but it was hardly an essential consequence, and certainly not a fortunate one. The Greek War of Independence liberated one fraction of the Greek race at the price of exterminating most of the others and sacrificing the favoured position which the Greek element had previously enjoyed throughout the Ottoman Empire. It was not an encouraging precedent for the Armenians, and the objections to following it in their own case were more formidable still. As we have seen, no portion of Ottoman territory was exclusively inhabited by them, and they were nowhere even in an absolute majority, except in certain parts of the Province of Van, so that they had no natural rallying point for a national revolts such as the Greeks had in the Islands and the Morea. They were scattered from one end to another of the Ottoman Empire; the whole Empire was their heritage, and it was a heritage that they must necessarily share with the Turks, who were in a numerical majority and held the reins of political power. The alternative to an Ottoman State was not an Armenian State, but a partition among the Powers, which would have ended the ambitions of Turk and Armenian alike. The Powers Concerned were quite ready for a partition, if only they could agree upon a division of the spoils. This common inheritance the Armenians and the Turks was potentially one of the richest countries in the Old World, and one of the few that had not been economically developed. Its native inhabitants, still scanty, backward and divided against themselves, were not yet capable defending their title against spoilers from without; they only maintained it at present by a fortuitous combination in balance of power, which might change at any moment. The problem for the Armenians was not how to overthrow the Ottoman Empire but how to preserve it, and their interest in preservation was even greater than that of their Turkish neighbours and co-heirs. Our geographical survey has shown that talent and temperament had brought most of the industry,commerce, finance and skilled intellectual work of Turkey into the Armenians' hands. The Greeks may still have competed with them on the AEgean fringe, and the Sephardi Jews in the Balkans but they had the whole interior of the Empire to themselves with no competition to fear from the agricultural Turks or the pastoral Kurds. And if the Empire were preserved bv timely reforms from within, the position of the Armenians would become still more favourable, for they were the only native element capable of raising the Empire economically, intellectually and morally to a European standard, by which alone its existence could permanently be secured. The main effort must be theirs and they would reap the richest reward.
Thus, from the Armenian point of view, a national entente with the Turks was an object of vital importance, to be pursued for its ultimate results in spite of present difficulties and drawbacks. About the middle of the nineteenth century there seemed every likelihood of its being attained. The labours of Sultan Mahmoud and the influence of Great Britain and France had begun to inoculate the Turkish ruling class with liberal ideas An admirable "Law of Nationalities" was promulgated, and there was a project for a parliamentary constitution. It looked, to an optimist, as if the old medieval caste-division of Moslem and Rayah might die away and allow Armenian, Turk and Kurd to find their true relation to one another -- not as irreconcilable sects or races, but as different social elements in the same community, whose mutual interest was to co-operate for a common end.
This was the logical policy for the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire to pursue, and the logic of it was so clear that they have clung to it through difficulties and drawbacks sufficient to banish logic altogether -- "difficulties" which amounted to a bankruptcy of political sense in the Imperial Government, and "drawbacks" which culminated in official massacres of the Armenian population. There were two causes of this sinister turn of events: the external crisis through which the Empire passed in the years 1875-8, and the impression this crisis made upon Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid, who came to the throne in 1876, when it was entering upon its gravest phase.
In these years the Empire had been brought to the verge of ruin by the revolt of a subject Christian population, the Bosniak Serbs, which spread to the other subject races in the Balkan provinces, and by a momentary breakdown in the diplomatic mechanism of the European balance of power, which enabled Russia to throw her military force into the scales on the Balkan rebels' behalf. The ruin was arrested and partially repaired, when Turkey lay prostrate under Russia's heel, by a reassertion of the balance of power, which deprived Russia of most of her gains and half the Balkan Christians of their new-won liberties. Abd-ul-Hamid was clever enough to learn from these experiences, but not, unfortunately, to learn aright, and he devoted all his astuteness to carrying out a policy far more injurious to the Empire than the troubles it was meant to avert. He seems to have inferred from the war with Russia that Turkey was not and never would be strong enough to hold its own against a first-class power; it was not her internal strength that had saved her, but the external readjustment of forces. Therefore, any attempt to strengthen the Empire from within, by reconciling its racial elements and developing its natural resources, was Utopian and irrelevant to the problem. The only object of importance was to insure against an attack by any single Power by keeping all the Great Powers in a state of jealous equilibrium. Now the breakdown of this equilibrium, in 1877, which had been so disastrous for Turkey, had been directly caused by an antecedent disturbance of equilibrium within the Empire itself. A subject Christian nationality had tried to break away violently from the Ottoman bodypolitic. Here was the root of the whole trouble, to Abd-ul-Hamid's mind, and the primary object of his policy must be to prevent such a thing from happening again. The subject nationalities of the Empire were not for him unrealised assets; they were potential destroyers of the State, more formidable even than the foreign Powers. Their potentialities must be neutralised, and the surest course, with them as with the Powers, was to play them off against one another. In fine, the policy of Abd-ul-Hamid was the exact antithesis of the instinctive Armenian policy which we have indicated above; it was not to strengthen the Empire by bringing the nationalities into harmony, but to weaken the nationalities, at whatever cost to the Empire, by setting them to cut each other's throats. Abd-ul-Hamid applied this policy for forty years. The Macedonians and the Armenians were his special victims, but only the Armenians concern us here.
It was inevitable that the Armenians should be singled out by Abd-ul-Hamid for repression. When Turkey sued for peace in 1878, the Russian troops were in occupation of the greater part of the Armenian plateau, and the Russian plenipotentiaries inserted an Article (No. 16) in the Treaty of San Stefano making the evacuation of these provinces conditional upon the previ intoduction of reforms in their administration by the Ottoman Government. A concrete scheme for the reorganization of six vilayets in question* had already been drawn up by a delegation of their Armenian inhabitants. It provided for the creation of an Armenian Governor-General, empowered to appoint and remove the officials subordinate to him; a mixed gendarmerie of Armenians and the sedentary elements in the Moslem population to the exclusion of the nomadic Kurds; a general assembly, consisting of Moslem and Christian deputies in equal number and equal rights for every creed. The Ottoman Government approved and even encouraged this project of provincial autonomy when it feared that the alternative was the cession of the provinces to Russia. As soon as it had made certain of the Russian evacuation, its approval turned to indifference; and when the European Congress met at Berlin to revise the San Stefano Treaty, the Ottoman emissaries exerted themselves to quash the project altogether. In this they were practically successful, the Treaty drawn up at Berlin by the Congress merely engaged the Ottoman Government, in general terms**, to introduce " amelioration" in the "provinces inhabited by Armenians," without demanding any guarantee at all***. The Russian troops were withdrawn and the ameliorations were a dead letter. The Ottoman Government was reminded of them, in 1880, by a collective Note from the six Powers. But it left the Note unanswered, and after the diplomatic demarches had dragged on for two years the question was shelved, on Bismarck's suggestion, because no Power except Great Britain would press it.
The seed of the "Armenian Reforms" had thus fallen upon stony ground, except in the mind of Abd-ul-Hamid, where it lodged and rankled till it bore the fruit of the "Armenian Massacres.'' The project had not really been a menace to Ottoman sovereignty and integrity. It was merely a proposal to apply in six vilayets that elementary measure of "amelioration" which was urgently needed by the Empire as a whole, and without which it could never begin to develop its internal strength. But to Abd-ul-Hamid it was unforgivable, for to him every concession to a subject Christian nationality was suspect. He had seen the Bulgars given ecclesiastical autonomy by the Ottoman Government in 1870 and then raised by Russia, within eight years, into a semi-independent political principality. Armenian autonomy had been averted for the moment, but the parallel might still hold good, for Russia's influence over the Armenians had been increasing. .
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* Erzeroum, Van, Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Mamouret-ul-Aziz, Sivas.
** Article 61.
*** There was an equally vague clause to the same effect in the special "Cyprus Convention" between Turkey and Great Britain, but in neither treaty was there any guarantee of its observance. The Berlin Treaty merely provided that the Ottoman Government should communicate its measures of reform to the Powers. but, as they were never carried out, they were never reported.
Russia had conquered the Armenian provinces of Persia in 1828*, and this had brought within her frontier the Monastery of Etchmiadzin, in the Khanate of Erivan, which was the seat of the Katholikos of All the Armenians. The power of this Katholikos was at that time very much in abeyance. He was an ecclesiastical relic of the ancient united Armenian Kingdom of Tigranes and Tiridates, which had been out of existence for fourteen hundred years. There was another Katholikos at Sis, a relic of the mediaeval kingdom of Cilicia, who did not acknowledge his supremacy, and he was thrown into the shade altogether by the Armenian Patriarch at Constantinople, who was the official head of the Armenian Millet in the Ottoman Empire -- at that time an overwhelming majority of the Armenian people. But Russian diplomacy succeeded in reviving the Katholikos of Etchmiadzin's authority. In the 'forties of the nineteenth century, when Russian influence at Constantinople was at its height and Russian protection seemed the only recourse for Turkey against the ambition of Mehemet Ali, the ecclesiastical supremacy of Etchmiadzin over Constantinople and Sis was definitely established, and the Katholikos of Etchmiadzin, a resident in Russian territory, became once more the actual as well as the titular head of the whole Gregorian Church. Russia had thus acquired an influence over the Armenians as a nation, and individual Armenians were acquiring a reciprocal influence in Russia. They had risen to eminence, not only in commerce, but in the public service and in the army. They had distinguished themselves particularly in the war of 1877. Loris Melikov, Lazarev and Tergoukasev, three of the most successful generals on the Russian side, were of Armenian nationality. Melikov had taken the fortress of Kars, and the Treaty of Berlin left his conquest in Russia's possession with zone of territory that rounded off the districts ceded by Persia fifty years before. The Russian frontier was thus pushed forward on to the Armenian plateau, and now included an important Armenian population -- important enough to make its mark on the general life of the Russian Empire** and to serve as a national rallying-point for the Armenians who still remained on the Ottoman side of the line.
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* Russia began to acquire territory south of the Caucasus at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the last King of Georgia ceded his kingdom to the Tsar, to save it from the hands of the Turks and Persians.
** Tiflis, the former capital of the Georgian Kingdom and now the administrative centre of the Russian Provinces of the Caucasus, has become practically an Armenian city in the course of the nineteenth century, and Armenian settlements have spread far further into the interior of Russia.
Such considerations outweighed all others in Abd-ul-Hamid's mind. His Armenian subjects must be deprived of their formidable vitality, and he decided to crush them by resuscitating the Kurds. From 1878 onwards he encouraged their lawlessness and in 1891 he deliberately undid the work of his predecessor, Mahmoud. The Kurdish chieftains were taken again into favour and decorated with Ottoman military rank; their tribes were enrolled as squadrons of territorial cavalry, regimental badges and modern rifles were served out to them from the Government stores, and their retaining fee was a free hand to use their offical status and their official weapons as they pleased against Armenian neighbours. At the same time the latter were systematically disarmed; the only retaliation open to them was formation of secret revolutionary societies, and this fitted in entirely with Abd-ul-Hamid's plans, for it made a racial conflict inevitable. The disturbances began in 1893 with the posting up of revolutionary placards in Yozgad and Marsovan. This soon followed by an open breach between Moslem and Christian in the districts of Moush and Sassoun, and there was a concentration of troops -- some of them Turkish regulars, most of them Hamidié Kurds. Sassoun was besieged for several months, and fell in 1894. The Sassounlis -- men, women children -- were savagely massacred by the Turks and Kurds, and the attention of Great Britain was aroused. In the winter of 1894-5 Great Britain persuaded France and Russia to join her in reminding the Ottoman Government of its pledge to introduce provincial reforms, and in the spring they presented a concrete programme for the administration of the Six Vilayets. In its final form it was a perfunctory project, and the counter-project which the Ottoman Government announced its intention of applying in its stead was more illusory still. It was promulgated in 1895, but the first of a new series of organized massacres had already taken place a few days earlier, at Trebizond, and in the following months the slaughter was extended to one after of the principal towns of the Empire. These atrocities were nearly all committed against peaceful, unarmed urban populations. The only place that resisted was Zeitoun, which held out for six months against a Turkish army, and was finally amnestied by the mediation of the Powers. The anti-Armenian outbreaks were instigated and controlled by the Central Government, were crowned, in August, 1896, by the great massacre at Constantinople, where for two days the Armenians, at the Government's bidding, were killed indiscriminately in the streets, until the death-roll amounted to many thousands. Then Abd-ul-Hamid held his hand. He had been feeling the pulse of public opinion, abroad and at home, and he saw that he had gone far enough.* In all more than 100,000 men, women and children had perished, and for the moment he had sufficiently crippled the Armenian element in his Empire.
----------
* Though the British Government was the only Government that attempted to put pressure on the Turks to desist. In Germany it w as the mot d'ordre that the massacres were a British invention with a purpose, and the German Emperor shortly afterwards sent his portrait to Abd-ul-Hamid as a complimentary gift.
Yet this Macchiavellian policy was ultimately as futile as it was wicked. In the period after the massacres the Armenian population in Turkey was certainly reduced, partly by the actual slaughter and partly by emigration abroad. But this only weakened the Empire without permanently paralyzing the Armenian race. The emigrants struck new roots in the United States and in the Russian Caucasus, acquired new resources, enlisted new sympathies; and Russia was the greatest gainer of all. The Armenians had little reason, at the time, to look towards Russia with special sympathy or hope. In Russia, as in Turkey, the war of 1877-8 had been followed by a political reaction, which was aggravated by the assassination of the Tsar, Alexander II., in 1881; and the Armenians, as an energetic, intellectual, progressive element in the Russian Empire, were classed by the police with the revolutionaries, and came under their heavy hand. Yet once an Armenian was on the Russian side of the frontier his life and property at least were safe. He could be sure of reaping the fruits of his labour, and had not to fear sudden death in the streets. During the quarter of a century that followed the Treaty of Berlin, the Armenian population of the Russian provinces increased remarkably in prosperity and numbers, and now, after the massacres, they were reinforced by a constant stream of Ottoman refugees. The centre of gravity of the Armenian race was shifting more and more from Ottoman to Russian territory. Russia has profited by the crimes of her neighbours. The Hamidian réegime lasted from 1878 to 1908, and did all that any policy could do to widen the breach between the Ottoman State and the Armenian people. Yet the natural community of interest was so strong that even thirty years of repression did not make the Armenians despair of Ottoman regeneration.
Nothing is more significant than the conduct of the Armenians in 1908, when Abd-ul-Hamid was overthrown by the Young Turkish Revolution, and there was a momentary possibility that the Empire might be reformed and preserved by the initiative of the Turks themselves. At this crisis the real attitude of the different nationalities in the Empire was revealed. The Kurds put up a fight for Abd-ul-Hamid, because they rejoiced in the old dispensation. The Macedonians -- Greek, Bulgar and Serb -- who had been the Armenians' principal fellow-victims in the days of oppression, paid the Constitution lip-homage and secretly prepared to strike. They were irreconcilable irredentists, and saw in the reform of the Empire simply an obstacle to their secession from it. They took counsel with their kinsmen in the independent national States of Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece, and, four years later, the Balkan League attacked Turkey and tore away her Macedonian provinces by force.
The Armenians, on the other hand, threw themselves w holeheartedly into the service of the new regime. As soon as Ottoman Constitution was restored, the Armenian political parties abandoned their revolutionary programme in favour of parliamentary action, and co-operated in Parliament with the the Turkish bloc so long as Young Turkish poliey remained in any degree liberal or democratic. The terrible Adana massacre which occurred less than a year after the Constitution had been proclaimed, might have damped the Armenians' enthusiasm (though at first the proof that the Young Turks were implicated in them.was not so clear as it has since become). Yet they showed their loyalty in 1912, when the Turks were fighting for their existence. It was only under the new laws that the privilege and duty of military service had been extended to the Christian as well as the Moslem citizens of the Empire, and the disastrous Balkan Campaign was the first opportunity that Armenian soldiers were given of doing battle for their common heritage. But they bore themselves so well in this ordeal that they were publicly commended by their Turkish commanders. Thus, in war and peace in the Army and in Parliament, the Armenians worked for salvation of the Ottoman Commonwealth, from the accession of the Young Turks in 1908 till their intervention in the European War in 1914. It is impossible to reconcile with this fact the Turkish contention that in 1914 they suddenly reversed their policy and began treacherously to plot for the Ottoman Empire's destruction.
V. THE DEPORTATIONS OF 1915: ANTECEDENTS
There is no dispute as to what happened in 1915. The Armenian inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire were everywhere uprooted from their homes, and deported to the most remote and unhealthy districts that the Govermnent could select i for them. Some were murdered at the outset, some perished on the way, and some died after reaching their destination. The death-roll amounts to upwards of six hundred thousand; perhaps six hundred thousand more are still alive in their places of exile; and the remaining six hundred thousand or so have either been converted forcibly to Islam, gone into hiding in the mountains or escaped beyond the Ottoman frontier. The Ottoman Government cannot deny these facts, and they cannot justify them. No provocation or misdemeanour on the part of individual Armenians could justify such a crime against the whole race. But it might be explained and palliated if the Armenians, or some of them, were originally in the wrong; and therefore the Ottoman Governmment and its German apologists have concentrated their efforts s on proving that this was the case.* There are three main Turkish contentions, none of which will bear examination.
The first contention is that the Armenians took up arms and joined the Russians, as soon as the latter crossed the Ottoman frontier. The standard case its champions cite is the "Revolt of Van." The deportations, thev maintain, were only ordelered after this outbreak to forestall the danger of its repetition elsewhere. This contention is easily rebutted. In the first place, there was no Armenian revolt at Van. The Armenians mererely defended the quarter of the city in which they lived, after it had been beleaguered and attacked by Turkish troops, and the outlying villages visited with massacre by Turkish patrols. The outbreak was on the Turkish side, and the responsibibility lies with the Turkish governor, Djevdet Bey. The ferocicious, uncontrollable character of this official was the true cause of the catastrophe. Anyone who reads the impartial American testimony on this point, in section II. of the present collection of documents, will see that this was so. And, in the second place, the deportations had already begun in Cil | ||||||||
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SERVICE AND DESTRUCTION
The history of formation and development of Ottoman Empire is closely connected with the formation and development of its military system. The Ottoman Turks permanently were at invasive warfare, but at the beginning they did not have enough military strength being minority in the occupied areas. To use the military strength of their Christian subjects and to meet increasing needs of their troops, Sultans began to impose a special tax called devshirme â human tax. Moreover the so called penjek was imposed on war prisoners according to which one of each five from subject peoples had to be conscripted into the Ottoman army. The Ottoman rulers continually conscripted strong and healthy boys and teenagers who after being converted into Islam were sent to ajemi (inexperienced, unpracticed) troops, where they got military training and the strongest and battle-worthy ones were included in the yenicheri troops.
The yenicheri troops were created in 1361-1363 during the reign of Sultan Murad I and mainly were formed of Christians who were converted into Islam forcibly. Many generations of Armenian children were taken away from their native places to serve for the interests of the Ottoman state.
Sargis Hovhannesian, âNew law on military serviceâ
Constantinople, 1914
Although the conscription of non-Muslims into the Army of Faith was against the principles of sharia, the Ottoman authorities, taking into account the state interests, often ignored their religious norms, using the Christians in their troops(yaya-infantry, laÄımjı-trench digger, mezarcı-grave digger and in other troops). The Armenians also served in the Ottoman navy as mercenaries.
For centuries Armenian craftsmen served in the Ottoman land forces and in navy. Saddlers, tailors, especially gunsmiths and other craftsmen were highly estimated in the Ottoman army.
The carpenters of the Ottoman navy were mainly drafted from Armenians and Greeks. The chief smithâs position of Admiralty of the Empire in XVII-XIX centuries was given to the Armenian Demirjibashian family. And the imperial gunpowder industry was controlled by famous Dadian amira family for about a century.
Anmeruk, âThe first soldierâ
Constantinople, 1911
The main provision suppliers of the Ottoman army were Armenian merchants who for centuries met the needs of the army and filled its food reserves. For several centuries such provision suppliers, as Hovhannes bey Khanazat, Abraham Chelebi Aproian, Haji Ohan Yaghechian and others provided their services to the Ottoman Army.
Apart from serving in different spheres of the Ottoman state system, Armenians also held high positions at the Military (War) and Navy ministries. Most of them received high military ranks. Yosep Vardanian (Vardan pasha), Karapet pasha Tavutian, Hovhannes pasha Guyumjian were distinguished for their professional abilities.
The certificate given to the Commander of the
battalion of Infantry regiment of
Ottoman Army Agha Nazaret Efendi Daghavarian
who was awarded with an order of 5th level
February 29, 1892
On November 9, 1839, in Gülhane royal palace sultan Abdul Mejid I declared the first manifesto of Ottoman reforms - Hatt-ı Åerif, known as Tanzimat.
Thanks to the opportunities given by Tanzimat and due to the lack of Turkish doctors in army, the Armenian doctors educated in European universities were allowed to serve in the Ottoman army. Since 1841 non-Muslims were given a chance to study at the Imperial Military Medical College, (IMMC), which was established by the initiation of Mahmud IIâs personal doctor Manuel Shashian in 1838. Most of the Armenian Military doctors taught in IMMC. Later the Imperial Medical Company was founded by them. Most of the Armenian military doctors received the titles of pasha and bey for their distinguished service provided to the Empire. Among them were Gabriel pasha Sevan, the first Armenian doctor of the Ottoman Navy, Anton pasha Nafielian, Tiran pasha Papazian, Hakob bey Tavutian, Gaspar bey Sinapian and others.
George Ts. V. Arslanian âTo an Armenian Soldierâ
Constantinople, 1912
Apart from military doctors, a great number of Armenian pharmacologists and veterinarians served in different detachments of the Ottoman army.
Even after Tanzimat the Sublime Porte refused the idea of general conscription of Christians and continued the taxation of the conscription; first - iyane-i askeriye (support to the army), then bedel-i askeriye (for having no military conscription). Nevertheless, when the Ottoman army was fighting against the Kurdish self ruling tribesmen in the Eastern provinces of the country, the Armenians were conscripted for a short time by the government in 1847.
âA law of Conscription of non-Muslimsâ
Constantinople, 1909
In 1864 the Harbiye Military College was founded in Istanbul. By the order of Sultan Abdul Aziz five Armenian teenagers (Gabriel Eknaian, Karapet Barzamian, Simon Tatian, Hovian, Sinarian) entered the college. But they werenât allowed to get a rank higher than captain (yüzbaÅi).
In 1908, after the re-proclamation of the Constitution the Armenians with other Christians demanded for the right to be recruited and to serve with equal rights in the Ottoman army. According to the law, adopted by the Ottoman parliament in 1910, all nationalities of the Ottoman Empire were to be conscripted. The orders of conscription that were published in August and September of 1910 were admitted by the Armenian youth with great enthusiasm. A lot of Armenian teenagers entered the Harbiye â Ottoman military college and showed their abilities in military service. Most of them received high military ranks. During both Balkan Wars and World War I Armenian soldiers fulfilled their military duties and responsibilities, at the same time showing exceptional abilities and bravery in service.
On August 1, 1914 World War I started. All the men in the Empire from 18 to 45 were conscripted to the army, among them also 60 thousand Armenian men, who joined those already serving in the Ottoman army. In spite of bad conditions for the Armenian soldiers in the army they did their duty with great responsibility. Armenian soldiers saved the Military minister Enver pasha from being taken as war prisoner in the Sarikamish front, who on that occasion sent a letter of gratitude to Zaven Ter-Yeghiayan, Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople.
The defeat at Sarikamish became a pretext to blame Armenian soldiers for treachery. On February 12, 1915 by the order of the same Enver pasha the disarmament of the Armenian soldiers of Ottoman army started, then amele taburi-es (labor battalions) and hamal taburi-es (cargo transportation battalions) were formed with the involvement of disarmed Armenian soldiers. At the same time the isolation and arrest of Armenian officers started. This was followed by the order of Enver, Military (War) minister, about the annihilation of Armenian soldiers serving in the Ottoman army. Thousands of Armenian soldiers and army suppliers were cruelly killed by their Turkish companions-in-arms.
Since the first days of the war most of the Armenian doctors serving in the military hospitals fell victims to the war. Some of them died while doing their duty looking after Turkish soldiers infected by typhus. And many others were killed just for being Armenian. The main reason of for survival of some of the Armenian doctors was the lack of the Turkish doctors at the front.
The conscription and service of tens of thousands of young Armenians in the Ottoman army during the World War I once more confirms the inconsistency of the statements of the supporters of Turkish denial that Armenians joined foreign armies creating danger in the rear of the Ottoman army.
The disarmament and annihilation of Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman army was the first stage of the genocide committed against the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire annihilated Armenian men to leave no chances for the self-defense and for efficient realization of the premeditated plans of deportation and extermination of the Armenian population.
Armenian born Damad Abraham pasha
High-ranking military leader in Ottoman army
Imperial chief gunpowder maker Ohannes bey Dadian (1798-1869)
Imperial chief gunpowder maker Ohannes bey Dadian (1798-1869)
Imperial chief gunpowder maker Boghos bey Dadian (1800/01- 1863)
Imperial chief gunpowder maker Simon amira Dadian (1777-1834)
Colonel of the Ottoman army Boghos bey Dadian (1862-1934)
Stepan pasha Aslanian (1822-1901)
Ottoman War ministry staff member in 1870s
Toros bey Gisak
An official of the Ottoman navy, Colonel
Grigor bey Taguorian (?-1884), Colonel
Anton Yaver pasha Tnkrian (1812-1908)
Colonel of the Ottoman naval forces
Andranik pasha Krchikian (1819-1894), Ottoman officer
Graduated from IMMC with level of captain, 1855/1856
Anton pasha Nafilian (1834-1912)
Chief doctor of the military hospital in Haydarpasha, received Mejidie and Osmanie awards in 1891
Tigran pasha Papayian, Colonel (1861-1939)
Gaspar bey Sinapian, Colonel (1814-1872)
Hovsep Vardanian ( Vardan pasha) (1815-1879), awarded with Mejidie and Osmanie orders
Artin bey Tevletian (1852-1937)
Chief doctor of Second Army during Balkan War
Chief doctor of the military hospital in Gatygyugh during World War I
Tiran pasha Papazian(1858-1926), chief doctor of the Third Ottoman Army
Tigran pasha Peshtimalchian(1837-1894)
The consultant doctor of Sultan Abdul Hamid II
Vahan pasha Manuelian (1847-1902)
Leading teacher of IMMC, court physician
Komitas bey Minasian (1837-1903)
Worked in War ministry since 1878
Gabriel pasha Sevian (1822-1900)
The first Armenian military doctor of Ottoman navy
Ferdi pasha Tertjimanian
Armenian junior officers of Ottoman army
A. From the left: Eduard Hekimian, Matteos Mamurian, Gaspar Hayrapetian
B. Vardan Stampolian, Shavarsh Khvkhshlian, Anania Abrahamian
The Administration of the âUnion of Armenian Officersâ of Izmir
Armenian students (from Sebastia) of Harbiye Military college, 1910-1914
Photo of the group of Ottoman officers
In the middle of the photo Tigran Khoyan, military officer, 1917
From the left: Eduard Khachatrian, famous football player, next to him Poghos Shapoian
Row A. In the right: Zarmair in uniform regimentals: famous football player and sportsman
Hakob Siruni with Armenian officers in reserve of Ottoman Army, 1914
Armenian students of the Harbiye Military College, 1913
A group of Armenian officers, who graduated from Harbiye of Constantinople in 1914:
Among them are: Mesrop Kadghberuni, Martiros Zurikian, Mkrtich Khantjian and Mkrtich Shaltjian
Armenian martyrs of the Balkan War, Edirne, 1912
From the left: Grigor Palelozian, Garegin Asturian, Ghlchrian
Sitting: Hakob Chetinian, Mkrtich Sivmelian
A document given to Vahan Efendi Altin Oghli
âVahan Efendi Altin Oghli, born in 1894, is trainer of gymnastics in the Handicraft college of Aleppoâ,issued in 1917
Armenian draftees of the Ottoman army, 1915
Armenian officers of Zilie gymnasium, sitting in the left Galust Syurmenian, sitting in the right Ohannes Sahakian
Three Armenian officers of the Ottoman army
From the left: Grigor Sarrafian, Galust Syumenian, Shahen Tatikian (student of Harbiye), Constantinople, 1913
The students of Military school of Constantinople, in the middle â A. Altjian
Armenian officers of Ottoman army
Armenian officers of Ottoman army, 1915/1916
Armenian officers of the Ottoman army
From the right G. Gapzemalian
From the left Hmayak, the son of Petros Efendi - pharmacist from Angara
Sarkis Azatian, military doctor of the Ottoman army, 1914
Beniamin Shaqarian (in the left), officer; the second â his cousin, Constantinople, 1916
Hayk Chizmechian and Tigran Khoian, in regimental uniform of officer of Ottoman army, 1917
Avetis Chepechian
Officer of the Ottoman Army, military doctor, participant of operations of Dardanele and Palestine, 1915
Colonel Boghos bey Tatian (1862-1934)
Yeghiazar Mesyaian
The first Armenian pharmacist of Sebastia martyred during the deportation
Ottoman army colonel Boghos bey Tatian (1862-1934)
Galust Syurmenian, officer, newly graduated from the military college, 1913
Galust Syurmenian, a student of Harbiye
Hovhannes Aspet, 1915
Beniamin Ketikian (nickname - Afion Martiros from Garahisar)
Mihran Kalemkarian, the pharmacist of the Sultan hospital in Nishatash
Levon (surname is unknown), Armenian soldier of the Ottoman army, 21 October 1917
Aram N. Selian, Armenian soldier of the Ottoman army
Galust Syurmenian
Garegin Yoltjian, in regimental uniform of Ottoman army
Suren Azirian, military doctor of the Ottoman army, 1914
Disarmed Armenian draftees of the Ottoman army used as carrier workers, 1915
Hovhannes Feramean, disarmed and killed in 1915, Fourth army
Grigor Aharonean, disarmed and killed in 1915, Fourth army
Rouben Ealnzean, disarmed and killed in 1915, Fourth army
Melkon Taghlyean, disarmed and killed in 1915, Fourth army
Hakob Zatourean, shot in 1921, Bolatlı
Martiros Terzean, shot in 1921, Bolatlı
Killed Armenian soldier on the road to Bitlis, 1915/16
Corpse of an Armenian soldier worker in Bitlis, 1915/1916
Disarmed Armenian soldier, killed near of Mush, 1915
Beheaded corpses of Armenian soldiers on their way to Bitlis
Photo taken by Russian soldiers, 1915/1916
Sources: ÕÕ¡ÕµÕ¯Õ¡Õ¦Õ¥Õ¡Õ¶ ÕÕ¡ÕµÕ¡Õ£Õ«Õ¿Õ¡Õ¯Õ¡Õ¶ ÕÕ¡Õ¶Õ¤Õ¥Õ½, Ô±Õ¶Õ¡Õ°Õ«Õ¿ Ô±Õ½Õ¿Õ¸ÕµÕ¡Õ¶, ÕÕ¡ÕµÕ¥ÖÕ¶ ÕÕ½Õ´Õ¡Õ¶Õ¥Õ¡Õ¶ Õ¢Õ¡Õ¶Õ¡Õ¯Õ¸ÖÕ´ /ÔºÔ´. Ô´Õ¡ÖÕ«Ö Õ´Õ«Õ¶Õ¹Ö 1918/, ÕÕ§ÕµÖÕ¸ÖÕ©, 2008Õ©.
ÕÕ«Õ£ÖÕ¡Õ¶ ÕÕÕÕ . Ô½Õ¸ÕµÕ¥Õ¡Õ¶, «ÕÕ¡Õ°Õ¡Õ¿Õ¡Õ¯ ÖÕ¥Õ²Õ« Õ¡Õ¶Õ´Õ¡Õ°Õ¶Õ¥Ö», ÕÕ¥ÕµÖÕ¸ÖÕ©, 1983Õ©.
Ô³. ÕÕ«ÖÖÕ´Õ§Õ¶Õ¥Õ¡Õ¶,, ÕÕ¡Õ³Õ¯Õ¡Õ°Õ¡Õµ Ô¶Õ«Õ¶Õ¸ÖÕ¸Ö Ö Ô¶Õ«Õ¶Õ¸ÖÕ¸ÖÕ¡Õ¯Õ¡Õ¶Õ¸ÖÕ©Õ«Õ«Õ¶Õ¨ Õ¶Õ¡Õ Õ¿Õ¡Õ³Õ¯Õ¡Õ¯Õ¡Õ¶ Õ¡ÕºÕ¡ ÕÕ¡ÕµÕ¯Õ¡Õ¯Õ¡Õ¶ Õ¢Õ¡Õ¶Õ¡Õ¯Õ¶Õ¥ÖÕ¸ÖÕ¶ Õ´Õ¥Õ», ÕÕ§ÕµÖÕ¸ÖÕ©, 1967Õ©.
Ô³. ÕÕ«ÖÖÕ´Õ§Õ¶Õ¥Õ¡Õ¶, ÔµÖÕ¦Õ¶Õ¯Õ¡, Ô³Õ¡Õ°Õ«ÖÕ§, 1947Õ©.
ÕÕÔ¹Ô», Õ¬Õ¸ÖÕ½Õ¶Õ¯Õ¡ÖÕ¶Õ¥ÖÕ« ÖÕ¸Õ¶Õ¤, Õ©Õº-176, Ö Õ° 2009
ÕÕ¡Õ°Õ¥ ÕÕ¡Õ´Õ¸ÖÕ§Õ¬Õ¥Õ¡Õ¶, ÕÕ¡Õµ Ô±Õ¶ÖÕ¥Õ¡Õ¬Õ¨, ÔµÖÖÕ¡Õ¶
ÕÕ½Õ´Õ¡Õ¶Õ¥Õ¡Õ¶ Õ¯Õ¡ÕµÕ½Õ¥ÖÕ¡Õ¯Õ¡Õ¶ Õ¢Õ¡Õ¶Õ¡Õ¯Õ« Õ½ÕºÕ¡` Ô²ÕªÕ«Õ·Õ¯ Ô±Õ¾Õ¥Õ¿Õ«Õ½ ÕÕ¥ÕºÕ¥Õ³Õ¥Õ¡Õ¶Õ«Õ¶ Ö ÖÕ¡Õ£Õ«ÖÕ¨ 1914-1918, ÕÕ§ÕµÖÕ¸ÖÕ©, 1986Õ©.
ÕÕ«Õ½Õ¡Ö ÕÕ§Õ¬Õ§Õ·Õ¥Õ¡Õ¶, ÕÕ«Õ½-ÕÕ¡Õ¿Õ¥Õ¡Õ¶, ÕÕ§ÕµÖÕ¸ÖÕ©, 1949Õ©.
Ô±. ÕÕ¡Õ£Õ§Õ½Õ¥Õ¡Õ¶, «ÕÕ¡Õ°Õ¡Õ¶ ÕÕ§Õ¿Õ§Õ¬Õ¥Õ¡Õ¶. ÔµÖÕ¡ÕªÕ«Õ·Õ¿ Õ´Õ¡Õ¶Õ¯Õ¡Õ¾Õ¡Öժը», ÕÕ¥ÕµÖÕ¸ÖÕ©, 2007Õ©.
Ô±Õ¬Õ«Õ½ ÕÕ¿Õ¥Õ¡Õ¶ Ô³Õ¡Õ½Õ¢Õ¡ÖÕ¥Õ¡Õ¶, «ÕÕ¡Õ¿Õ´Õ¡Õ£Õ«ÖÖ Õ¡Õ¶Õ¯Õ«ÖÖÕ«Õ¸Õµ Õ¥Ö Õ½Õ¿Õ¡Õ¶Õ¸Õ¦Õ« Õ°Õ¡ÕµÕ¸Ö», ÕÕ¥ÕµÖÕ¸ÖÕ©-Ô¼Õ«Õ¢Õ¡Õ¶Õ¡Õ¶, 1968Õ©.
Ô¹Õ¥Õ¸Õ¤Õ«Õ¯, Ô±Õ´Õ¥Õ¶Õ¸ÖÕ¶ ÕÕ¡ÖÖÕ¸ÕµÕ¸ÕµÖÕ¨, Ô¿. ÕÕ¸Õ¬Õ«Õ½, 1922Õ©.
N 16, Ô³Õ¡Õ²Õ©Õ¡Õ¯Õ¡Õ¶Õ¡Õ¯Õ¡Õ¶ Õ¡Õ¬Õ¢Õ¸Õ´, 1914-1915Õ©Õ©.
N 15, Ô³Õ¡Õ²Õ©Õ¡Õ¯Õ¡Õ¶Õ¡Õ¯Õ¡Õ¶ Õ¡Õ¬Õ¢Õ¸Õ´, 1914-1915Õ©Õ©.
Pars TuÄlacı, Tarih Boyunca Batı Ermeniler, (287-1850), c. 1, Ä°stanbul, 2004
Pars TuÄlacı, Tarih Boyunca Batı Ermeniler, (1891-1922), c. 3, Ä°stanbul, 2004
Pars TuÄlacı, The Role of The Dadian Family in Ottoman social, economic and political life, Ä°stanbul, 1993
Pars TuÄlacı, Dadyan Ailesiânin Osmanlı Toplum, Ekonomi ve siyaset hayatındaki rolü, Ä°stanbul, 1993
Armenian review, spring/summer, 1992 | ||||||||
3581 | dbpedia | 1 | 1 | https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Siege_of_Aintab | en | Siege of Aintab | https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ucp-internal-test-starter-commons/images/a/aa/FandomFireLogo.png/revision/latest?cb=20210713142711 | https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ucp-internal-test-starter-commons/images/a/aa/FandomFireLogo.png/revision/latest?cb=20210713142711 | [
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"Contributors to Military Wiki"
] | 2024-07-29T22:27:06+00:00 | The siege of Aintab[8][9] or siege of Antep (Turkish: Antep Savunması = Defence of Antep) was a military engagement between the Turkish National Forces and the French Colonial Forces, that occupied the city of Aintab (present day: Gaziantep). Fighting began in April 1920, when French forces... | en | /skins-ucp/mw139/common/favicon.ico | Military Wiki | https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Siege_of_Aintab | A French army officer with five Turkish prisoners. On the officer's right is a soldier of the French Colonial Forces, and on his left (wearing epaulettes) is an auxiliary from the French Armenian Legion. Total force:[3][4] [Note 1]
2.920 militia fighters,
6 machine guns,[5]
3 mountain guns[5] Total force:[3][4][Note 2]
20,000 French soldiers,[6]
1,500 Armenian soldiers,
4 tanks, 11 artillery batteries, 1,400 military animals,[5] 6 aircraft, 1 mobile hospital[5] | ||
3581 | dbpedia | 0 | 19 | https://www.academia.edu/39392910/From_Aintab_to_Gaziantep_The_Reconstitution_of_an_Elite_on_the_Ottoman_Periphery | en | From Aintab to Gaziantep: The Reconstitution of an Elite on the Ottoman Periphery | http://a.academia-assets.com/images/open-graph-icons/fb-paper.gif | http://a.academia-assets.com/images/open-graph-icons/fb-paper.gif | [
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"Ümit Kurt",
"newcastleuni.academia.edu"
] | 2019-06-05T00:00:00 | Much of the literature on the destruction of the Ottoman Armenians tells the story of a state captured by a radical party that enforced genocidal measures throughout the land. Scholarship about genocidal activity at the local level, however – what | https://www.academia.edu/39392910/From_Aintab_to_Gaziantep_The_Reconstitution_of_an_Elite_on_the_Ottoman_Periphery | This beautifully crafted, richly researched book tells a powerful story that is sure to interest a wide audience of specialists and nonspecialists alike. In a meticulously researched study that draws on a wide range of archival collections in Turkey, Armenia, Lebanon, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany as well as a substantial assembly of memoirs, newspapers and periodicals, secondary sources, and interviews, Kurt constructs a microhistory of sorts that takes Aintab as its focus and allows readers to follow the dynamics of Armenian dispossession from the 1895 massacres to the genocide carried out during World War I, and into the Turkish Republic. Kurt subscribes neither to the idea that Ottoman Christians and Muslims had been locked in age-old primordial hatreds, nor to the image of a rosy coexistence across the ages. He does ask, however, how it was that a community like Aintab, where Muslims and Christians had coexisted relatively peacefully for so long, fell victim to the genocidal momentum that had begun to engulf places with Christian communities. He explores this by following the money, so to speak. Who profited from this and how?
The provenance of a house reveals a sordid history of oppression. As a native son of Gaziantep who has explored the city’s history, I have become aware of the consequences of Armenians’ physical and material destruction at the hands of their former Muslim neighbors. Aside from offering insight into local history, my account also contributes to the broader story of the Armenian genocide. Unseen in the archived letters, telegrams and property lists are the trauma and suffering of Armenian survivors repeatedly subjected to attacks on their lives, culture, assets and social status. The base motives of their former neighbors left some of the most indelible wounds, which more than a century later remain unhealed.
While there exists an extensive body of literature addressing the Armenian genocide, certain gaps persist. The processes and events of the genocide have been unearthed and examined, but genocide is not a phenomenon set in motion by a force of nature. On the contrary, the systematic destruction of Ottoman Armenians was designed and executed by a cadre of individuals, most of whom are little known today. Kurt’s aim here is to recover the story of one such actor from a particular town, Aintab, modern-day Gaziantep—situated on the boundaries of Cilicia (today the southern part of Anatolia) and Syria, near both the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Alexandretta—thereby revealing the perpetrators and their active involvement in the destruction of Armenians at the local/provincial level. Kurt’s article seeks to shed light on such a perpetrator by analysing the objective features of his background and career. Highlighting the human dimension of the genocide allows for an examination of the actors—their motives and their acts—that ultimately bore responsibility for the catastrophic loss of life. Kurt focuses on the life story of Ali Cenani (1872–1934): his background and involvement in the 1915 Armenian deportation and genocide as well as his career in post-genocide Turkey.
The literature on the Armenian Genocide has been growing steadily in recent years. We now have access to many good books and articles that shed light on the historical background of this tragedy and add to survivor and eyewitness descriptions that have been available since the deportations and killings started in 1915. None of these studies, however, pay much attention to the Armenians who chose to stay in Turkey after the genocide and through the establishment of the Turkish republic. This is not surprising, because this small and dwindling community of at most 60,000 people does not easily fit into the competing narratives of the Armenian Genocide. For those promoting the official Turkish version, the continued presence of Armenians in Turkey is a reminder not only of an earlier, much more diverse and tolerant era but also, more poignantly, of everything that happened during the closing years of the Ottoman Empire, including the deportation and murder of almost the entire Armenian population of Anatolia. For both survivors and historians of the genocide, on the other hand, it is not easy to understand why any Armenian would have chosen to stay in Turkey after 1923, knowing that this would place them under the protection of the very people who had engineered the deportation and mass murder of their communities. With her new book Lerna Ekmekçioğlu takes an important step in filling this gap. She describes how the Bolsahay (the Armenian community of Istanbul) navigated the treacherous currents of the Allied occupation and the early years of the republic to (re)make a place for themselves in a changing country and a changing world. In addition to newspapers, magazines, personal memoirs, and contemporary publications, the book relies extensively on articles that appeared in the journal Hay gin (Armenian woman), which was published in Istanbul from 1919 to 1933 by the Armenian Women's Association. Throughout her analysis Ekmekçioğlu pays special attention to the writings of a handful of feminist intellectuals—in particular | |||||
3581 | dbpedia | 1 | 22 | https://www.academia.edu/39392910/From_Aintab_to_Gaziantep_The_Reconstitution_of_an_Elite_on_the_Ottoman_Periphery | en | From Aintab to Gaziantep: The Reconstitution of an Elite on the Ottoman Periphery | http://a.academia-assets.com/images/open-graph-icons/fb-paper.gif | http://a.academia-assets.com/images/open-graph-icons/fb-paper.gif | [
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"Ümit Kurt",
"newcastleuni.academia.edu"
] | 2019-06-05T00:00:00 | Much of the literature on the destruction of the Ottoman Armenians tells the story of a state captured by a radical party that enforced genocidal measures throughout the land. Scholarship about genocidal activity at the local level, however – what | https://www.academia.edu/39392910/From_Aintab_to_Gaziantep_The_Reconstitution_of_an_Elite_on_the_Ottoman_Periphery | This beautifully crafted, richly researched book tells a powerful story that is sure to interest a wide audience of specialists and nonspecialists alike. In a meticulously researched study that draws on a wide range of archival collections in Turkey, Armenia, Lebanon, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany as well as a substantial assembly of memoirs, newspapers and periodicals, secondary sources, and interviews, Kurt constructs a microhistory of sorts that takes Aintab as its focus and allows readers to follow the dynamics of Armenian dispossession from the 1895 massacres to the genocide carried out during World War I, and into the Turkish Republic. Kurt subscribes neither to the idea that Ottoman Christians and Muslims had been locked in age-old primordial hatreds, nor to the image of a rosy coexistence across the ages. He does ask, however, how it was that a community like Aintab, where Muslims and Christians had coexisted relatively peacefully for so long, fell victim to the genocidal momentum that had begun to engulf places with Christian communities. He explores this by following the money, so to speak. Who profited from this and how?
The provenance of a house reveals a sordid history of oppression. As a native son of Gaziantep who has explored the city’s history, I have become aware of the consequences of Armenians’ physical and material destruction at the hands of their former Muslim neighbors. Aside from offering insight into local history, my account also contributes to the broader story of the Armenian genocide. Unseen in the archived letters, telegrams and property lists are the trauma and suffering of Armenian survivors repeatedly subjected to attacks on their lives, culture, assets and social status. The base motives of their former neighbors left some of the most indelible wounds, which more than a century later remain unhealed.
While there exists an extensive body of literature addressing the Armenian genocide, certain gaps persist. The processes and events of the genocide have been unearthed and examined, but genocide is not a phenomenon set in motion by a force of nature. On the contrary, the systematic destruction of Ottoman Armenians was designed and executed by a cadre of individuals, most of whom are little known today. Kurt’s aim here is to recover the story of one such actor from a particular town, Aintab, modern-day Gaziantep—situated on the boundaries of Cilicia (today the southern part of Anatolia) and Syria, near both the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Alexandretta—thereby revealing the perpetrators and their active involvement in the destruction of Armenians at the local/provincial level. Kurt’s article seeks to shed light on such a perpetrator by analysing the objective features of his background and career. Highlighting the human dimension of the genocide allows for an examination of the actors—their motives and their acts—that ultimately bore responsibility for the catastrophic loss of life. Kurt focuses on the life story of Ali Cenani (1872–1934): his background and involvement in the 1915 Armenian deportation and genocide as well as his career in post-genocide Turkey.
The literature on the Armenian Genocide has been growing steadily in recent years. We now have access to many good books and articles that shed light on the historical background of this tragedy and add to survivor and eyewitness descriptions that have been available since the deportations and killings started in 1915. None of these studies, however, pay much attention to the Armenians who chose to stay in Turkey after the genocide and through the establishment of the Turkish republic. This is not surprising, because this small and dwindling community of at most 60,000 people does not easily fit into the competing narratives of the Armenian Genocide. For those promoting the official Turkish version, the continued presence of Armenians in Turkey is a reminder not only of an earlier, much more diverse and tolerant era but also, more poignantly, of everything that happened during the closing years of the Ottoman Empire, including the deportation and murder of almost the entire Armenian population of Anatolia. For both survivors and historians of the genocide, on the other hand, it is not easy to understand why any Armenian would have chosen to stay in Turkey after 1923, knowing that this would place them under the protection of the very people who had engineered the deportation and mass murder of their communities. With her new book Lerna Ekmekçioğlu takes an important step in filling this gap. She describes how the Bolsahay (the Armenian community of Istanbul) navigated the treacherous currents of the Allied occupation and the early years of the republic to (re)make a place for themselves in a changing country and a changing world. In addition to newspapers, magazines, personal memoirs, and contemporary publications, the book relies extensively on articles that appeared in the journal Hay gin (Armenian woman), which was published in Istanbul from 1919 to 1933 by the Armenian Women's Association. Throughout her analysis Ekmekçioğlu pays special attention to the writings of a handful of feminist intellectuals—in particular | |||||
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3581 | dbpedia | 3 | 83 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11716.html.images | en | The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Balkans, by Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth | [] | [] | [] | [
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This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The Balkans: A History of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey
Author: Nevill Forbes
D. G. Hogarth
David Mitrany
Arnold Toynbee
Release date: March 1, 2004 [eBook #11716]
Most recently updated: May 27, 2022
Language: English
Credits: Andy Schmitt and PG Distributed Proofreaders
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BALKANS: A HISTORY OF BULGARIA—SERBIA—GREECE—RUMANIA—TURKEY ***
The Balkans
A HISTORY OF BULGARIA—SERBIA—GREECE—RUMANIA—TURKEY
BY NEVILL FORBES, ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE, D. MITRANY, D.G. HOGARTH
Contents
PREFACE BULGARIA AND SERBIA. By NEVILL FORBES. 1. Introductory 2. The Balkan Peninsula in Classical Times 400 B.C.— A.D. 500 3. The Arrival of the Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula, A.D. 500-650
BULGARIA. 4. The Arrival of the Bulgars in the Balkan Peninsula, 600-700 5. The Early Years of Bulgaria and the Introduction of Christianity, 700-893 6. The Rise and Fall of the First Bulgarian Empire, 893-972 7. The Rise and Fall of ‘Western Bulgaria’ and the Greek Supremacy, 963-1186 8. The Rise and Fall of the Second Bulgarian Empire, 1186-1258 9. The Serbian Supremacy and the Final Collapse, 1258-1393 10. The Turkish Dominion and the Emancipation, 1393-1878 11. The Aftermath, and Prince Alexander of Battenberg, 1878-86 12. The Regeneration under Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, 1886-1908 13. The Kingdom, 1908-13
SERBIA. 14. The Serbs under Foreign Supremacy, 650-1168 15. The Rise and Fall of the Serbian Empire and the Extinction of Serbian Independence, 1168-1496 16. The Turkish Dominion, 1496-1796 17. The Liberation of Serbia under Kara-George (1804-13) and Miloš Obrenović (1815-30): 1796-1830 18. The Throes of Regeneration: Independent Serbia, 1830-1903 19. Serbia, Montenegro, and the Serbo-Croats in Austria-Hungary, 1903-8 20. Serbia and Montenegro, and the two Balkan Wars, 1908-13
GREECE. By ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE. 1. From Ancient to Modern Greece 2. The Awakening of the Nation 3. The Consolidation of the State
RUMANIA: HER HISTORY AND POLITICS. By D. MITRANY 1. Introduction 2. Formation of the Rumanian Nation 3. The Foundation and Development of the Rumanian Principalities 4. The Phanariote Rule 5. Modern Period to 1866 6. Contemporary Period: Internal Development 7. Contemporary Period: Foreign Affairs 8. Rumania and the Present War
TURKEY. By D. G. HOGARTH 1. Origin of the Osmanlis 2. Expansion of the Osmanli Kingdom 3. Heritage and Expansion of the Byzantine Empire 4. Shrinkage and Retreat 5. Revival 6. Relapse 7. Revolution 8. The Balkan War 9. The Future
INDEX
MAPS
The Balkan Peninsula: Ethnological The Balkan Peninsula The Ottoman Empire
PREFACE
The authors of this volume have not worked in conjunction. Widely separated, engaged on other duties, and pressed for time, we have had no opportunity for interchange of views. Each must be held responsible, therefore, for his own section alone. If there be any discrepancies in our writings (it is not unlikely in so disputed a field of history) we can only regret an unfortunate result of the circumstances. Owing to rapid change in the relations of our country to the several Balkan peoples, the tone of a section written earlier may differ from that of another written later. It may be well to state that the sections on Serbia and Bulgaria were finished before the decisive Balkan developments of the past two months. Those on Greece and Rumania represent only a little later stage of the evolution. That on Turkey, compiled between one mission abroad and another, was the latest to be finished.
If our sympathies are not all the same, or given equally to friends and foes, none of us would find it possible to indite a Hymn of Hate about any Balkan people. Every one of these peoples, on whatever side he be fighting to-day, has a past worthy of more than our respect and interwoven in some intimate way with our history. That any one of them is arrayed against us to-day is not to be laid entirely or chiefly at its own door. They are all fine peoples who have not obtained their proper places in the sun. The best of the Osmanli nation, the Anatolian peasantry, has yet to make its physical and moral qualities felt under civilized conditions. As for the rest—the Serbs and the Bulgars, who have enjoyed brief moments of barbaric glory in their past, have still to find themselves in that future which shall be to the Slav. The Greeks, who were old when we were not as yet, are younger now than we. They are as incalculable a factor in a political forecast as another Chosen Race, the Jews. Their past is the world’s glory: the present in the Near East is theirs more than any people’s: the future—despite the laws of corporate being and decline, dare we say they will have no part in it? Of Rumania what are we to think? Her mixed people has had the start of the Balkan Slavs in modern civilization, and evidently her boundaries must grow wider yet. But the limits of her possible expansion are easier to set than those of the rest.
We hope we have dealt fairly with all these peoples. Mediaeval history, whether of the East or the West, is mostly a record of bloodshedding and cruelty; and the Middle Age has been prolonged to our own time in most parts of the Balkans, and is not yet over in some parts. There are certain things salutary to bear in mind when we think or speak of any part of that country to-day. First, that less than two hundred years ago, England had its highwaymen on all roads, and its smuggler dens and caravans, Scotland its caterans, and Ireland its moonlighters. Second, that religious fervour has rarely mitigated and generally increased our own savagery. Thirdly, that our own policy in Balkan matters has been none too wise, especially of late. In permitting the Treaty of Bucarest three years ago, we were parties to making much of the trouble that has ensued, and will ensue again. If we have not been able to write about the Near East under existing circumstances altogether sine ira et studio, we have tried to remember that each of its peoples has a case.
D.G. HOGARTH.
November, 1915.
BULGARIA AND SERBIA
1
Introductory
The whole of what may be called the trunk or massif of the Balkan peninsula, bounded on the north by the rivers Save and Danube, on the west by the Adriatic, on the east by the Black Sea, and on the south by a very irregular line running from Antivari (on the coast of the Adriatic) and the lake of Scutari in the west, through lakes Okhrida and Prespa (in Macedonia) to the outskirts of Salonika and thence to Midia on the shores of the Black Sea, following the coast of the Aegean Sea some miles inland, is preponderatingly inhabited by Slavs. These Slavs are the Bulgarians in the east and centre, the Serbs and Croats (or Serbians and Croatians or Serbo-Croats) in the west, and the Slovenes in the extreme north-west, between Trieste and the Save; these nationalities compose the southern branch of the Slavonic race. The other inhabitants of the Balkan peninsula are, to the south of the Slavs, the Albanians in the west, the Greeks in the centre and south, and the Turks in the south-east, and, to the north, the Rumanians. All four of these nationalities are to be found in varying quantities within the limits of the Slav territory roughly outlined above, but greater numbers of them are outside it; on the other hand, there are a considerable number of Serbs living north of the rivers Save and Danube, in southern Hungary. Details of the ethnic distribution and boundaries will of course be gone into more fully later; meanwhile attention may be called to the significant fact that the name of Macedonia, the heart of the Balkan peninsula, has been long used by the French gastronomers to denote a dish, the principal characteristic of which is that its component parts are mixed up into quite inextricable confusion.
Of the three Slavonic nationalities already mentioned, the two first, the Bulgarians and the Serbo-Croats, occupy a much greater space, geographically and historically, than the third. The Slovenes, barely one and a half million in number, inhabiting the Austrian provinces of Carinthia and Carniola, have never been able to form a political state, though, with the growth of Trieste as a great port and the persistent efforts of Germany to make her influence if not her flag supreme on the shores of the Adriatic, this small people has from its geographical position and from its anti-German (and anti-Italian) attitude achieved considerable notoriety and some importance.
Of the Bulgars and Serbs it may be said that at the present moment the former control the eastern, and the latter, in alliance with the Greeks, the western half of the peninsula. It has always been the ambition of each of these three nationalities to dominate the whole, an ambition which has caused endless waste of blood and money and untold misery. If the question were to be settled purely on ethnical considerations, Bulgaria would acquire the greater part of the interior of Macedonia, the most numerous of the dozen nationalities of which is Bulgarian in sentiment if not in origin, and would thus undoubtedly attain the hegemony of the peninsula, while the centre of gravity of the Serbian nation would, as is ethnically just, move north-westwards. Political considerations, however, have until now always been against this solution of the difficulty, and, even if it solved in this sense, there would still remain the problem of the Greek nationality, whose distribution along all the coasts of the Aegean, both European and Asiatic, makes a delimitation of the Greek state on purely ethnical lines virtually impossible. It is curious that the Slavs, though masters of the interior of the peninsula and of parts of its eastern and western coasts, have never made the shores of the Aegean (the White Sea, as they call it) or the cities on them their own. The Adriatic is the only sea on the shore of which any Slavonic race has ever made its home. In view of this difficulty, namely, the interior of the peninsula being Slavonic while the coastal fringe is Greek, and of the approximately equal numerical strength of all three nations, it is almost inevitable that the ultimate solution of the problem and delimitation of political boundaries will have to be effected by means of territorial compromise. It can only be hoped that this ultimate compromise will be agreed upon by the three countries concerned, and will be more equitable than that which was forced on them by Rumania in 1913 and laid down in the Treaty of Bucarest of that year.
If no arrangement on a principle of give and take is made between them, the road to the East, which from the point of view of the Germanic powers lies through Serbia, will sooner or later inevitably be forced open, and the independence, first of Serbia, Montenegro, and Albania, and later of Bulgaria and Greece, will disappear, de facto if not in appearance, and both materially and morally they will become the slaves of the central empires. If the Balkan League could be reconstituted, Germany and Austria would never reach Salonika or Constantinople.
2
The Balkan Peninsula in Classical Times
400 B.C.–A.D. 500.
In the earlier historical times the whole of the eastern part of the Balkan peninsula between the Danube and the Aegean was known as Thracia, while the western part (north of the forty-first degree of latitude) was termed Illyricum; the lower basin of the river Vardar (the classical Axius) was called Macedonia. A number of the tribal and personal names of the early Illyrians and Thracians have been preserved. Philip of Macedonia subdued Thrace in the fourth century B.C. and in 342 founded the city of Philippopolis. Alexander’s first campaign was devoted to securing control of the peninsula, but during the Third century B.C. Thrace was invaded from the north and laid waste by the Celts, who had already visited Illyria. The Celts vanished by the end of that century, leaving a few place-names to mark their passage. The city of Belgrade was known until the seventh century A.D. by its Celtic name of Singidunum. Naissus, the modern Nish, is also possibly of Celtic origin. It was towards 230 B.C. that Rome came into contact with Illyricum, owing to the piratical proclivities of its inhabitants, but for a long time it only controlled the Dalmatian coast, so called after the Delmati or Dalmati, an Illyrian tribe. The reason for this was the formidable character of the mountains of Illyria, which run in several parallel and almost unbroken lines the whole length of the shore of the Adriatic and have always formed an effective barrier to invasion from the west. The interior was only very gradually subdued by the Romans after Macedonia had been occupied by them in 146 B.C. Throughout the first century B.C. conflicts raged with varying fortune between the invaders and all the native races living between the Adriatic and the Danube. They were attacked both from Aquileia in the north and from Macedonia in the south, but it was not till the early years of our era that the Danube became the frontier of the Roman Empire.
In the year A.D. 6 Moesia, which included a large part of the modern kingdom of Serbia and the northern half of that of Bulgaria between the Danube and the Balkan range (the classical Haemus), became an imperial province, and twenty years later Thrace, the country between the Balkan range and the Aegean, was incorporated in the empire, and was made a province by the Emperor Claudius in A.D. 46. The province of Illyricum or Dalmatia stretched between the Save and the Adriatic, and Pannonia lay between the Danube and the Save. In 107 A.D. the Emperor Trajan conquered the Dacians beyond the lower Danube, and organized a province of Dacia out of territory roughly equivalent to the modern Wallachia and Transylvania, This trans-Danubian territory did not remain attached to the empire for more than a hundred and fifty years; but within the river line a vast belt of country, stretching from the head of the Adriatic to the mouths of the Danube on the Black Sea, was Romanized through and through. The Emperor Trajan has been called the Charlemagne of the Balkan peninsula; all remains are attributed to him (he was nicknamed the Wallflower by Constantine the Great), and his reign marked the zenith of Roman power in this part of the world. The Balkan peninsula enjoyed the benefits of Roman civilization for three centuries, from the first to the fourth, but from the second century onwards the attitude of the Romans was defensive rather than offensive. The war against the Marcomanni under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, in the second half of this century, was the turning-point. Rome was still victorious, but no territory was added to the empire. The third century saw the southward movement of the Germanic peoples, who took the place of the Celts. The Goths invaded the peninsula, and in 251 the Emperor Decius was killed in battle against them near Odessus on the Black Sea (the modern Varna). The Goths reached the outskirts of Thessalonica (Salonika), but were defeated by the Emperor Claudius at Naissus (Nish) in 269; shortly afterwards, however, the Emperor Aurelian had definitively to relinquish Dacia to them. The Emperor Diocletian, a native of Dalmatia, who reigned from 284 to 305, carried out a redistribution of the imperial provinces. Pannonia and western Illyria, or Dalmatia, were assigned to the prefecture of Italy, Thrace to that of the Orient, while the whole centre of the peninsula, from the Danube to the Peloponnese, constituted the prefecture of Illyria, with Thessalonica as capital. The territory to the north of the Danube having been lost, what is now western Bulgaria was renamed Dacia, while Moesia, the modern kingdom of Serbia, was made very much smaller. Praevalis, or the southern part of Dalmatia, approximately the modern Montenegro and Albania, was detached from that province and added to the prefecture of Illyria. In this way the boundary between the province of Dalmatia and the Balkan peninsula proper ran from near the lake of Scutari in the south to the river Drinus (the modern Drina), whose course it followed till the Save was reached in the north.
An event of far-reaching importance in the following century was the elevation by Constantine the Great of the Greek colony of Byzantium into the imperial city of Constantinople in 325. This century also witnessed the arrival of the Huns in Europe from Asia. They overwhelmed the Ostrogoths, between the Dnieper and the Dniester, in 375, and the Visigoths, settled in Transylvania and the modern Rumania, moved southwards in sympathy with this event. The Emperor Valens lost his life fighting against these Goths in 378 at the great battle of Adrianople (a city established in Thrace by the Emperor Hadrian in the second century). His successor, the Emperor Theodosius, placated them with gifts and made them guardians of the northern frontier, but at his death, in 395, they overran and devastated the entire peninsula, after which they proceeded to Italy. After the death of the Emperor Theodosius the empire was divided, never to be joined into one whole again. The dividing line followed that, already mentioned, which separated the prefecture of Italy from those of Illyria and the Orient, that is to say, it began in the south, on the shore of the Adriatic near the Bocche di Cattaro, and went due north along the valley of the Drina till the confluence of that river with the Save. It will be seen that this division had consequences which have lasted to the present day. Generally speaking, the Western Empire was Latin in language and character, while the Eastern was Greek, though owing to the importance of the Danubian provinces to Rome from the military point of view, and the lively intercourse maintained between them, Latin influence in them was for a long time stronger than Greek. Its extent is proved by the fact that the people of modern Rumania are partly, and their language very largely, defended from those of the legions and colonies of the Emperor Trajan.
Latin influence, shipping, colonization, and art were always supreme on the eastern shores of the Adriatic, just as were those of Greece on the shores of the Black Sea. The Albanians even, descendants of the ancient Illyrians, were affected by the supremacy of the Latin language, from which no less than a quarter of their own meagre vocabulary is derived; though driven southwards by the Romans and northwards by the Greeks, they have remained in their mountain fastnesses to this day, impervious to any of the civilizations to which they have been exposed.
Christianity spread to the shores of the peninsula very early; Macedonia and Dalmatia were the parts where it was first established, and it took some time to penetrate into the interior. During the reign of Diocletian numerous martyrs suffered for the faith in the Danubian provinces, but with the accession of Constantine the Great persecution came to an end. As soon, however, as the Christians were left alone, they started persecuting each other, and during the fourth century the Arian controversy re-echoed throughout the peninsula.
In the fifth century the Huns moved from the shores of the Black Sea to the plains of the Danube and the Theiss; they devastated the Balkan peninsula, in spite of the tribute which they had levied on Constantinople in return for their promise of peace. After the death of Attila, in 453, they again retreated to Asia, and during the second half of the century the Goths were once more supreme in the peninsula. Theodoric occupied Singidunum (Belgrade) in 471 and, after plundering Macedonia and Greece, settled in Novae (the modern Svishtov), on the lower Danube, in 483, where he remained till he transferred the sphere of his activities to Italy ten years later. Towards the end of the fifth century Huns of various kinds returned to the lower Danube and devastated the peninsula several times, penetrating as far as Epirus and Thessaly.
3
The Arrival of the Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula, A.D. 500–650
The Balkan peninsula, which had been raised to a high level of security and prosperity during the Roman dominion, gradually relapsed into barbarism as a result of these endless invasions; the walled towns, such as Salonika and Constantinople, were the only safe places, and the country became waste and desolate. The process continued unabated throughout the three following centuries, and one is driven to one of two conclusions, either that these lands must have possessed very extraordinary powers of recuperation to make it worth while for invaders to pillage them so frequently, or, what is more probable, there can have been after some time little left to plunder, and consequently the Byzantine historians’ accounts of enormous drives of prisoners and booty are much exaggerated. It is impossible to count the number of times the tide of invasion and devastation swept southwards over the unfortunate peninsula. The emperors and their generals did what they could by means of defensive works on the frontiers, of punitive expeditions, and of trying to set the various hordes of barbarians at loggerheads with each other, but, as they had at the same time to defend an empire which stretched from Armenia to Spain, it is not surprising that they were not more successful. The growing riches of Constantinople and Salonika had an irresistible attraction for the wild men from the east and north, and unfortunately the Greek citizens were more inclined to spend their energy in theological disputes and their leisure in the circus than to devote either the one or the other to the defence of their country. It was only by dint of paying them huge sums of money that the invaders were kept away from the coast. The departure of the Huns and the Goths had made the way for fresh series of unwelcome visitors. In the sixth century the Slavs appear for the first time. From their original homes which were immediately north of the Carpathians, in Galicia and Poland, but may also have included parts of the modern Hungary, they moved southwards and south-eastwards. They were presumably in Dacia, north of the Danube, in the previous century, but they are first mentioned as having crossed that river during the reign of the Emperor Justin I (518-27). They were a loosely-knit congeries of tribes without any single leader or central authority; some say they merely possessed the instinct of anarchy, others that they were permeated with the ideals of democracy. What is certain is that amongst them neither leadership nor initiative was developed, and that they lacked both cohesion and organisation. The Eastern Slavs, the ancestors of the Russians, were only welded into anything approaching unity by the comparatively much smaller number of Scandinavian (Varangian) adventurers who came and took charge of their affairs at Kiev. Similarly the Southern Slavs were never of themselves able to form a united community, conscious of its aim and capable of persevering in its attainment.
The Slavs did not invade the Balkan peninsula alone but in the company of the Avars, a terrible and justly dreaded nation, who, like the Huns, were of Asiatic (Turkish or Mongol) origin. These invasions became more frequent during the reign of the Emperor Justinian I (527-65), and culminated in 559 in a great combined attack of all the invaders on Constantinople under a certain Zabergan, which was brilliantly defeated by the veteran Byzantine general Belisarius. The Avars were a nomad tribe, and the horse was their natural means of locomotion. The Slavs, on the other hand, moved about on foot, and seem to have been used as infantry by the more masterful Asiatics in their warlike expeditions. Generally speaking, the Avars, who must have been infinitely less numerous than the Slavs, were settled in Hungary, where Attila and the Huns had been settled a little more than a century previously; that is to say, they were north of the Danube, though they were always overrunning into Upper Moesia, the modern Serbia. The Slavs, whose numbers were without doubt very large, gradually settled all over the country south of the Danube, the rural parts of which, as a result of incessant invasion and retreat, had become waste and empty. During the second half of the sixth century all the military energies of Constantinople were diverted to Persia, so that the invaders of the Balkan peninsula had the field very much to themselves. It was during this time that the power of the Avars reached its height. They were masters of all the country up to the walls of Adrianople and Salonika, though they did not settle there. The peninsula seems to have been colonized by Slavs, who penetrated right down into Greece; but the Avars were throughout this time, both in politics and in war, the directing and dominating force. During another Persian war, which broke out in 622 and entailed the prolonged absence of the emperor from Constantinople, the Avars, not satisfied with the tribute extorted from the Greeks, made an alliance against them with the Persians, and in 626 collected a large army of Slavs and Asiatics and attacked Constantinople both by land and sea from the European side, while the Persians threatened it from Asia. But the walls of the city and the ships of the Greeks proved invincible, and, quarrels breaking out between the Slavs and the Avars, both had to save themselves in ignominious and precipitate retreat.
After this nothing more was heard of the Avars in the Balkan peninsula, though their power was only finally crushed by Charlemagne in 799. In Russia their downfall became proverbial, being crystallized in the saying, ‘they perished like Avars’. The Slavs, on the other hand, remained. Throughout these stormy times their penetration of the Balkan peninsula had been peacefully if unostentatiously proceeding; by the middle of the seventh century it was complete. The main streams of Slavonic immigration moved southwards and westwards. The first covered the whole of the country between the Danube and the Balkan range, overflowed into Macedonia, and filtered down into Greece. Southern Thrace in the east and Albania in the west were comparatively little affected, and in these districts the indigenous population maintained itself. The coasts of the Aegean and the great cities on or near them were too strongly held by the Greeks to be affected, and those Slavs who penetrated into Greece itself were soon absorbed by the local populations. The still stronger Slavonic stream, which moved westwards and turned up north-westwards, overran the whole country down to the shores of the Adriatic and as far as the sources of the Save and Drave in the Alps. From that point in the west to the shores of the Black Sea in the east became one solid mass of Slavs, and has remained so ever since. The few Slavs who were left north of the Danube in Dacia were gradually assimilated by the inhabitants of that province, who were the descendants of the Roman soldiers and colonists, and the ancestors of the modern Rumanians, but the fact that Slavonic influence there was strong is shown by the large number of words of Slavonic origin contained in the Rumanian language.
[Illustration: THE BALKAN PENINSULA ETHNOLOGICAL]
Place-names are a good index of the extent and strength of the tide of Slav immigration. All along the coast, from the mouth of the Danube to the head of the Adriatic, the Greek and Roman names have been retained though places have often been given alternative names by the Slavonic settlers. Thrace, especially the south-eastern part, and Albania have the fewest Slavonic place-names. In Macedonia and Lower Moesia (Bulgaria) very few classical names have survived, while in Upper Moesia (Serbia) and the interior of Dalmatia (Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Montenegro) they have entirely disappeared. The Slavs themselves, though their tribal names were known, were until the ninth century usually called collectively S(k)lavini ([Greek: Sklabaenoi]) by the Greeks, and all the inland parts of the peninsula were for long termed by them ‘the S(k)lavonias’ ([Greek: Sklabiniai]).
During the seventh century, dating from the defeat of the Slavs and Avars before the walls of Constantinople in 626 and the final triumph of the emperor over the Persians in 628, the influence and power of the Greeks began to reassert itself throughout the peninsula as far north as the Danube; this process was coincident with the decline of the might of the Avars. It was the custom of the astute Byzantine diplomacy to look on and speak of lands which had been occupied by the various barbarian invaders as grants made to them through the generosity of the emperor; by this means, by dint also of lavishing titles and substantial incomes to the invaders’ chiefs, by making the most of their mutual jealousies, and also by enlisting regiments of Slavonic mercenaries in the imperial armies, the supremacy of Constantinople was regained far more effectively than it could have been by the continual and exhausting use of force.
4
The Arrival of the Bulgars in the Balkan Peninsula, 600–700
The progress of the Bulgars towards the Balkan peninsula, and indeed all their movements until their final establishment there in the seventh century, are involved in obscurity. They are first mentioned by name in classical and Armenian sources in 482 as living in the steppes to the north of the Black Sea amongst other Asiatic tribes, and it has been assumed by some that at the end of the fifth and throughout the sixth century they were associated first with the Huns and later with the Avars and Slavs in the various incursions into and invasions of the eastern empire which have already been enumerated. It is the tendency of Bulgarian historians, who scornfully point to the fact that the history of Russia only dates from the ninth century, to exaggerate the antiquity of their own and to claim as early a date as possible for the authentic appearance of their ancestors on the kaleidoscopic stage of the Balkan theatre. They are also unwilling to admit that they were anticipated by the Slavs; they prefer to think that the Slavs only insinuated themselves there thanks to the energy of the Bulgars’ offensive against the Greeks, and that as soon as the Bulgars had leisure to look about them they found all the best places already occupied by the anarchic Slavs.
Of course it is very difficult to say positively whether Bulgars were or were not present in the welter of Asiatic nations which swept westwards into Europe with little intermission throughout the fifth and sixth centuries, but even if they were, they do not seem to have settled down as early as that anywhere south of the Danube; it seems certain that they did not do so until the seventh century, and therefore that the Slavs were definitely installed in the Balkan peninsula a whole century before the Bulgars crossed the Danube for good.
The Bulgars, like the Huns and the Avars who preceded them, and like the Magyars and the Turks who followed them, were a tribe from eastern Asia, of the stock known as Mongol or Tartar. The tendency of all these peoples was to move westwards from Asia into Europe, and this they did at considerable and irregular intervals, though in alarming and apparently inexhaustible numbers, roughly from the fourth till the fourteenth centuries. The distance was great, but the journey, thanks to the flat, grassy, treeless, and well-watered character of the steppes of southern Russia which they had to cross, was easy. They often halted for considerable periods by the way, and some never moved further westwards than Russia. Thus at one time the Bulgars settled in large numbers on the Volga, near its confluence with the Kama, and it is presumed that they were well established there in the fifth century. They formed a community of considerable strength and importance, known as Great or White Bulgaria. These Bulgars fused with later Tartar immigrants from Asia and eventually were consolidated into the powerful kingdom of Kazan, which was only crushed by the Tsar Ivan IV in 1552. According to Bulgarian historians, the basins of the rivers Volga and Don and the steppes of eastern Russia proved too confined a space for the legitimate development of Bulgarian energy, and expansion to the west was decided on. A large number of Bulgars therefore detached themselves and began to move south-westwards. During the sixth century they seem to have been settled in the country to the north of the Black Sea, forming a colony known as Black Bulgaria. It is very doubtful whether the Bulgars did take part, as they are supposed to have done, in the ambitious but unsuccessful attack on Constantinople in 559 under Zabergan, chief of another Tartar tribe; but it is fairly certain that they did in the equally formidable but equally unsuccessful attacks by the Slavs and Avars against Salonika in 609 and Constantinople in 626.
During the last quarter of the sixth and the first of the seventh century the various branches of the Bulgar nation, stretching from the Volga to the Danube, were consolidated and kept in control by their prince Kubrat, who eventually fought on behalf of the Greeks against the Avars, and was actually baptized in Constantinople. The power of the Bulgars grew as that of the Avars declined, but at the death of Kubrat, in 638, his realm was divided amongst his sons. One of these established himself in Pannonia, where he joined forces with what was left of the Avars, and there the Bulgars maintained themselves till they were obliterated by the irruption of the Magyars in 893. Another son, Asparukh, or Isperikh, settled in Bessarabia, between the rivers Prut and Dniester, in 640, and some years later passed southwards. After desultory warfare with Constantinople, from 660 onwards, his successor finally overcame the Greeks, who were at that time at war with the Arabs, captured Varna, and definitely established himself between the Danube and the Balkan range in the year 679. From that year the Danube ceased to be the frontier of the eastern empire.
The numbers of the Bulgars who settled south of the Danube are not known, but what happened to them is notorious. The well-known process, by which the Franks in Gaul were absorbed by the far more numerous indigenous population which they had conquered, was repeated, and the Bulgars became fused with the Slavs. So complete was the fusion, and so preponderating the influence of the subject nationality, that beyond a few personal names no traces of the language of the Bulgars have survived. Modern Bulgarian, except for the Turkish words introduced into it later during the Ottoman rule, is purely Slavonic. Not so the Bulgarian nationality; as is so often the case with mongrel products, this race, compared with the Serbs, who are purely Slav, has shown considerably greater virility, cohesion, and driving-power, though it must be conceded that its problems have been infinitely simpler.
5
The Early Years of Bulgaria and the Introduction of Christianity, 700–893
From the time of their establishment in the country to which they have given their name the Bulgars became a thorn in the side of the Greeks, and ever since both peoples have looked on one another as natural and hereditary enemies. The Bulgars, like all the barbarians who had preceded them, were fascinated by the honey-pot of Constantinople, and, though they never succeeded in taking it, they never grew tired of making the attempt.
For two hundred years after the death of Asparukh, in 661, the Bulgars were perpetually fighting either against the Greeks or else amongst themselves. At times a diversion was caused by the Bulgars taking the part of the Greeks, as in 718, when they ‘delivered’ Constantinople, at the invocation of the Emperor Leo, from the Arabs, who were besieging it. From about this time the Bulgarian monarchy, which had been hereditary, became elective, and the anarchy of the many, which the Bulgars found when they arrived, and which their first few autocratic rulers had been able to control, was replaced by an anarchy of the few. Prince succeeded prince, war followed war, at the will of the feudal nobles. This internal strife was naturally profitable to the Greeks, who lavishly subsidized the rival factions.
At the end of the eighth century the Bulgars south of the Danube joined forces with those to the north in the efforts of the latter against the Avars, who, beaten by Charlemagne, were again pressing south-eastwards towards the Danube. In this the Bulgars were completely successful under the leadership of one Krum, whom, in the elation of victory, they promptly elected to the throne. Krum was a far more capable ruler than they had bargained for, and he not only united all the Bulgars north and south of the Danube into one dominion, but also forcibly repressed the whims of the nobles and re-established the autocracy and the hereditary monarchy. Having finished with his enemies in the north, he turned his attention to the Greeks, with no less success. In 809 he captured from them the important city of Sofia (the Roman Sardica, known to the Slavs as Sredets), which is to-day the capital of Bulgaria. The loss of this city was a blow to the Greeks, because it was a great centre of commerce and also the point at which the commercial and strategic highways of the peninsula met and crossed. The Emperor Nikiphóros, who wished to take his revenge and recover his lost property, was totally defeated by the Bulgars and lost his life in the Balkan passes in 811. After further victories, at Mesembria (the modern Misivria) in 812 and Adrianople in 813, Krum appeared before the capital, where he nearly lost his life in an ambush while negotiating for peace. During preparations for a final assault on Constantinople he died suddenly in 815. Though Krum cannot be said to have introduced civilisation into Bulgaria, he at any rate increased its power and gave it some of the more essential organs of government. He framed a code of laws remarkable for their rigour, which was undoubtedly necessary in such a community and beneficial in its effect. He repressed civil strife, and by this means made possible the reawakening of commerce and agriculture. His successor, of uncertain identity, founded in 822 the city of Preslav (known to the Russians as Pereyaslav), situated in eastern Bulgaria, between Varna and Silistria, which was the capital until 972.
The reign of Prince Boris (852-88) is remarkable because it witnessed the definitive conversion to Christianity of Bulgaria and her ruler. It is within this period also that fell the activities of the two great ‘Slavonic’ missionaries and apostles, the brothers Cyril and Methodius, who are looked upon by all Slavs of the orthodox faith as the founders of their civilisation. Christianity had of course penetrated into Bulgaria (or Moesia, as it was then) long before the arrival of the Slavs and Bulgars, but the influx of one horde of barbarians after another was naturally not propitious to its growth. The conversion of Boris in 865, which was brought about largely by the influence of his sister, who had spent many years in Constantinople as a captive, was a triumph for Greek influence and for Byzantium. Though the Church was at this time still nominally one, yet the rivalry between Rome and Constantinople had already become acute, and the struggle for spheres of spiritual influence had begun. It was in the year 863 that the Prince of Moravia, anxious to introduce Christianity into his country in a form intelligible to his subjects, addressed himself to the Emperor Michael III for help. Rome could not provide any suitable missionaries with knowledge of Slavonic languages, and the German, or more exactly the Bavarian, hierarchy with which Rome entrusted the spiritual welfare of the Slavs of Moravia and Pannonia used its greater local knowledge for political and not religious ends. The Germans exploited their ecclesiastical influence in order completely to dominate the Slavs politically, and as a result the latter were only allowed to see the Church through Teutonic glasses.
In answer to this appeal the emperor sent the two brothers Cyril and Methodius, who were Greeks of Salonika and had considerable knowledge of Slavonic languages. They composed the Slavonic alphabet which is to-day used throughout Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro, and in many parts of Austria-Hungary and translated the gospels into Slavonic; it is for this reason that they are regarded with such veneration by all members of the Eastern Church. Their mission proved the greatest success (it must be remembered that at this time the various Slavonic tongues were probably less dissimilar than they are now), and the two brothers were warmly welcomed in Rome by Pope Adrian II, who formally consented to the use, for the benefit of the Slavs, of the Slavonic liturgy (a remarkable concession, confirmed by Pope John VIII). This triumph, however, was short-lived; St. Cyril died in 869 and St. Methodius in 885; subsequent Popes, notably Stephen V, were not so benevolent to the Slavonic cause; the machinations of the German hierarchy (which included, even in those days, the falsification of documents) were irresistible, and finally the invasion of the Magyars, in 893, destroyed what was left of the Slavonic Church in Moravia. The missionary brothers had probably passed through Bulgaria on their way north in 863, but without halting. Many of their disciples, driven from the Moravian kingdom by the Germans, came south and took refuge in Bulgaria in 886, and there carried on in more favourable circumstances the teachings of their masters. Prince Boris had found it easier to adopt Christianity himself than to induce all his subjects to do the same. Even when he had enforced his will on them at the price of numerous executions of recalcitrant nobles, he found himself only at the beginning of his difficulties. The Greeks had been glad enough to welcome Bulgaria into the fold, but they had no wish to set up an independent Church and hierarchy to rival their own. Boris, on the other hand, though no doubt full of genuine spiritual ardour, was above all impressed with the authority and prestige which the basileus derived from the Church of Constantinople; he also admired the pomp of ecclesiastical ceremony, and wished to have a patriarch of his own to crown him and a hierarchy of his own to serve him. Finding the Greeks unresponsive, he turned to Rome, and Pope Nicholas I sent him two bishops to superintend the ecclesiastical affairs of Bulgaria till the investiture of Boris at the hands of the Holy See could be arranged. These bishops set to work with a will, substituted the Latin for the Greek rite, and brought Bulgaria completely under Roman influence. But when it was discovered that Boris was aiming at the erection of an independent Church their enthusiasm abated and they were recalled to Rome in 867.
Adrian II proved no more sympathetic, and in 870, during the reign of the Emperor Basil I, it was decided without more ado that the Bulgarian Church should be directly under the Bishop of Constantinople, on the ground that the kingdom of Boris was a vassal-state of the basileus, and that from the Byzantine point of view, as opposed to that of Rome, the State came first and the Church next. The Moravian Gorazd, a disciple of Methodius, was appointed Metropolitan, and at his death he was succeeded by his fellow countryman and co-disciple Clement, who by means of the construction of numerous churches and monasteries did a great deal for the propagation of light and learning in Bulgaria. The definite subjection of the Bulgarian Church to that of Byzantium was an important and far-reaching event. Boris has been reproached with submitting himself and his country to Greek influence, but in those days it was either Constantinople or Rome (there was no third way); and in view of the proximity of Constantinople and the glamour which its civilization cast all over the Balkans, it is not surprising that the Greeks carried the day.
6
The Rise and Fall of the First Bulgarian Empire, 893–972
During the reign of Simeon, second son of Boris, which lasted from 893 to 927, Bulgaria reached a very high level of power and prosperity. Simeon, called the Great, is looked on by Bulgarians as their most capable monarch and his reign as the most brilliant period of their history. He had spent his childhood at Constantinople and been educated there, and he became such an admirer of Greek civilization that he was nicknamed Hèmiargos. His instructors had done their work so well that Simeon remained spellbound by the glamour of Constantinople throughout his life, and, although he might have laid the foundations of a solid empire in the Balkans, his one ambition was to conquer Byzantium and to be recognized as basileus—an ambition which was not to be fulfilled. His first campaign against the Greeks was not very fruitful, because the latter summoned the Magyars, already settled in Hungary, to their aid and they attacked Simeon from the north. Simeon in return called the Pechenegs, another fierce Tartar tribe, to his aid, but this merely resulted in their definite establishment in Rumania. During the twenty years of peace, which strange to say filled the middle of his reign (894-913), the internal development of Bulgaria made great strides. The administration was properly organized, commerce was encouraged, and agriculture flourished. In the wars against the Greeks which occupied his last years he was more successful, and inflicted a severe defeat on them at Anchialo (the modern Ahiolu) in 917; but he was still unable to get from them what he wanted, and at last, in 921, he was obliged to proclaim himself basileus and autocratōr of all Bulgars and Greeks, a title which nobody else recognized. He reappeared before Constantinople the same year, but effected nothing more than the customary devastation of the suburbs. The year 923 witnessed a solemn reconciliation between Rome and Constantinople; the Greeks were clever enough to prevent the Roman legates visiting Bulgaria on their return journey, and thereby administered a rebuff to Simeon, who was anxious to see them and enter into direct relations with Rome. In the same year Simeon tried to make an alliance with the Arabs, but the ambassadors of the latter were intercepted by the Greeks, who made it worth their while not to continue the journey to Bulgaria.
In 924 Simeon determined on a supreme effort against Constantinople and as a preliminary he ravaged Macedonia and Thrace. When, however, he arrived before the city the walls and the catapults made him hesitate, and he entered into negotiations, which, as usual, petered out and brought him no adequate reward for all his hopes and preparations. In the west his arms were more successful, and he subjected most of the eastern part of Serbia to his rule. From all this it can be seen that he was no diplomat, though not lacking in enterprise and ambition. The fact was that while he made his kingdom too powerful for the Greeks to subdue (indeed they were compelled to pay him tribute), yet Constantinople with its impregnable walls, well-organized army, powerful fleet, and cunning and experienced statesmen, was too hard a nut for him to crack.
Simeon extended the boundaries of his country considerably, and his dominion included most of the interior of the Balkan peninsula south of the Danube and east of the rivers Morava and Ibar in Serbia and of the Drin in Albania. The Byzantine Church greatly increased its influence in Bulgaria during his reign, and works of theology grew like mushrooms. This was the only kind of literature that was ever popular in Bulgaria, and although it is usual to throw contempt on the literary achievements of Constantinople, we should know but little of Bulgaria were it not for the Greek historians.
Simeon died in 927, and his son Peter, who succeeded him, was a lover of peace and comfort; he married a Byzantine princess, and during his reign (927-69) Greek influence grew ever stronger, in spite of several revolts on the part of the Bulgar nobles, while the capital Preslav became a miniature Constantinople. In 927 Rome recognized the kingdom and patriarchate of Bulgaria, and Peter was duly crowned by the Papal legate. This was viewed with disfavour by the Greeks, and they still called Peter only archōn or prince (knyaz in Bulgarian), which was the utmost title allowed to any foreign sovereign. It was not until 945 that they recognized Peter as basileus, the unique title possessed by their own emperors and till then never granted to any one else. Peter’s reign was one of misfortune for his country both at home and abroad. In 931 the Serbs broke loose under their leader Časlav, whom Simeon had captured but who effected his escape, and asserted their independence. In 963 a formidable revolt under one Shishman undermined the whole state fabric. He managed to subtract Macedonia and all western Bulgaria, including Sofia and Vidin, from Peter’s rule, and proclaimed himself independent tsar (tsar or caesar was a title often accorded by Byzantium to relatives of the emperor or to distinguished men of Greek or other nationality, and though it was originally the equivalent of the highest title, it had long since ceased to be so: the emperor’s designations were basileus and autocratōr). From this time there were two Bulgarias—eastern and western. The eastern half was now little more than a Byzantine province, and the western became the centre of national life and the focus of national aspirations.
Another factor which militated against the internal progress of Bulgaria was the spread of the Bogomil heresy in the tenth century. This remarkable doctrine, founded on the dualism of the Paulicians, who had become an important political force in the eastern empire, was preached in the Balkan peninsula by one Jeremiah Bogomil, for the rest a man of uncertain identity, who made Philippopolis the centre of his activity. Its principal features were of a negative character, and consequently it was very difficult successfully to apply force against them. The Bogomils recognized the authority neither of Church nor of State; the validity neither of oaths nor of human laws. They refused to pay taxes, to fight, or to obey; they sanctioned theft, but looked upon any kind of punishment as unjustifiable; they discountenanced marriage and were strict vegetarians. Naturally a heresy so alarming in its individualism shook to its foundations the not very firmly established Bulgarian society. Nevertheless it spread with rapidity in spite of all persecutions, and its popularity amongst the Bulgarians, and indeed amongst all the Slavs of the peninsula, is without doubt partly explained by political reasons. The hierarchy of the Greek Church, which supported the ruling classes of the country and lent them authority at the same time that it increased its own, was antipathetic to the Slavs, and the Bogomil heresy drew much strength from its nationalistic colouring and from the appeal which it made to the character of the Balkan Slavs, who have always been intolerant of government by the Church. But neither the civil nor the ecclesiastical authorities were able to cope with the problem; indeed they were apt to minimize its importance, and the heresy was never eradicated till the arrival on the scene of Islam, which proved as attractive to the schismatics as the well-regulated Orthodox Church had been the reverse.
The third quarter of the tenth century witnessed a great recrudescence of the power of Constantinople under the Emperor Nikiphóros Phokas, who wrested Cyprus and Crete from the Arabs and inaugurated an era of prosperity for the eastern empire, giving it a new lease of vigorous and combative life. Wishing to reassert the Greek supremacy in the Balkan peninsula his first act was to refuse any further payment of tribute to the Bulgarians as from 966; his next was to initiate a campaign against them, but in order to make his own success in this enterprise less costly and more assured he secured the co-operation of the Russians under Svyatoslav, Prince of Kiev; this potentate’s mother Olga had visited Constantinople in 957 and been baptized (though her son and the bulk of the population were still ardent heathens), and commercial intercourse between Russia and Constantinople by means of the Dnieper and the Black Sea was at that time lively. Svyatoslav did not want pressing, and arriving with an army of 10,000 men in boats, overcame northern Bulgaria in a few days (967); they were helped by Shishman and the western Bulgars, who did not mind at what price Peter and the eastern Bulgars were crushed. Svyatoslav was recalled to Russia in 968 to defend his home from attacks by the Tartar Pechenegs, but that done, he made up his mind to return to Bulgaria, lured by its riches and by the hope of the eventual possession of Constantinople.
The Emperor Nikiphóros was by now aware of the danger he had imprudently conjured up, and made a futile alliance with eastern Bulgaria; but in January 969 Peter of Bulgaria died, and in December of the same year Nikiphóros was murdered by the ambitious Armenian John Tzimisces,[1] who thereupon became emperor. Svyatoslav, seeing the field clear of his enemies, returned in 970, and in March of that year sacked and occupied Philippopolis. The Emperor John Tzimisces, who was even abler both as general and as diplomat than his predecessor, quietly pushed forward his warlike preparations, and did not meet the Russians till the autumn, when he completely defeated them at Arcadiopolis (the modern Lule-Burgas). The Russians retired north of the Balkan range, but the Greeks followed them. John Tzimisces besieged them in the capital Preslav, which he stormed, massacring many of the garrison, in April 972. Svyatoslav and his remaining troops escaped to Silistria (the Durostorum of Trajan) on the Danube, where again, however, they were besieged and defeated by the indefatigable emperor. At last peace was made in July 972, the Russians being allowed to go free on condition of the complete evacuation of Bulgaria and a gift of corn; the adventurous Svyatoslav lost his life at the hands of the Pechenegs while making his way back to Kiev. The triumph of the Greeks was complete, and it can be imagined that there was not much left of the earthenware Bulgaria after the violent collision of these two mighty iron vessels on the top of it. Eastern Bulgaria (i.e. Moesia and Thrace) ceased to exist, becoming a purely Greek province; John Tzimisces made his triumphal entry into Constantinople, followed by the two sons of Peter of Bulgaria on foot; the elder was deprived of his regal attributes and created magistros, the younger was made a eunuch.
[Footnote 1: John the Little.]
7
The Rise and Fall of ‘Western Bulgaria’ and the Greek Supremacy, 963–1186
Meanwhile western Bulgaria had not been touched, and it was thither that the Bulgarian patriarch Damian removed from Silistria after the victory of the Greeks, settling first in Sofia and then in Okhrida in Macedonia, where the apostate Shishman had eventually made his capital. Western Bulgaria included Macedonia and parts of Thessaly, Albania, southern and eastern Serbia, and the westernmost parts of modern Bulgaria. It was from this district that numerous anti-Hellenic revolts were directed after the death of the Emperor John Tzimisces in 976. These culminated during the reign of Samuel (977-1014), one of the sons of Shishman. He was as capable and energetic, as unscrupulous and inhuman, as the situation he was called upon to fill demanded. He began by assassinating all his relations and nobles who resented his desire to re-establish the absolute monarchy, was recognized as tsar by the Holy See of Rome in 981, and then began to fight the Greeks, the only possible occupation for any self-respecting Bulgarian ruler. The emperor at that time was Basil II (976-1025), who was brave and patriotic but young and inexperienced. In his early campaigns Samuel carried all before him; he reconquered northern Bulgaria in 985, Thessaly in 986, and defeated Basil II near Sofia the same year. Later he conquered Albania and the southern parts of Serbia and what is now Montenegro and Hercegovina. In 996 he threatened Salonika, but first of all embarked on an expedition against the Peloponnese; here he was followed by the Greek general, who managed to surprise and completely overwhelm him, he and his son barely escaping with their lives.
From that year (996) his fortune changed; the Greeks reoccupied northern Bulgaria, in 999, and also recovered Thessaly and parts of Macedonia. The Bulgars were subjected to almost annual attacks on the part of Basil II; the country was ruined and could not long hold out. The final disaster occurred in 1014, when Basil II utterly defeated his inveterate foe in a pass near Seres in Macedonia. Samuel escaped to Prilip, but when he beheld the return of 15,000 of his troops who had been captured and blinded by the Greeks he died of syncope. Basil II, known as Bulgaroctonus, or Bulgar-killer, went from victory to victory, and finally occupied the Bulgarian capital of Okhrida in 1016. Western Bulgaria came to an end, as had eastern Bulgaria in 972, the remaining members of the royal family followed the emperor to the Bosphorus to enjoy comfortable captivity, and the triumph of Constantinople was complete.
From 1018 to 1186 Bulgaria had no existence as an independent state; Basil II, although cruel, was far from tyrannical in his general treatment of the Bulgars, and treated the conquered territory more as a protectorate than as a possession. But after his death Greek rule became much more oppressive. The Bulgarian patriarchate (since 972 established at Okhrida) was reduced to an archbishopric, and in 1025 the see was given to a Greek, who lost no time in eliminating the Bulgarian element from positions of importance throughout his diocese. Many of the nobles were transplanted to Constantinople, where their opposition was numbed by the bestowal of honours. During the eleventh century the peninsula was invaded frequently by the Tartar Pechenegs and Kumans, whose aid was invoked both by Greeks and Bulgars; the result of these incursions was not always favourable to those who had promoted them; the barbarians invariably stayed longer and did more damage than had been bargained for, and usually left some of their number behind as unwelcome settlers.
In this way the ethnological map of the Balkan peninsula became ever more variegated. To the Tartar settlers were added colonies of Armenians and Vlakhs by various emperors. The last touch was given by the arrival of the Normans in 1081 and the passage of the crusaders in 1096. The wholesale depredations of the latter naturally made the inhabitants of the Balkan peninsula anything but sympathetically disposed towards their cause. One of the results of all this turmoil and of the heavy hand of the Greeks was a great increase in the vitality of the Bogomil heresy already referred to; it became a refuge for patriotism and an outlet for its expression. The Emperor Alexis Comnenus instituted a bitter persecution of it, which only led to its growth and rapid propagation westwards into Serbia from its centre Philippopolis.
The reason of the complete overthrow of the Bulgarian monarchy by the Greeks was of course that the nation itself was totally lacking in cohesion and organization, and could only achieve any lasting success when an exceptionally gifted ruler managed to discount the centrifugal tendencies of the feudal nobles, as Simeon and Samuel had done. Other discouraging factors wore the permeation of the Church and State by Byzantine influence, the lack of a large standing army, the spread of the anarchic Bogomil heresy, and the fact that the bulk of the Slav population had no desire for foreign adventure or national aggrandizement.
8
The Rise and Fall of the Second Bulgarian Empire, 1186–1258
From 1186 to 1258 Bulgaria experienced temporary resuscitation, the brevity of which was more than compensated for by the stirring nature of the events that crowded it. The exactions and oppressions of the Greeks culminated in a revolt on the part of the Bulgars, which had its centre in Tirnovo on the river Yantra in northern Bulgaria—a position of great natural strength and strategic importance, commanding the outlets of several of the most important passes over the Balkan range. This revolt coincided with the growing weakness of the eastern empire, which, surrounded on all sides by aggressive enemies—Kumans, Saracens, Turks, and Normans—was sickening for one of the severe illnesses which preceded its dissolution. The revolt was headed by two brothers who were Vlakh or Rumanian shepherds, and was blessed by the archbishop Basil, who crowned one of them, called John Asen, as tsar in Tirnovo in 1186. Their first efforts against the Greeks were not successful, but securing the support of the Serbs under Stephen Nemanja in 1188 and of the Crusaders in 1189 they became more so; but there was life in the Greeks yet, and victory alternated with defeat. John Asen I was assassinated in 1196 and was succeeded after many internal discords and murders by his relative Kaloian or Pretty John. This cruel and unscrupulous though determined ruler soon made an end of all his enemies at home, and in eight years achieved such success abroad that Bulgaria almost regained its former proportions. Moreover, he re-established relations with Rome, to the great discomfiture of the Greeks, and after some negotiations Pope Innocent III recognized Kaloian as tsar of the Bulgars and Vlakhs (roi de Blaquie et de Bougrie, in the words of Villehardouin), with Basil as primate, and they were both duly consecrated and crowned by the papal legate at Tirnovo in 1204. The French, who had just established themselves in Constantinople during the fourth crusade, imprudently made an enemy of Kaloian instead of a friend, and with the aid of the Tartar Kumans he defeated them several times, capturing and brutally murdering Baldwin I. But in 1207 his career was cut short; he was murdered while besieging Salonika by one of his generals who was a friend of his wife. After eleven years of further anarchy he was succeeded by John Asen II. During the reign of this monarch, which lasted from 1218 till 1241, Bulgaria reached the zenith of its power. He was the most enlightened ruler the country had had, and he not only waged war successfully abroad but also put an end to the internal confusion, restored the possibility of carrying on agriculture and commerce, and encouraged the foundation of numerous schools and monasteries. He maintained the tradition of his family by making his capital at Tirnovo, which city he considerably embellished and enlarged.
Constantinople at this time boasted three Greek emperors and one French. The first act of John Asen II was to get rid of one of them, named Theodore, who had proclaimed himself basileus at Okhrida in 1223. Thereupon he annexed the whole of Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, and Epirus to his dominions, and made Theodore’s brother Manuel, who had married one of his daughters, viceroy, established at Salonika. Another of his daughters had married Stephen Vladislav, who was King of Serbia from 1233-43, and a third married Theodore, son of the Emperor John III, who reigned at Nicaea, in 1235. This daughter, after being sought in marriage by the French barons at Constantinople as a wife for the Emperor Baldwin II, a minor, was then summarily rejected in favour of the daughter of the King of Jerusalem; this affront rankled in the mind of John Asen II and threw him into the arms of the Greeks, with whom he concluded an alliance in 1234. John Asen II and his ally, the Emperor John III, were, however, utterly defeated by the French under the walls of Constantinople in 1236, and the Bulgarian ruler, who had no wish to see the Greeks re-established there, began to doubt the wisdom of his alliance. Other Bulgarian tsars had been unscrupulous, but the whole foreign policy of this one pivoted on treachery. He deserted the Greeks and made an alliance with the French in 1237, the Pope Gregory IX, a great Hellenophobe, having threatened him with excommunication; he went so far as to force his daughter to relinquish her Greek husband. The following year, however, he again changed over to the Greeks; then again fear of the Pope and of his brother-in-law the King of Hungary brought him back to the side of Baldwin II, to whose help against the Greeks he went with a large army into Thrace in 1239. While besieging the Greeks with indifferent success, he learned of the death of his wife and his eldest son from plague, and incontinently returned to Tirnovo, giving up the war and restoring his daughter to her lonely husband. This adaptable monarch died a natural death in 1241, and the three rulers of his family who succeeded him, whose reigns filled the period 1241-58, managed to undo all the constructive work of their immediate predecessors. Province after province was lost and internal anarchy increased. This remarkable dynasty came to an inglorious end in 1258, when its last representative was murdered by his own nobles, and from this time onwards Bulgaria was only a shadow of its former self.
9
The Serbian Supremacy and the Final Collapse, 1258–1393
From 1258 onwards Bulgaria may be said to have continued flickering until its final extinction as a state in 1393, but during this period it never had any voice in controlling the destinies of the Balkan peninsula. Owing to the fact that no ruler emerged capable of keeping the distracted country in order, there was a regular chassé-croisé of rival princelets, an unceasing tale of political marriages and murders, conspiracies and revolts of feudal nobles all over the country, and perpetual ebb and flow of the boundaries of the warring principalities which tore the fabric of Bulgaria to pieces amongst them. From the point of view of foreign politics this period is characterized generally by the virtual disappearance of Bulgarian independence to the profit of the surrounding states, who enjoyed a sort of rotativist supremacy. It is especially remarkable for the complete ascendancy which Serbia gained in the Balkan peninsula.
A Serb, Constantine, grandson of Stephen Nemanja, occupied the Bulgarian throne from 1258 to 1277, and married the granddaughter of John Asen II. After the fall of the Latin Empire of Constantinople in 1261, the Hungarians, already masters of Transylvania, combined with the Greeks against Constantine; the latter called the Tartars of southern Russia, at this time at the height of their power, to his help and was victorious, but as a result of his diplomacy the Tartars henceforward played an important part in the Bulgarian welter. Then Constantine married, as his second wife, the daughter of the Greek emperor, and thus again gave Constantinople a voice in his country’s affairs. Constantine was followed by a series of upstart rulers, whose activities were cut short by the victories of King Uroš II of Serbia (1282-1321), who conquered all Macedonia and wrested it from the Bulgars. In 1285 the Tartars of the Golden Horde swept over Hungary and Bulgaria, but it was from the south that the clouds were rolling up which not much later were to burst over the peninsula. In 1308 the Turks appeared on the Sea of Marmora, and in 1326 established themselves at Brussa. From 1295 to 1322 Bulgaria was presided over by a nobleman of Vidin, Svetoslav, who, unmolested by the Greeks, grown thoughtful in view of the approach of the Turks, was able to maintain rather more order than his subjects were accustomed to. After his death in 1322 chaos again supervened. One of his successors had married the daughter of Uroš II of Serbia, but suddenly made an alliance with the Greeks against his brother-in-law Stephen Uroš III and dispatched his wife to her home. During the war which ensued the unwonted allies were utterly routed by the Serbs at Kustendil in Macedonia in 1330.
From 1331 to 1365 Bulgaria was under one John Alexander, a noble of Tartar origin, whose sister became the wife of Serbia’s greatest ruler, Stephen Dušan; John Alexander, moreover, recognized Stephen as his suzerain, and from thenceforward Bulgaria was a vassal-state of Serbia. Meanwhile the Turkish storm was gathering fast; Suleiman crossed the Hellespont in 1356, and Murad I made Adrianople his capital in 1366. After the death of John Alexander in 1365 the Hungarians invaded northern Bulgaria, and his successor invoked the help of the Turks against them and also against the Greeks. This was the beginning of the end. The Serbs, during an absence of the Sultan in Asia, undertook an offensive, but were defeated by the Turks near Adrianople in 1371, who captured Sofia in 1382. After this the Serbs formed a huge southern Slav alliance, in which the Bulgarians refused to join, but, after a temporary success against the Turks in 1387, they were vanquished by them as the result of treachery at the famous battle of Kosovo in 1389. Meanwhile the Turks occupied Nikopolis on the Danube in 1388 and destroyed the Bulgarian capital Tirnovo in 1393, exiling the Patriarch Euthymus to Macedonia. Thus the state of Bulgaria passed into the hands of the Turks, and its church into those of the Greeks. Many Bulgars adopted Islam, and their descendants are the Pomaks or Bulgarian Mohammedans of the present day. With the subjection of Rumania in 1394 and the defeat of an improvised anti-Turkish crusade from western Europe under Sigismund, King of Hungary, at Nikopolis in 1396 the Turkish conquest was complete, though the battle of Varna was not fought till 1444, nor Constantinople entered till 1453.
10
The Turkish Dominion and the Emancipation, 1393–1878
From 1393 until 1877 Bulgaria may truthfully be said to have had no history, but nevertheless it could scarcely have been called happy. National life was completely paralysed, and what stood in those days for national consciousness was obliterated. It is common knowledge, and most people are now reasonable enough to admit, that the Turks have many excellent qualities, religious fervour and military ardour amongst others; it is also undeniable that from an aesthetic point of view too much cannot be said in praise of Mohammedan civilization. Who does not prefer the minarets of Stambul and Edirne[1] to the architecture of Budapest, notoriously the ideal of Christian south-eastern Europe? On the other hand, it cannot be contended that the Pax Ottomana brought prosperity or happiness to those on whom it was imposed (unless indeed they submerged their identity in the religion of their conquerors), or that its Influence was either vivifying or generally popular.
[Footnote 1: The Turkish names for Constantinople and Adrianople.]
To the races they conquered the Turks offered two alternatives—serfdom or Turkdom; those who could not bring themselves to accept either of these had either to emigrate or take to brigandage and outlawry in the mountains. The Turks literally overlaid the European nationalities of the Balkan peninsula for five hundred years, and from their own point of view and from that of military history this was undoubtedly a very splendid achievement; it was more than the Greeks or Romans had ever done. From the point of view of humanitarianism also it is beyond a doubt that much less human blood was spilt in the Balkan peninsula during the five hundred years of Turkish rule than during the five hundred years of Christian rule which preceded them; indeed it would have been difficult to spill more. It is also a pure illusion to think of the Turks as exceptionally brutal or cruel; they are just as good-natured and good-humoured as anybody else; it is only when their military or religious passions are aroused that they become more reckless and ferocious than other people. It was not the Turks who taught cruelty to the Christians of the Balkan peninsula; the latter had nothing to learn in this respect.
In spite of all this, however, from the point of view of the Slavs of Bulgaria and Serbia, Turkish rule was synonymous with suffocation. If the Turks were all that their greatest admirers think them the history of the Balkan peninsula in the nineteenth century would have been very different from what it has been, namely, one perpetual series of anti-Turkish revolts.
Of all the Balkan peoples the Bulgarians were the most completely crushed and effaced. The Greeks by their ubiquity, their brains, and their money were soon able to make the Turkish storm drive their own windmill; the Rumanians were somewhat sheltered by the Danube and also by their distance from Constantinople; the Serbs also were not so exposed to the full blast of the Turkish wrath, and the inaccessibility of much of their country afforded them some protection. Bulgaria was simply annihilated, and its population, already far from homogeneous, was still further varied by numerous Turkish and other Tartar colonies.
For the same reasons already mentioned Bulgaria was the last Balkan state to emancipate itself; for these reasons also it is the least trammelled by prejudices and by what are considered national predilections and racial affinities, while its heterogeneous composition makes it vigorous and enterprising. The treatment of the Christians by the Turks was by no means always the same; generally speaking, it grew worse as the power of the Sultan grew less. During the fifteenth century they were allowed to practise their religion and all their vocations in comparative liberty and peace. But from the sixteenth century onwards the control of the Sultan declined, power became decentralized, the Ottoman Empire grew ever more anarchic and the rule of the provincial governors more despotic.
But the Mohammedan conquerors were not the only enemies and oppressors of the Bulgars. The rôle played by the Greeks in Bulgaria during the Turkish dominion was almost as important as that of the Turks themselves. The contempt of the Turks for the Christians, and especially for their religion, was so great that they prudently left the management of it to them, knowing that it would keep them occupied in mutual altercation. From 1393 till 1767 the Bulgarians were under the Greco-Bulgarian Patriarchate of Okhrida, an organization in which all posts, from the highest to the lowest, had to be bought from the Turkish administration at exorbitant and ever-rising prices; the Phanariote Greeks (so called because they originated in the Phanar quarter at Constantinople) were the only ones who could afford those of the higher posts, with the result that the Church was controlled from Constantinople. In 1767 the independent patriarchates were abolished, and from that date the religious control of the Greeks was as complete as the political control of the Turks. The Greeks did all they could to obliterate the last traces of Bulgarian nationality which had survived in the Church, and this explains a fact which must never be forgotten, which had its origin in the remote past, but grew more pronounced at this period, that the individual hatred of Greeks and Bulgars of each other has always been far more intense than their collective hatred of the Turks.
Ever since the marriage of the Tsar Ivan III with the niece of the last Greek Emperor, in 1472, Russia had considered itself the trustee of the eastern Christians, the defender of the Orthodox Church, and the direct heir of the glory and prestige of Constantinople; it was not until the eighteenth century, however, after the consolidation of the Russian state, that the Balkan Christians were championed and the eventual possession of Constantinople was seriously considered. Russian influence was first asserted in Rumania after the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainardji, in 1774. It was only the Napoleonic war in 1812 that prevented the Russians from extending their territory south of the Danube, whither it already stretched. Serbia was partially free by 1826, and Greece achieved complete independence in 1830, when the Russian troops, in order to coerce the Turks, occupied part of Bulgaria and advanced as far as Adrianople. Bulgaria, being nearer to and more easily repressed by Constantinople, had to wait, and tentative revolts made about this time were put down with much bloodshed and were followed by wholesale emigrations of Bulgars into Bessarabia and importations of Tartars and Kurds into the vacated districts. The Crimean War and the short-sighted championship of Turkey by the western European powers checked considerably the development at which Russia aimed. Moldavia and Wallachia were in 1856 withdrawn from the semi-protectorate which Russia had long exercised over them, and in 1861 formed themselves into the united state of Rumania. In 1866 a German prince, Charles of Hohenzollern, came to rule over the country, the first sign of German influence in the Near East; at this time Rumania still acknowledged the supremacy of the Sultan.
During the first half of the nineteenth century there took place a considerable intellectual renascence in Bulgaria, a movement fostered by wealthy Bulgarian merchants of Bucarest and Odessa. In 1829 a history of Bulgaria was published by a native of that country in Moscow; in 1835 the first school was established in Bulgaria, and many others soon followed. It must be remembered that not only was nothing known at that time about Bulgaria and its inhabitants in other countries, but the Bulgars had themselves to be taught who they were. The Bulgarian people in Bulgaria consisted entirely of peasants; there was no Bulgarian upper or middle or ‘intelligent’ or professional class; those enlightened Bulgars who existed were domiciled in other countries; the Church was in the hands of the Greeks, who vied with the Turks in suppressing Bulgarian nationality.
The two committees of Odessa and Bucarest which promoted the enlightenment and emancipation of Bulgaria were dissimilar in composition and in aim; the members of the former were more intent on educational and religious reform, and aimed at the gradual and peaceful regeneration of their country by these means; the latter wished to effect the immediate political emancipation of Bulgaria by violent and, if necessary, warlike means.
It was the ecclesiastical question which was solved first. In 1856 the Porte had promised religious reforms tending to the appointment of Bulgarian bishops and the recognition of the Bulgarian language in Church and school. But these not being carried through, the Bulgarians took the matter into their own hands, and in 1860 refused any longer to recognize the Patriarch of Constantinople. The same year an attempt was made to bring the Church of Bulgaria under that of Rome, but, owing to Russian opposition, proved abortive. In 1870, the growing agitation having at last alarmed the Turks, the Bulgarian Exarchate was established. The Bulgarian Church was made free and national and was to be under an Exarch who should reside at Constantinople (Bulgaria being still a Turkish province). The Greeks, conscious what a blow this would be to their supremacy, managed for a short while to stave off the evil day, but in 1872 the Exarch was triumphantly installed in Constantinople, where he resided till 1908.
Meanwhile revolutionary outbreaks began to increase, but were always put down with great rigour. The most notable was that of 1875, instigated by Stambulóv, the future dictator, in sympathy with the outbreak in Montenegro, Hercegovina, and Bosnia of that year; the result of this and of similar movements in 1876 was the series of notorious Bulgarian massacres in that year. The indignation of Europe was aroused and concerted representations were urgently made at Constantinople. Midhat Pasha disarmed his opponents by summarily introducing the British constitution into Turkey, but, needless to say, Bulgaria’s lot was not improved by this specious device. Russia had, however, steadily been making her preparations, and, Turkey having refused to discontinue hostilities against Montenegro, on April 24, 1877, war was declared by the Emperor Alexander II, whose patience had become exhausted; he was joined by Prince Charles of Rumania, who saw that by doing so he would be rewarded by the complete emancipation of his country, then still a vassal-state of Turkey, and its erection into a kingdom. At the beginning of the war all went well for the Russians and Rumanians, who were soon joined by large numbers of Bulgarian insurgents; the Turkish forces were scattered all over the peninsula. The committee of Bucarest transformed itself into a provisional government, but the Russians, who had undertaken to liberate the country, naturally had to keep its administration temporarily in their own hands, and refused their recognition. The Turks, alarmed at the early victories of the Russians, brought up better generals and troops, and defeated the Russians at Plevna in July. They failed, however, to dislodge them from the important and famous Shipka Pass in August, and after this they became demoralized and their resistance rapidly weakened. The Russians, helped by the Bulgarians and Rumanians, fought throughout the summer with the greatest gallantry; they took Plevna, after a three months’ siege, in December, occupied Sofia and Philippopolis in January 1878, and pushed forward to the walls of Constantinople.
The Turks were at their last gasp, and at Adrianople, in March 1878, Ignatiyev dictated the terms of the Treaty of San Stefano, by which a principality of Bulgaria, under the nominal suzerainty of the Sultan, was created, stretching from the Danube to the Aegean, and from the Black Sea to Albania, including all Macedonia and leaving to the Turks only the district between Constantinople and Adrianople, Chalcidice, and the town of Salonika; Bulgaria would thus have regained the dimensions it possessed under Tsar Simeon nine hundred and fifty years previously.
This treaty, which on ethnological grounds was tolerably just, alarmed the other powers, especially Great Britain and Germany, who thought they perceived in it the foundations of Russian hegemony in the Balkans, while it would, if put into execution, have blighted the aspirations of Greece and Serbia. The Treaty of Berlin, inspired by Bismarck and Lord Salisbury, anxious to defend, the former, the interests of (ostensibly) Austria-Hungary, the latter (shortsightedly) those of Turkey, replaced it in July 1878. By its terms Bulgaria was cut into three parts; northern Bulgaria, between the Danube and the Balkans, was made an autonomous province, tributary to Turkey; southern Bulgaria, fancifully termed Eastern Rumelia (Rumili was the name always given by the Turks to the whole Balkan peninsula), was to have autonomous administration under a Christian governor appointed by the Porte; Macedonia was left to Turkey; and the Dobrudja, between the Danube and the Black Sea, was adjudged to Rumania.
11
The Aftermath, and Prince Alexander of Battenberg, 1878–86
The relations between the Russians and the Bulgarians were better before the liberation of the latter by the former than after; this may seem unjust, because Bulgaria could never have freed herself so decisively and rapidly alone, and Russia was the only power in whose interest it was to free her from the Turks, and who could translate that interest so promptly into action; nevertheless, the laws controlling the relationships of states and nationalities being much the same as those which control the relationships of individuals, it was only to be expected.
What so often happens in the relationships of individuals happened in those between Russia and Bulgaria. Russia naturally enough expected Bulgaria to be grateful for the really large amount of blood and treasure which its liberation had cost Russia, and, moreover, expected its gratitude to take the form of docility and a general acquiescence in all the suggestions and wishes expressed by its liberator. Bulgaria was no doubt deeply grateful, but never had the slightest intention of expressing its gratitude in the desired way; on the contrary, like most people who have regained a long-lost and unaccustomed freedom of action or been put under an obligation, it appeared touchy and jealous of its right to an independent judgement. It is often assumed by Russophobe writers that Russia wished and intended to make a Russian province of Bulgaria, but this is very unlikely; the geographical configuration of the Balkan peninsula would not lend itself to its incorporation in the Russian Empire, the existence between the two of the compact and vigorous national block of Rumania, a Latin race and then already an independent state, was an insurmountable obstacle, and, finally, it is quite possible for Russia to obtain possession or control of Constantinople without owning all the intervening littoral.
That Russia should wish to have a controlling voice in the destinies of Bulgaria and in those of the whole peninsula was natural, and it was just as natural that Bulgaria should resent its pretensions. The eventual result of this, however, was that Bulgaria inevitably entered the sphere of Austrian and ultimately of German influence or rather calculation, a contingency probably not foreseen by its statesmen at the time, and whose full meaning, even if it had, would not have been grasped by them.
The Bulgarians, whatever the origin and the ingredients of their nationality, are by language a purely Slavonic people; their ancestors were the pioneers of Slavonic civilization as expressed in its monuments of theological literature. Nevertheless, they have never been enthusiastic Pan-Slavists, any more than the Dutch have ever been ardent Pan-Germans; it is as unreasonable to expect such a thing of the one people as it is of the other. The Bulgarians indeed think themselves superior to the Slavs by reason of the warlike and glorious traditions of the Tartar tribe that gave them their name and infused the Asiatic element into their race, thus endowing them with greater stability, energy, and consistency than is possessed by purely Slav peoples. These latter, on the other hand, and notably the Serbians, for the same reason affect contempt for the mixture of blood and for what they consider the Mongol characteristics of the Bulgarians. What is certain is that between Bulgarians and Germans (including German Austrians and Magyars) there has never existed that elemental, ineradicable, and insurmountable antipathy which exists between German (and Magyar) and Slav wherever the two races are contiguous, from the Baltic to the Adriatic; nothing is more remarkable than the way in which the Bulgarian people has been flattered, studied, and courted in Austria-Hungary and Germany, during the last decade, to the detriment of the purely Slav Serb race with whom it is always compared. The reason is that with the growth of the Serb national movement, from 1903 onwards, Austria-Hungary and Germany felt an instinctive and perfectly well-justified fear of the Serb race, and sought to neutralize the possible effect of its growing power by any possible means.
It is not too much to say, in summing up, that Russian influence, which had been growing stronger in Bulgaria up till 1877-8, has since been steadily on the decline; Germany and Austria-Hungary, who reduced Bulgaria to half the size that Count Ignatiyev had made it by the Treaty of San Stefano, reaped the benefit, especially the commercial benefit, of the war which Russia had waged. Intellectually, and especially as regards the replenishment and renovation of the Bulgarian language, which, in spite of numerous Turkish words introduced during the Ottoman rule, is essentially Slavonic both in substance and form, Russian influence was especially powerful, and has to a certain extent maintained itself. Economically, owing partly to geographical conditions, both the Danube and the main oriental railway linking Bulgaria directly with Budapest and Vienna, partly to the fact that Bulgaria’s best customers for its cereals are in central and western Europe, the connexion between Bulgaria and Russia is infinitesimal. Politically, both Russia and Bulgaria aiming at the same thing, the possession of Constantinople and the hegemony of the Balkan peninsula, their relations were bound to be difficult.
The first Bulgarian Parliament met in 1879 under trying conditions. Both Russian and Bulgarian hopes had been dashed by the Treaty of Berlin. Russian influence was still paramount, however, and the viceroy controlled the organization of the administration. An ultra-democratic constitution was arranged for, a fact obviously not conducive to the successful government of their country by the quite inexperienced Bulgarians. For a ruler recourse had inevitably to be had to the rabbit-warren of Germanic princes, who were still ingenuously considered neutral both in religion and in politics. The choice fell on Prince Alexander of Battenberg, nephew of the Empress of Russia, who had taken part in the campaign of the Russian army. Prince Alexander was conscientious, energetic, and enthusiastic, but he was no diplomat, and from the outset his honesty precluded his success. From the very first he failed to keep on good terms with Russia or its representatives, who at that time were still numerous in Bulgaria, while he was helpless to stem the ravages of parliamentary government. The Emperor Alexander III, who succeeded his father Alexander II in 1881, recommended him to insist on being made dictator, which he successfully did. But when he found that this only meant an increase of Russian influence he reverted to parliamentary government (in September 1883); this procedure discomfited the representatives of Russia, discredited him with the Emperor, and threw him back into the vortex of party warfare, from which he never extricated himself.
Meanwhile the question of eastern Rumelia, or rather southern Bulgaria, still a Turkish province, began to loom. A vigorous agitation for the reunion of the two parts of the country had been going on for some time, and on September 18, 1885, the inhabitants of Philippopolis suddenly proclaimed the union under Prince Alexander, who solemnly announced his approval at Tirnovo and triumphantly entered their city on September 21. Russia frowned on this independence of spirit. Serbia, under King Milan, and instigated by Austria, inaugurated the policy which has so often been followed since, and claimed territorial compensation for Bulgaria’s aggrandisement; it must be remembered that it was Bismarck who, by the Treaty of Berlin, had arbitrarily confined Serbia to its inadequate limits of those day.
On November 13 King Milan declared war, and began to march on Sofia, which is not far from the Serbo-Bulgarian frontier. Prince Alexander, the bulk of whose army was on the Turkish frontier, boldly took up the challenge. On November 18 took place the battle of Slivnitsa, a small town about twenty miles north-west of Sofia, in which the Bulgarians were completely victorious. Prince Alexander, after hard fighting, took Pirot in Serbia on November 27, having refused King Milan’s request for an armistice, and was marching on Nish, when Austria intervened, and threatened to send troops into Serbia unless fighting ceased. Bulgaria had to obey, and on March 3, 1886, a barren treaty of peace was imposed on the belligerents at Bucarest. Prince Alexander’s position did not improve after this, indeed it would have needed a much more skilful navigator to steer through the many currents which eddied round him. A strong Russophile party formed itself in the army; on the night of August 21, 1886, some officers of this party, who were the most capable in the Bulgarian army, appeared at Sofia, forced Alexander to resign, and abducted him; they put him on board his yacht on the Danube and escorted him to the Russian town of Reni, in Bessarabia; telegraphic orders came from St. Petersburg, in answer to inquiries, that he could proceed with haste to western Europe, and on August 26 he found himself at Lemberg. But those who had carried out this coup d’état found that it was not at all popular in the country. A counter-revolution, headed by the statesman Stambulóv, was immediately initiated, and on September 3 Prince Alexander reappeared in Sofia amidst tumultuous applause. Nevertheless his position was hopeless; the Emperor Alexander III forced him to abdicate, and on September 7, 1886, he left Bulgaria for good, to the regret of the majority of the people. He died in Austria, in 1893, in his thirty-seventh year. At his departure a regency was constituted, at the head of which was Stambulóv.
12
The Regeneration under Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, 1886–1908
Stambulóv was born at Tirnovo in 1854 and was of humble origin. He took part in the insurrection of 1876 and in the war of liberation, and in 1884 became president of the Sóbraniye (Parliament). From 1886 till 1894 he was virtually dictator of Bulgaria. He was intensely patriotic and also personally ambitious, determined, energetic, ruthlessly cruel and unscrupulous, but incapable of deceit; these qualities were apparent in his powerful and grim expression of face, while his manner inspired the weak with terror and the strongest with respect. His policy in general was directed against Russia. At the general election held in October 1886 he had all his important opponents imprisoned beforehand, while armed sentries discouraged ill-disposed voters from approaching the ballot-boxes. Out of 522 elected deputies, there were 470 supporters of Stambulóv. This implied the complete suppression of the Russophile party and led to a rupture with St. Petersburg.
Whatever were Stambulóv’s methods, and few would deny that they were harsh, there is no doubt that something of the sort was necessary to restore order in the country. But once having started on this path he found it difficult to stop, and his tyrannical bearing, combined with the delay in finding a prince, soon made him unpopular. There were several revolutionary outbreaks directed against him, but these were all crushed. At length the, at that time not particularly alluring, throne of Bulgaria was filled by Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, who was born in 1861 and was the son of the gifted Princess Clémentine of Bourbon-Orleans, daughter of Louis-Philippe. This young man combined great ambition and tenacity of purpose with extreme prudence, astuteness, and patience; he was a consummate diplomat. The election of this prince was viewed with great disfavour by Russia, and for fear of offending the Emperor Alexander III none of the European powers recognized him.
Ferdinand, unabashed, cheerfully installed himself in Sofia with his mother in July 1886, and took care to make the peace with his suzerain, the Sultan Abdul Hamid. He wisely left all power in the hands of the unattractive and to him, unsympathetic prime minister, Stambulóv, till he himself felt secure in his position, and till the dictator should have made himself thoroughly hated. Ferdinand’s clever and wealthy mother cast a beneficent and civilizing glow around him, smoothing away many difficulties by her womanly tact and philanthropic activity, and, thanks to his influential connexions in the courts of Europe and his attitude of calm expectancy, his prestige in his own country rapidly increased. In 1893 he married Princess Marie-Louise of Bourbon-Parma. In May 1894, as a result of a social misadventure in which he became involved, Stambulóv sent in his resignation, confidently expecting a refusal. To his mortification it was accepted; thereupon he initiated a violent press campaign, but his halo had faded, and on July 15 he was savagely attacked in the street by unknown men, who afterwards escaped, and he died three days later. So intense were the emotions of the people that his grave had to be guarded by the military for two months. In November 1894 followed the death of the Emperor Alexander III, and as a result of this double event the road to a reconciliation with Russia was opened. Meanwhile the German Emperor, who was on good terms with Princess Clémentine, had paved the way for Ferdinand at Vienna, and when, in March 1896, the Sultan recognized him as Prince of Bulgaria and Governor-General of eastern Rumelia, his international position was assured. Relations with Russia were still further improved by the rebaptism of the infant Crown Prince Boris according to the rites of the eastern Church, in February 1896, and a couple of years later Ferdinand and his wife and child paid a highly successful state visit to Peterhof. In September 1902 a memorial church was erected by the Emperor Nicholas II at the Shipka Pass, and later an equestrian statue of the Tsar-Liberator Alexander II was placed opposite the House of Parliament in Sofia.
Bulgaria meanwhile had been making rapid and astonishing material progress. Railways were built, exports increased, and the general condition of the country greatly improved. It is the fashion to compare the wonderful advance made by Bulgaria during the thirty-five years of its new existence with the very much slower progress made by Serbia during a much longer period. This is insisted on especially by publicists in Austria-Hungary and Germany, but it is forgotten that even before the last Balkan war the geographical position of Bulgaria with its seaboard was much more favourable to its economic development than that of Serbia, which the Treaty of Berlin had hemmed in by Turkish and Austro-Hungarian territory; moreover, Bulgaria being double the size of the Serbia of those days, had far greater resources upon which to draw.
From 1894 onwards Ferdinand’s power in his own country and his influence abroad had been steadily growing. He always appreciated the value of railways, and became almost as great a traveller as the German Emperor. His estates in the south of Hungary constantly required his attention, and he was a frequent visitor in Vienna. The German Emperor, though he could not help admiring Ferdinand’s success, was always a little afraid of him; he felt that Ferdinand’s gifts were so similar to his own that he would be unable to count on him in an emergency. Moreover, it was difficult to reconcile Ferdinand’s ambitions in extreme south-eastern Europe with his own. Ferdinand’s relations with Vienna, on the other hand, and especially with the late Archduke Francis Ferdinand, were both cordial and intimate.
The gradual aggravation of the condition of the Turkish Empire, notably in Macedonia, the unredeemed Bulgaria, where since the insurrection of 1902-3 anarchy, always endemic, had deteriorated into a reign of terror, and, also the unmistakably growing power and spirit of Serbia since the accession of the Karageorgevich dynasty in 1903, caused uneasine | |||||||
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"Cathy Moran Hajo"
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3581 | dbpedia | 0 | 4 | https://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/1915/bryce/a14.htm | en | Cicilia (Vilayet of Adan and Sankjak of Marash). | [
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CILICIA (VILAYET OF ADANA AND
SANDJAK OF MARASH).
Cilicia occupies the south-eastern corner of Anatolia, overlooking the Gulf of Iskanderoun (Alexandretta), and falls into two sharply contrasted regions---the fertile, malarious coastal plain of Adana, traversed by a section of the Baghdad Railway, and the hill-country inland to the north-east of it, where the lines of Taurus are broken by the upper courses of the Sarus and Pyramus (Sihoun and Djihoun) and spread out fanwise into a maze of high valleys and mountain blocks.
Until the spring of 1915, Cilicia was one of the chief centres of the Armenian race in Turkey, and there was no region, with the possible exception of Van, which they succeeded in making and keeping so thoroughly their own. The Armenian Dispersion in north-eastern Anatolia and the suburban districts round the coasts of Marmora, numerous and wealthy and influential though it was, still constituted no more than an urban class, and even in the towns was usually in a minority. The Cilician highlands, on the other hand, were sown thick with Armenian peasant communities---small but prosperous hill towns and villages, of which the most important were Hadjin and Zeitoun in the north, but which stretched in an unbroken chain from the Taurus to the southern spurs of the Amanus, until, at Dört Yöl, they touched the north-eastern corner of the Mediterranean.
The Cilician Armenians were mainly shepherds and husbandmen, but they were also one of the most civilised and progressive sections of the Armenian race. Schools both Armenian and American, had been established in the mountains, and, the mountaineers were in close contact with Adana, Tarsus, Mersina and the other ports and cities of the Adana plain, where commerce and industry were almost entirely in the hands of the Armenian element---an element constantly reinforced from the reservoir of Armenian population in the highlands.
The Cilician Armenians seemed destined to play an important part in the future development of the Ottoman Empire. Their country was of peculiar strategical and commercial importance, for it was to be traversed by the main artery of the Empire, the Baghdad Railway, in the most vital section of its course, where it has to negotiate two mountain-barriers and approach most nearly to the Mediterranean coast. And meanwhile the Armenian Population itself was here steadily increasing in numbers, while in almost every other part of Turkey it had been receding under the continuous repression to which it had been subjected since 1878. This increase was the more remarkable became Cilicia had been especially visited by the last outbreak of massacre, which occurred in. 1909.
All this, however, only rendered the Cilician Armenians more in the Ottoman Government's eyes, and the war gave it the opportunity it coveted for rooting them out. A universal deportation of all the Armenians in the Empire may or may not have been contemplated before the breach between the Turks and Armenians in Van, in the middle of April, 1915 ; but, as far as Cilicia is concerned, there is no doubt whatever that the scheme was devised and put in train before any of the events at Van occurred. Fighting began at Van on the 20th, April ; the first Armenians had been deported from Zeitoun on the 8th April, twelve days before, and by the 19th a convoy of them had already arrived in Syria (Doc. 138). The Cilician deportations, at any rate, must therefore have been planned at least as early as March, and probably earlier still.
And there is one special feature about the execution of the scheme in Cilicia which makes it evident that it was carried out deliberately and thought out far ahead. Immediately the Armenians were evicted front their villages, their houses were assigned to Moslem refugees. We have occasional evidence of the same practice, during June, in the Vilayets of Erzeroum and Trebizond ; but in these cases the Moslem where we can trace their origin, generally prove to have been Turks or Kurds from the adjoining districts on the east, who had just evacuated their own homes in consequence of the first occupation of Van. Their installation in Armenian houses was apparently extempore and conceivably only provisional. On, the other hand, the "mouhadjirs " brought by the Ottoman Government to Zeitoun, Hadjin and the other towns and villages of the Cilician highlands, were all of them Moslem refugees from Europe ---from the Roumelian Vilayets ceded by Turkey in 1913, as a result of the Balkan War. They had been on the Government's hands for over two years, and during all that time they had remained stranded in Thrace or along the Aegean littoral. But now they had been transported from these western fringes of the Empire to the other extremity of the Anatolian Railway, and by the 8th April, 1915, they were in readiness to occupy the homes of the Armenians in Cilicia immediately their rightful owners had started on their road to exile. This is clear proof that, at any rate in Cilicia, the deportation was not only planned systematically, but planned a long time in. advance.
Its execution began at Zeitoun in April, and was extended to all the highland villages in the course of May and June. In the cities of the plain and the coast, on the other hand, it did not become drastic till the first week in September---a tacit avowal that the official pleas of Armenian disloyalty and strategical necessity were a pretext hardly intended to be taken seriously even by their authors.
The Zeitounlis were deported in two directions ---half of them to Sultania (see Documents 123 and 125) in the Anatolian Desert, and half to the Mesopotamian Santdjak of Der-el-Zor (see Document 145). The exiles at Sultania were subsequently removed to Der-el-Zor to join the rest, and the later convoys seem all to have taken the south-eastward road. The deportation was conducted by the gendarmerie with the same brutality as elsewhere, but the Cilician country Is free of nomadic Kurds, so that there was here less wholesale massacre on the way. On the last stages of their journey to Zor the exiles were harassed by the Arab nomads of the steppe, but these are a milder race than their Kurdish neighbours. The chief alleviation of the Cilicians' fate was their geographical position. The distance they had to traverse was comparatively short, and they only began to die in large numbers after reaching their destination.
119. CILICIA : ADDRESS (WITH ENCLOSURE), DATED 3rd JULY, 1915, FROM THE ARMENIAN COLONY IN EGYPT TO HIS EXCELLENCY LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR J. G. MAXWELL, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF HIS. BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S FORCES IN EGYPT.
(a) Address from the Armenian Colony.
We addressed ourselves recently to your Excellency to obtain your authorisation to send three emissaries to Cilicia, in order to inform ourselves of the true situation in that country.
While we are profoundly grateful to your Excellency for your courtesy in granting this authorisation, we now desire to inform you that trustworthy information, furnished by official persons who have arrived from Syria in the course of the present week, shows that the situation in Cilicia has undergone a complete transformation. On this account the despatch of the emissaries is, for the moment, postponed; the actual state of affairs calls for altogether different measures.
Cavalliere Gauttieri, the Italian Consul at Aleppo, and certain foreign residents at Alexandretta and Adana, as well as others from Bitlis and Harpout, who travelled across Cilicia and all arrived here last Monday on board a neutral vessel, give the following account of what has occurred :---
The town of Zeitoun, which was exclusively inhabited by Armenians and is famous for its heroic struggles against the Turks, took warning by the manifest intention of the Ottoman Government to take advantage of the favourable moment created by the war for effecting the extermination of the Armenian race, and revolted several months ago. Dört Yöl and Hassan Beyli (a large Armenian village half way between Marash and Dört Yöl) were preparing to take the same action. The Turkish Government tried to subdue Zeitoun by military force, but all its efforts remained fruitless ; its troops were decimated, and had to beat a retreat several times over. At that stage of affairs the local authorities, by order of the Central Government, employed the following stratagem : they threatened the Katholikos of Cilicia, an old man of 75 years, that if the Zeitounlis refused to capitulate they would have the whole Armenian population massacred, while they assured the Zeitounlis that, in case they laid down their arms, they would be in no way interfered with. On the urgent recommendation of the Katholikos, the Zeitounlis, thinking that they were fulfilling a patriotic duty, laid down their arms to save their compatriots ; and the inhabitants of Dört Yöl and Hassan Beyli did the same thing for the same reason. Thereupon the Government treacherously proceeded to deport the inhabitants of Zeitoun and the afore-mentioned places en masse, and to replace them by Moslem emigrants from Macedonia. At the same time they began to persecute the peaceful populations of the plains---those of Marash, Aintab, Sis and Adana, and so on---who are thus threatened now with imminent massacre. It is worth noting that the towns situated on the coast---Mersina, Alexandretta, Selefka and Kessab---continue to enjoy relative tranquillity. Notwithstanding all these persecutions, there are certain localities, scattered over the whole extent of Cilicia, where groups of Armenian fighting-men have entrenched themselves solidly in the mountains and are putting up an indefatigable resistance to the Turkish troops. Whenever they can, they leave their positions to go to the rescue of the defenceless people of the cultivated lands, always hoping that aid will come to them from abroad, and that, thus reinforced, they will be able to drive their historic oppressor from the country. The same hope is cherished by the whole Christian population of these regions, and one may say that the Moslems themselves are convinced that all this country will, before long, be occupied by the Allies.
That is the present situation in Cilicia, as it was unfolded to us by the official persons whom we have mentioned above.
(b) Resumé of Travellers' Reports, enclosed with the Address.
My official informants are unanimous in asserting that the object pursued in Cilicia by the Turkish Government is neither more nor less than the complete extermination of the Armenian element. The philanthropic efforts put forward by the Italian and American Consular Bodies, with a view to preventing the execution of this sinister plan, have remained without fruit, since the mandate for destruction and massacre emanated from the Central Government itself. The Turks, with the Government officials at their head, everywhere declare openly that the extermination of the Armenian element in Turkey is for them one of the necessities of national salvation, it being understood that the Allies protect the Armenians, and that they afford a permanent pretext for foreign intervention in the country's affairs. The Governor of Aleppo, a fair and liberal-minded man, who is personally opposed to this criminal policy, has avowed it to the European Consuls, declaring that the military commanders have only executed faithfully the orders received from the Sublime Porte, and emphasising this in the case of Fakhri Pasha, who is the representative of Djemal Pasha, the supreme commander of the military forces in Syria and Palestine. Among the other official persons responsible for the atrocities that have been committed, they mention the Mutessarif of Marash and the Kaimakam of Zeitoun. Latterly Marash and Zeitoun have been consolidated into an independent Sandjak by order of the Central Government, and so the above-mentioned functionaries are no longer under the control of the Vali of Aleppo.
The German Consul at Aleppo, of whom we shall have more to say below, made an extremely significant declaration to the Consul of a Power which has since joined the Allies :--
"However painful and deplorable the condition may be to which the Armenians find themselves reduced, the Turkish Government could take no other course towards them, in view of the fact that they have everywhere cast in their lot with the enemies of Turkey."
Zeitoun.---The Turkish troops which marched against Zeitoun and presided, after the capitulation, over the deportation of the Zeitounlis, were commanded by German officers. The Turks have torn from their homes in this way all the inhabitants of Zeitoun, Furnus, Alabash, Geben and the neighbouring districts, and have sent them off in batches to Der-el-Zor, to Djibal Hauran, and towards various unexplored regions of the desert. The women have been sent to Konia, an exclusively Turkish district. In place of the Armenians they had installed at Zeitoun a number of Moslem refugees from Macedonia.
Marash---This town was relatively tranquil till a short time ago ; now it is the scene of all kinds of atrocities and persecutions. Hundreds of Armenian families have been driven out and marched away, no one knows where. These atrocities have been committed in the presence and with the connivance of the German Consul at Aleppo, according to the testimony of a large number of Armenians which has been recorded by the European Consular authorities.
Hassan Beyli.---This unfortunate village, which had been already so cruelly tried during the Cilician massacres of 1909, has this time been destroyed root and branch. The inhabitants have been deported.
Dört Yöl presents the same tragic spectacle. Though there have been no massacres here in the literal sense of the word, the arrests and expulsions en masse continue without abatement. The story is already well-known of the German spy who came to Dört Yöl disguised as a British officer---how he incited them to revolt against the Turkish Government, and the arrests and partial massacre that came of it. The story of this piece of treachery is also confirmed by the Italian Consul from Alexandretta. The village of Dört Yöl, once so prosperous, is now plunged in frightful misery.
At Aintab, Sis and Adana the Armenians have so far been less molested and persecuted than elsewhere. The arrests are less numerous ; but sinister rumours are current, which are propagated by the Turks, and the terror of imminent butchery haunts the inhabitants of these towns, who are strong in numbers but absolutely bereft of all means of defence and of all protection against the danger of extermination by which they are menaced.
Ourfa groans under a Governor of the name of Haidar Bey, who, as his own wife avows, has committed atrocities of all kinds wherever he has exercised authority. He is the notorious organiser of the butcheries at Mardin. The Armenian monastery at Ourfa has been confiscated by the authorities and transformed into an asylum for the British and Russian subjects who have been put under arrest in Cilicia.
The Turkish Forces.---The Turks do not dispose of military forces of any importance in Cilicia ; the troops they have there are not a permanent garrison, and their number is not constant.
120. CILICIA: LETTER, DATED 20th JUNE, 1915, FROM DR. L., A FOREIGN RESIDENT IN TURKEY; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
The deportation began some six weeks ago with 180 families from Zeitoun, since which time all the inhabitants of that place and its neighbouring villages have been deported, also most of the Christians in Albustan and many from Hadjin, Sis, Kars Pazar, Hassan Beyli and Dört Yöl.
The numbers involved are approximately, to date, 26,500. Of these about 5,000 have been sent to the Konia region, 5,500 are in Aleppo and the surrounding towns and villages, and the remainder are in Der-el-Zor, Rakka and various places in Mesopotamia, even as far as the neighbourhood of Baghdad.
The process is still going on, and there is no telling how far it may be carried. The orders already issued will bring the number in this region up to 32,000, and there have been as yet none exiled from Aintab, and very few from Marash and Ourfa.
The following is the text of the Government order(158) covering the case:-"Art. 2nd.: The commanders of the Army, of independent army corps and of divisions may, in case of military necessity, or in case they suspect espionage or treason, send away, either singly or in mass, the inhabitants of villages or towns and install them in other places."
The orders of commanders may have been reasonably humane, but the execution of them has been for the most part unnecessarily harsh and in many cases accompanied by horrible brutality to women and children, to the sick and the aged. Whole villages were deported at an hour's notice, with no opportunity to prepare for the journey---not even, in some cases, to gather together the scattered members of the family, so that little children were left behind. At the mountain village of Geben the women were at the wash-tub, and were compelled to leave their wet clothes in the water and take the road barefooted and half-clad, just as they were. In some cases they were able to carry part of their scanty household furniture or implements of agriculture, but for the most part they were allowed neither to carry anything nor to sell it, even where there was time to do so.
In Hadiin well-to-do people, who had prepared food and bedding for the road, were obliged to leave it in the street, and afterwards suffered greatly from hunger.
In many cases the men (those of military age were nearly all in the Army) were bound tightly together with ropes or chains. Women with little children in their arms, or in the last days of pregnancy, were driven along under the whip like cattle. Three different cases came under my knowledge where the woman was delivered on the road and, because her brutal driver hurried her along, she died of haemorrhage. I also know of one case where the gendarme in charge was a humane man and allowed the poor woman several hours' rest and then procured a wagon for her to ride in. Some women became so completely worn out and hopeless that they left their infants beside the road. Many women and girls have been outraged. At one place the commander of gendarmerie openly told the men to whom he consigned a large company that they were at liberty to do what they chose with the women and girls.
As to subsistence, there has been a great difference in different places. In some places the Government has fed them ; in some places it has permitted the inhabitants to feed them ; in some places it has neither fed them nor permitted others to do so. There has been much hunger, thirst and sickness and some real starvation and death.
These people are being scattered in small units, three or four families in a place, among a population of different race and religion and speaking a different language. I speak of them as being composed of families, but four-fifths of them are women and children, and what men there are, for the most part, are old or incompetent.
If means are not found to help them through the next few months, until they get established in their new surroundings, two-thirds or three-fourths of them will die of starvation and disease.
121. BM. : LETTER FROM A FOREIGN EYE-WITNESS, DATED 6th JULY, 1915, ON BOARD A STEAMSHIP; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
Central Turkey has reached a crisis in its history. There are grave problems to face. In many parts the accumulated work of years has been washed away in a few weeks by the great and terrible flood of deportation, and we are again on bed-rock. We understand that, between the middle of May and the middle of June, 26,000 people were deported, and that the number is to reach 32,000. When I left BM., on the 14th June, Zeitoun had been practically emptied of Armenians. Only one, or perhaps two families, who were originally not of Zeitoun and who were in the employment of the Government and necessary to it, were left in Zeitoun, and even they were not allowed to live in houses, but were living in a church. The place is now occupied by Macedonian Moslem refugees. They began by cutting down the fruit trees, laden with green fruit, and using them for firewood, and by cutting down the green grain and using it for fodder. One man demanded the mule that had carried him there from the Moslem katerdji, who had been asked by the Government to convey the man to Zeitoun---or Yeni Shehr, as I think it is now to be called. When the katerdji naturally demurred, the man killed the katerdji and took the mule. So lawless are they that the Government seems afraid of them, and so leaves them strictly alone. As far as I know, at that date not an Armenian was left in Albustan and all its region, in Furnus and all its region, in Geben and all its region, or in Gourksoun and all its region (I don't remember the other places that have been swept clean), and Fundadjak and DerÈ Keui and all that region expected to move any day. Indeed, the Government says that the plan is that all Cilicia shall be entirely cleared, except for Sis, Adana and BM., where the serving class shall be left. Some officials say that all but about three hundred rich and influential families of BM. shall be left, but no one believes them and all from the highest to the lowest are preparing to leave. The same officials say that Sis and Adana will not be touched, but we know that some from there have been taken already. As you may know, Marash was this year made an independent "Sandjak," like Ourfa, and this has made this infamous work more easy. The Vali of Aleppo resisted all efforts at deportation in his district, but the day we left Aleppo we were informed by him that he had been removed to Konia, so by this time deportation is very probably in full swing in the Aintab field. When we were in Aleppo I saw some of the first one hundred families to be deported from Hadjin, and the rest of Hadjin were expected the day we left, or within the next few days. The man who has been deporting in Diyarbekir, and, worse, has been killing people by beating or scalding them to death---one person said: "He is killing them alive!"---was transferred about the middle of June to Ourfa, with the evident purpose of letting him continue his work there. To go out into other fields, I might add that a private code telegram from Mardin received about the 24th June said that massacres had begun there.
Why is there this deportation? There are many theories. When the people asked, the answer was : "It is an order from Constantinople." One official, who is being worked nearly to death by this extra work of deportation, said one day : "It is all right for people in. Europe to deport. They simply put people on a train and send them wherever they wish"--and much more along that line, which led us to believe that Germany has a hand in it. Indeed, we know that, when Turkish officials are easing up on these poor people, German officials step in and make things hard.
Where are they going ? Some are being scattered, one or two families to a village, among Moslem villages, evidently with the idea of forcing them to become Moslems; others are being taken from their mountain homes and are being driven across the desert towards Baghdad. German officers, who came into Aleppo one night on their way from Baghdad to Constantinople, said that they first met this weary train two days out of Baghdad, and that the road the thousands they had met were marching along was marked or outlined by the bodies of their dead.
Who are these people ? Women and children, tottering old men and babes. The men, twenty-one to thirty-five or forty years old, have practically all gone to the war, so these women are at the mercy of those in charge of them. Some soldiers are as kind to them as circumstances permit ; others farm the women out for the night to the men of the villages near which they camp, or march in themselves, as a bull might into a herd of cows. This is not guesswork, but well-known fact. Some women kill themselves by jumping into the rivers, to escape, but others, for the sake of their children, endure.
Some of the circumstances that make this deportation especially cruel are these. As a general rule village people get their new clothes in the autumn. Now they are expecting to go up into the mountains with their flocks, and so will wear out the old rags of last year's clothes and be ready for the new clothes after harvest. So, at best, they are very ill-provided for a journey. Not only this, but the Government takes special pains in many, if not most, instances to prevent their taking what clothes they have. The first to be summoned were some families in Zeitoun. Early one Saturday morning, as usual, the industrious housewives donned their old washing clothes and began their Saturday's washing. Without warning, all of a sudden, a terrible knocking was heard at many doors. In a minute the soldiers came pouring in, saying that the people in those houses were wanted immediately at the Government House. Not a moment was given to don dress or shoes, but, in night-clothes or washing rags, the mothers and a few fathers snatched sleeping children out of their beds, the women throwing a shawl over their heads as they ran. Of course, many children were left behind, and there are many pathetic stories of little boys and girls, eight or nine years old, stumbling. along the road, hardly able from sheer weariness to walk, yet carrying their little baby brother or sister, because, as their mother was being taken away by the soldiers, she had said, "Look after baby and never leave him (or her)."
Geben's turn came later, so the people had heard of the deportation and gotten ready, although the Government assured them again and again that that district was not to be deported, Time went on, and no order came. The Government said: "Why will you not believe? Why do you sit here waiting for that which is not coming? See, your flocks are suffering for want of pasture. Be sensible, and go to the mountains as usual." Some brave ones started out, and nothing happened. So, in great joy, the flocks started for the mountains. One morning the women were putting into the tub the clothes that had got dirty during all those weary weeks of waiting, that they might go to their mountain places with clean clothes. Such was the need of washing that they wore the fewest clothes possible, that they might take everything nice and clean. Hardly an hour had passed, or at least a very short time, before some soldiers presented themselves to these women with the command "March!" while others accosted those who had gone to the mountains with the flocks with the command "Leave all and march! " So they were forced to leave all their clothes in the tub and their flocks on the mountains, and march !
In Albustan, when friendly Moslems wished to buy things of the Armenians and so give them ready money for the road, the Government stationed soldiers in all the Armenian streets to prevent this, so all they could sell was what they smuggled out by the back door.
Another factor that adds horror to the situation is the fact that most of the horses, mules and donkeys have been taken by the Government for the use of the Army. So now the people have practically no animals to carry their own loads, and the Government can furnish few. Sometimes they force an Armenian from a distant village, who happens to have kept a poor old lame horse or two, to help transport people. He hears on the way that orders have come for the deportation of his own family. Of course, if he can steal away in the night to go to the help of his own family, he does so. Or the soldiers make a raid on some neighbouring Moslem villages and gather up the few donkeys that, are left. Their owners know that, if these donkeys once reach some large centre, they will never see them again. So these poor people, who have been tramping along all day, must keep awake all night to keep the donkeys from being stolen by their owners, who are sneaking round watching their chance. So the mothers are obliged to walk and carry their little children as best they can. Some throw their little ones into the river or leave them under a bush by the road, that they may be able to manage those that are left. One mother threw one child in and jumped in with the other in her arms. The heart-breaking cry is: "Won't you take my daughter and save her from the horrors of the road? She was educated in your schools; surely you can take her and save her? " Or : "My little one, my darling! Take her, take him! How can I trudge on, day after day, over the rocks or the burning sands of the desert, and carry and feed and keep my darling ?"
There is not an Armenian family in BM., I suppose, but has given clothes and money and food, till now they say: "We have nothing left but what we shall need on the road when we are summoned." They could not stand the bitter cry of the mothers, and many, many have taken children, saying: "If we put a little more water in the soup, it will be enough for all," and yet they say: "When we are summoned, what is to become of these children? To be sure, they have had a few more days of security and life, but then---what ? " . . . .
Still another factor adds to the horror, and that is : a Government that is not able to feed even its soldiers, how is it to obey the beautiful paper instructions and see that the people are well fed and lack for nothing ? In BM., for over a month, Christian churches have been giving two meals a day to the three thousand people to whom the Government gives two small stale loaves of bread a day, and I suppose it is safe to say that those fed are never for any two or three days running the same people. Each party stays two or three days, or even a week, but nearly every day some are coming and others going. This, as you may suppose, is a terrible drain on those from whom the Government has used nearly every means to extract the last penny, even hanging a man in the market-place because he did not pay ten pounds when asked for it! Hanging is so common in BM. now that it creates little stir. It is only when someone happens to mention having seen a man hanging in the market yesterday or the day before that we even hear of it. The people are looking into their fast-emptying larders, and asking: "How long will it last ? " In Aintab the people are not even allowed to feed the refugees, who are now sent by a long detour round the town to prevent anyone's seeking to feed them. Some good Aintab people took a lot of water-bottles right out to the cross-roads two hours or more away, to give to the refugees as they started out on their desert journey; but they were not allowed to give them, and had sadly to take them home again.
And how are the people going? As they come into BM., weary and with swollen and bleeding feet, clasping their babes to their breasts, they utter not one murmur or word of complaint; but you see their eyes move and hear the words: "For Jesus' sake, for Jesus' sake ! "
The Albustan people were brought by a roundabout way which no one knew, because, we think, the soldiers were afraid to follow the direct road past what used to be Zeitoun. So, instead of coming in two days they wandered for eight days in the mountains, many of them having not a morsel to eat for the last two days. After they had been in BM. for nearly twenty-four hours, Badvelli V. came up to see us. Even then he was so weary and his lips were so parched that it seemed a great effort for him to speak. Suddenly he threw up his head and squared his shoulders, and a new tone came into his voice, as he said : "I want to tell you of my great joy. As my people left their houses, their lands, their all, there was not one murmur or complaint, but with joy---yes, with joy---we left all! And I can say that I believe my people to-day to be nearer to Christ than they have ever been before."
I saw the wife of the Gourksoun preacher. She was so tired that, in spite of herself, perhaps even unknown to herself, her lips quivered as she spoke, and yet there was nothing but a smile or a cheery word to be seen or heard from those lips. Someone asked her how she came, and she said that for a few hours they hired an animal for one pound (I think that was the sum), but that most of the time she walked. I looked at her---a delicate woman, who could hardly be expected to walk three or four miles, to say nothing of all those miles, climbing up over the mountains or tramping among the rocks---and I said: "Walk! How could you ? " She turned to me, and a look of almost child like trust and wonder came into her face, as she answered : "I don't know. We felt no weariness; the road was not hard. It just seemed as though God put out His arms and carried us." . . .
122. ZEITOUN : ANTECEDENTS OF THE DEPORTATION, RECORDED BY THE REV. STEPHEN TROWBRIDGE, SECRETARY OF THE CAIRO COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN RED CROSS, FROM AN ORAL STATEMENT BY THE REV. DIKRAN ANDREASIAN, PASTOR OF THE ARMENIAN PROTESTANT CHURCH AT ZEITOUN.(159)
On the 10th August, 1914, the Turkish authorities in Zeitoun made a declaration of "seferbeylik," which in Turkish military parlance means that every man in the district under 45 years of age should be prepared to leave at short notice for active service in the Army. Every man, Moslem or Christian, was required to secure a "vesikÈ" or certificate from the Government stating that he had fulfilled the preliminary conditions and was ready for military service.
Hundreds upon hundreds, chiefly Moslem Turks, from the surrounding country came to the Zeitoun Government Building, and while going through the formalities were entertained hospitably by the Armenians of the town. These Armenians were also summoned, and they began seriously to consider whether it would be best to agree to this. (It is only since 1909 that any Christians have been allowed in the Turkish Army, though in ancient times the Janissaries were a very important section of the Ottoman troops.)
Many of the Zeitounlis took to the mountains to escape military service. Among these were about twenty-five thoroughgoing ruffians who made their living by deeds of violence. This small band, sincerely disliked and dreaded by the peaceable and thrifty people of Zeitoun, came down upon a company of new Turkish (Moslem) recruits, stripped them and enraged them by the insolence of their language. Thereupon Haidar Pasha, the Mutessarif of Marash, came out about the 31st August with 600 soldiers. He brought with him some Christian notables from Marash to "persuade" the Zeitounlis.
<The people of Zeitoun knew of this; and Yeghia Agha Yenidounyaian, one of the notables, advised Nazaret Tchaoush, his cousin, to meet Haidar Pasha with 500-600 armed young men, as he felt that Haidar Pasha's motives were not good. But Nazaret Tchaoush. answered: "No, it may be that his coming means death to me; but I would rather die than see Zeitoun ruined, as I know well that this is not the time for opposition." All the party leaders were of the same opinion, for they knew that they were not ready for a prolonged struggle, and that the European Powers were not in a position to come to their help. So> no opposition was offered to this force.
The Pasha demanded the surrender of the twenty-five outlaws who had attacked the new recruits. Every one of these was secured and actually handed over to the Turkish Government. This would seem to have answered the Pasha's utmost demand, but, as a matter of fact, he was not satisfied, and made a proclamation demanding the surrender of all weapons and firearms. On the pretext of making the Armenians own up to the possession of rifles, torture and the bastinado were used with terrible cruelty. Many prominent citizens had their feet beaten into a mangled pulp. Those who had no rifles made desperate efforts to purchase some from their neighbours, in order to be able to deliver them up and escape the torture(160).
There were in all about 200 Martini rifles among the 8,000 people of Zeitoun, and some 150 of these were seized in this fashion by the Turkish officers. A quantity of old-fashioned guns and pistols were collected and confiscated. The Pasha in returning to Marash took away with him a number of the Armenian notables, allowing the soldiers to insult and beat them on the road. Certain classes of the Armenians were also taken to the Marash barracks "for military service," but after terrible experiences many of them escaped and returned to Zeitoun.
The old troubles began again. On the pretext of finding deserters, houses were searched in the most lawless manner, and relatives and even neighbours were cruelly beaten. The fathers of some "deserters" almost died under the beating, <among them Nazaret Tchaoush himself>. The women and girls in the "deserters'" families were attacked and violated. Again and again young Armenian girls were outraged by the coarse Turkish soldiers. Even the young men who were not deserters were beaten "lest they might desert later." Of course, trade had long been at a standstill, and now large quantities of private property were being confiscated on these various pretexts. Then, <about the end of February,> some ignorant hotheads met one night and planned to attack the Government Building. This plot was frustrated by the Armenian notables, <among whom was Baba Agha Besilosian, the most influential of them all,> because they felt it would be doomed to failure. The Arashnort (Armenian bishop and head of the community) felt it his duty to notify the Government of this plot.
These are the facts. How can anyone charge the people of Zeitoun with desiring or attempting an insurrection ?
About twenty-five of the young men who had been brutally treated by the Turkish officers took to the mountains. These twenty-five attacked and killed nine Turkish mounted police on the way to Marash. The whole Armenian population of Zeitoun was against this, and openly said so. A night attack by this reckless band, <who had taken refuge in the adjacent monastery,> was frustrated by Government troops aided by a great mass of the Armenian people. Yet it became evident that the Government was only watching for pretexts to destroy Zeitoun root and branch.
Gradually 5,000 soldiers were gathered about the town, <and on the 24th March/6th April an Armenian delegation was sent to Zeitoun from Marash. Among these were the Rev. A. Shiradjian, Father Sahag, a Catholic monk, and Herr Blank, who persuaded the Armenians to inform the Government of the whereabouts of the insurgents and follow the instructions of the Government, to ensure their own safety and the safety of the other Armenians in Cilicia. The Armenians unanimously accepted the proposal, and told the Government that the insurgents were in the monastery.
The next day, the 25th March/7th April, the attack on the monastery began. The new Mutessarif of Marash wished to invest the monastery, but Captain Khourshid opposed him, saying that he would be able to get hold of all the insurgents dead or alive "within two hours."
The fight continued until nightfall, when the Turks decided to burn the monastery. But during the night the insurgents rushed out, killed an officer and many soldiers and escaped to the mountains, leaving only a few of their men behind them. The Turks lost between 200 and 300. On the 26th March/8th April the Turks burned the monastery, thinking that the insurgents were still there.
After this,(161)> fifty prominent families wore sent into exile; a few days later, sixty more, then a whole quarter, and another and another. Finally the remainder were all sent at once. By the time the Rev. Dikran Andreasian left, no families whatever remained. Even the Armenian inscriptions over the arches of churches were hacked to pieces by order of Khourshid
Bey, the commander of the troops, and the name of Zeitoun was changed to Souleimania (after a Turkish officer who was killed on the Marash road). The Turkish Mufti of Zeitoun, in his report, stated that in the course of all these events, such as the storming of the monastery, 101 Turkish soldiers were killed and 110 wounded. Over against this we may add that 8,000 Armenians who had no evil intention against the Government were outraged and despoiled beyond all endurance, and were at last driven out according to a methodical plan born of the Germans---driven out into hideous misery and suffering in the arid plains of Mesopotamia.
The Zeitounlis were longing for the Allies to carry all before them at Gallipoli. They were hoping for a sweeping defeat of the Turks; but there was no insurrection. The one or two seditious plots were opposed and frustrated chiefly by the Armenians of a saner mind. The evidence is convincing that the destruction of the people of Zeitoun was a deliberate Turco-German plan.
123. EXILES FROM ZEITOUN: DIARY OF A FOREIGN RESIDENT IN THE TOWN OF B. ON THE CILICIAN PLAIN ; COMMUNICATED BY A SWISS GENTLEMAN OF GENEVA.
Sunday, 14th March, 1915.
This morning I had a long conversation with Mr. ----- about events at Zeitoun. He has managed to obtain some information regarding the little Armenian town, although all direct communication with it has been interrupted. Turkish troops have left Aleppo for Zeitoun---some say 4,000, some 6,000, others 8,000. With what intention, one wonders? Mr. -----, who has been there himself during last summer and this winter, assures me that the Armenians have no wish to revolt and are prepared to put up with anything the Government may do. Contrary to the old-established custom, a levy was made at Zeitoun at the time of the August mobilisation, and they did not offer the slightest resistance. None the less, the Government has played them false. In October, 1914, their leader, Nazaret Tchaoush, came to Marash with a "safe conduct" to arrange some special points with the officials. In spite of the "safe conduct" they imprisoned him, tortured him, and put him to death. Still the people of Zeitoun remained quiet. Bands of zaptiehs (Turkish gendarmes), quartered in the town, have been molesting the inhabitants, raiding shops, stealing, maltreating the people and dishonouring their women. It is obvious that the Government are trying to get a case against the Zeitounlis, so as to be able to exterminate them at their pleasure and yet justify themselves in the eyes of the world.
-th April, 1915.
Three Armenians from Dört Yöl were hanged last night in the chief squares of Adana. The Government declare that they had been signalling to the British, warship or warships stationed in the Gulf of Alexandretta. This is untrue ; for 1, know, though I dare not put the source of my information on paper, that only one Armenian from Dört Yöl has had any communication with the English.
-th April.
Two more Armenians from Dört Yöl have been hanged at Adana.
-th April.
Three Armenians have been hanged at Adana. We were out riding to-day, and the train came into the station just as we reached the railway. Imagine our indignation when we saw a cattle-truck filled with Armenians from Zeitoun. Most of these mountaineers were in rags, but a few were quite well dressed. They had been driven out of their homes and were going to be transplanted, God knows where, to some town in Asia Minor.
It seems we have returned to the days of the Assyrians, if whole populations can be exiled in this way, and the sacred liberty of the individual so violated.
-th April (the next day).
We were able to see the unfortunate refugees, who are still here to-day. These are the circumstances of their departure from Zeitoun, or rather this is the tragedy which preceded their exile, though it was not the cause of it.
The Turkish gendarmes outraged several girls in the town, and were attacked in consequence by about twenty of the more hot-headed young men. Several gendarmes were killed, though all the while the population as a whole was opposed to bloodshed and desired most earnestly to avoid the least pretext for reprisals. The twenty rebels were driven out of the town and took refuge in a monastery about three-quarters of an hour's distance from the town. At this point the troops from Aleppo arrived. The Zeitounlis gave them lodging, and it seemed that all was going excellently between the populace and the 8,000 soldiers under their German officers.
The Turks surrounded the monastery and attacked it for a whole day; but the insurgents defended themselves, and, at the cost of one man slightly wounded, they killed 300 of the regular troops. During the night, moreover, they managed to escape.
Their escape was as yet unknown to the town when, about nine o'clock on the following morning, the Turkish Commandant summoned about 300 of the principal inhabitants to present themselves immediately at the military headquarters. They obeyed the summons without the least suspicion, believing themselves to be on excellent terms with the authorities. Some of them took a little money, others some clothing or wraps, but the majority came in their working clothes and brought nothing with them. Some of them had even left their flocks on the mountains in the charge of children. When they reached the Turkish camp, they were ordered to leave the town at once without returning to their homes. They were completely stupefied. Leave ? But for where ? They did not know.
They had been unable even yet to learn their destination, but it is probable that they are being sent to the Vilayet of Konia. Some of them have come in carriages and some on foot.
-th April.
I heard to-day that the whole population of Dört Yöl has been taken away to work on the roads. They continue to hang Armenians at Adana. It is a point worth remembering that Zeitoun and Dört Yöl are the two Armenian towns which held their own during the Adana massacres of 1909.
-th May.
A new batch of Zeitounlis has just arrived. I saw them marching along the road, an interminable file under the Turkish whips. It is really the most miserable and pitiable thing in the world. Weak and scarcely clothed, they rather drag themselves along than walk. Old women fall down, and struggle to their feet again when the zaptieh approaches with lifted stick. Others are driven along like donkeys. I saw one young woman drop down exhausted. The Turk gave her two or three blows with his stick and she raised herself painfully. Her husband was walking in front with a baby two or three days old in his arms.
Further on an old woman had stumbled, and slipped down into the mud. The gendarme touched her two or three times with his whip, but she did not stir; then he gave her several kicks with his foot; still she did not move; then he kicked her harder, and she rolled over into the ditch ; I hope that she was already dead.
These people have now arrived in the town. They have had nothing to eat for two days. The Turks forbade them to bring anything with them from Zeitoun, except, in some cases, a few blankets, a donkey, a mule, or a goat. But even these things they are selling here for practically nothing---a goat for one medjidia (3s. 2d.), a mule for half a lira (nine shillings). This is because the Turks steal them on the road. One young woman who had only been a mother eight days, had her donkey stolen the first night of the journey. What away of starting out! The German and Turkish officers made the Armenians leave all their property behind, so that the mouhadjirs (refugees) from Thrace might enter into possession. There are five families in -----'s house! The town and the surrounding villages (about 25,000 inhabitants) are entirely destroyed.
Between fifteen and sixteen thousand exiles have been sent towards Aleppo, but they are going to be taken further. Perhaps into Arabia ? Can the real object be to starve them to death ? Those who have passed through our town were going to the Vilayet of Konia ; there, too, there are deserts.
-th May.
Letters have come which confirm my fears. It is not to Aleppo that the Zeitounlis are being sent, but to Der-el-Zor, in Arabia, between Aleppo and Babylonia. And those we saw the other day are going to Kara-Pounar, between Konia and Eregli, in the most and part of Asia Minor.
Certain ladies here have given blankets and shoes to some of the poorest. The local Christians, too, have shown themselves wonderfully self-sacrificing. But what can one do ? It is a little drop of charity in the ocean of their suffering.
-th May.
News has come from Konia. Ninety Armenians have been taken to Kara-Pounar. The Zeitounlis have arrived at Konia. Their sufferings have been increased by their having had to wait---some of them 8, some 15, some 20 days---at Bozanti (the terminus of the Anatolian Railway in the Taurus, 2,400 feet above sea level). This delay was caused by the enormous masses of troops passing continually through the Cilician Gates ; it is the army of Syria which is being recalled for the defence of the Dardanelles.
When the exiles reached Konia, they had eaten nothing, according to our news, for three days. The Greeks and Armenians at once collected money and food for their relief, but the Vali of Konia would not allow anything of any kind to be given to the exiles. They therefore remained another three days without food, at the end of which time the Vali removed his prohibition and allowed food to be served out to them under the supervision of the zaptiehs.
My informant tells me that. after the departure of the Armenians from Konia for Kara-Pounar, he saw an Armenian woman throw her new-born baby into a well; another is said to have thrown hers out of the window of the train.
-th May.
A letter has come from Kara-Pounar. I know the writer of it, and can have no doubt of his truthfulness. He says that the 6,000 or 8,000 Armenians from Zeitoun are dying there from starvation at the rate of 150 to 200 a day. So from 15,000 to 19,000 Zeitounlis must have been sent into Arabia, the total population of the town and the outlying villages having been about 25,000.
-th May.
The whole garrison of ------and of Adana have left for the Dardanelles. There are no troops left to defend the district if it should be attacked from outside.
-th May (the next day).
New troops have arrived, but they are untrained.
-th May.
The last batch of Zeitounlis passed through our town to-day, and I was able to speak to some of them in the han where they had been put. I saw one poor little girl who had been walking, barefoot, for more than a week; her only clothing was a torn pinafore ; she was shivering with cold and hunger, and her bones were literally pushing through her skin.
About a dozen children had to be left on the road because they could not walk any further. Have they died of hunger ? Probably, but no one will ever know for certain. I also saw two poor old women without any hair left, or with hardly any. When the Turks drove them out of Zeitoun they had been rich, but they could not take anything with them beyond the clothes they were wearing. They managed somehow to hide five or six gold pieces in their hair, but, unfortunately for them, the sun glinted on the metal as they marched along and the glitter attracted the notice of a zaptieh. He did not waste any time in picking out the pieces of gold, but found it much quicker to tear the hair out by the roots.
I came across another very characteristic case. A citizen of Zeitoun, formerly a rich man, was leading two donkeys, the last remnants of his fortune. A gendarme came along and seized their bridles; the Armenian implored him to leave them, saying that he was already on the verge of starvation. The only answer he received from the Turk was a shower of blows, repeated till he rolled over in the dust ; even then the Turk continued beating him, till the dust was turned into a blood-soaked mud; then he gave a final kick and went off with the donkeys. Several Turks stood by watching ; they did not appear to be at all surprised, nor did any of them attempt to intervene.
-th May.
The authorities have sent a number of people from Dört Yöl to be hanged in the various towns of Adana Vilayet.
-th May.
There is a rumour of a partial exodus from Marash. It is going to be our town next.
Dört Yöl has also been evacuated and the inhabitants sent into Arabia. Hadjin is threatened with the same fate. There has been a partial clearing out of Adana; Tarsus and Mersina are threatened too, and also Aintab.
124. EXILES FROM ZEITOUN : FURTHER STATEMENT BY THE AUTHOR OF THE PRECEDING DOCUMENT; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
About the middle of April, about 150 Armenian families belonging to Zeitoun came to B. This is what they told us about the circumstances under which they had to leave their village.
After a battle that took place one day before their departure, between the Ottoman troops and 25 young men of Zeitoun, who had rebelled when they were asked to join the Army (a battle in which 300 soldiers perished, but in which the population of Zeitoun took no part), these families were called to the Government Building without any previous explanation and without any other information. Most of them were rich and went to the Government without misgivings. There they were informed that they had to leave their village instantly. They were then all obliged to abandon all that they had in their houses, their cattle and even part of their families (for, not knowing why they had been called away, many of them had left their children at home). This is what I heard from one of the Armenian exiles in the first convoy from Zeitoun. They came to B., but when some of them went to the American Mission in this town, they did not yet know where they were to be planted. Most of them were in the greatest anxiety on account of the children whom they bad left tending the cattle and whom they had not been able to take with them.
The first group was not in a very bad state, because it was composed of the first families of the city, and they could in large part provide for their immediate needs (carriages and food). But, a few days later, new bands appeared in a most deplorable condition; their number was nearly two thousand people.
Many, in fact, most of them, went on foot, getting food every two or three days, and in general lacking the most necessary clothes. The Christian population of B. tried to help them, but, whatever their efforts, what they could do was like a drop of water in the ocean. Also, they were not all allowed to enter the city; they had to sleep out of doors in no matter what weather, and the soldiers that guarded them put all sorts of difficulties in the way of the population of B., who wanted to help the refugees. We saw some of them on the road. They went slowly, most of them fainting from want of food. We saw a father walking with a one-day-old baby in his arms, and behind him the mother walking as well as possible, pushed along by the stick of the Turkish guard. It was not uncommon to see a woman fall down and then rise again under the stick. Some of them had a goat, a donkey, or a mare; when they reached B., they were obliged to sell them for five, ten, or fifteen piastres,(162) because the Turkish soldiers took them away from them. I saw one who sold his goat to a Turk for six piastres. I saw an Armenian pushing two goats ; a policeman (zabit) came and carried away the animals and, because the poor man protested, beat him mercilessly, until he fell in the dust senseless. Many Turks were present; no one stirred.
A young woman, whose husband had been imprisoned, was carried away with her fifteen-days-old baby, with one donkey for all her baggage. After one day and a half on the road, a soldier stole her donkey and she had to go on foot, her baby in her arms, from Zeitoun to Aleppo.
A reporter, Mr. Y ., told us that, while the refugees were on the way to Bozanti, his carriage was stopped all the time by refugees asking for bread.
The third and last band numbered 200 people. It reached B. on the 13th May, about seven o'clock. They were put in a han, where I went to visit them. The had all come on foot from Zeitoun to B., and had had nothing to eat for two days---days when it rained abundantly. Accompanied by one of my pupils, I made one or two translations from the Armenian, because we were under the surveillance of a policeman.
As soon as the Armenian refugees left their houses, mouhadjirs (Moslem refugees) from Thrace took possession of them. The Armenians had been forbidden to take anything with them, and they themselves saw all their goods pass into other hands. There must be about 20,000 to 25,000 Turks in Zeitoun now, and the name of the town seems to have been changed into that of Yeni Shehr.
I saw a girl three and a half years old, wearing only a shirt in rags. She had come on foot from Zeitoun to B. She was terribly spare and was shivering from cold, as were also all the innumerable children I saw on that day (Monday, the 14th May[163]).
An Armenian told me that he had abandoned two children on the way because they could not walk and that he did not know whether they had died of cold and hunger, whether a charitable soul had taken care of them, or whether they had become the prey of wild beasts. I learned later that this was far from being a unique case. Many children seem to have been thus abandoned.. One seems to have been thrown into a well.
As I passed through Konia, I went to see Dr. AB.(164) and this; is what he told me : When the first refugees from Zeitoun came to Konia, the Christian population bought food and clothes for. them ; but the Vali refused to allow them any communication with the refugees, pretending that they had all that they wanted.. A few days later however, they could get the help they needed.. The fact is that the Government gave them only very bad bread, and that only every two or three days. Dr. AB. told me that a woman threw her dying baby from the window of the train.
The refugees from Zeitoun have been directed to Kara-Pounar, one of the most unhealthy places in the Vilayet of Konia, situated between Konia and Eregli, but nearer the latter. Many of them have died, and the mortality is increasing everyday. The malaria makes ravages among them, because of the complete lack of food and shelter. How cruelly ironic to think that the Government pretends to be sending them there to found a colony ; and they have no ploughs, no seeds to sow, no bread, no abode; in fact, they are sent with empty hands.
Only part of the Zeitounlis seem to be at Kara-Pounar ; the others seem to have been sent to Der-el-Zor, on the Euphrates ; there their condition is still worse, and they ask as a favour to be sent to Kara-Pounar.
The Armenians of Adana received orders to leave the town, without being told where they were to go. Many of them came to B., others went to Osmania. But they were all recalled to Adana. Is it intended to send them somewhere else, or are they to remain in Adana ? I could not find this out for certain before leaving B.
A great panic reigns among the Armenian population in B., because it was said that they also were to be exiled. But nothing has happened there yet.
From Konia, again, more than 200 Armenians have been sent to Kara-Pounar. Among them is Mr. AC. On Thursday, 90 people were notified to be ready to leave on Saturday, the 26th May.(165) The Armenians dare not leave their houses.
125. EXILES FROM ZEITOUN : LETTER, DATED KONIA, 17th JULY, 1915, FROM A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT KONIA TO MR. N. AT CONSTANTINOPLE; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
In hope of having opportunity to send by Miss FF., I can write freely. Have you any means by which you can send me as much as fifty liras for relief of the Zeitounlis in Sultania ? .The Government has now left them to starve. At first, rations of bread were given; then 150 drams of flour to each per day (children under five not being counted at all) ; then their amount was ,reduced to 100 drams. It is now four weeks that this has been cut off entirely. The people are not allowed to scatter over the country in search of work. They can only search the fields for roots and herbs, and there have been several cases of poisoning from this food. The exiles from Konia, numbering 107 (men who have money and supplies sent to them from their homes) took up a subscription among themselves and subscribed 1,400 piastres a week towards supplying bread for the starving. I have sent personal gifts from ourselves and our friends of five or six liras a week; but these sources are becoming exhausted. Later Mr. GG., whom Dr. EE. knows, has been "pardoned" by the Vali and has returned here. He has been the leader among the exiles in trying to secure food for the Zeitounlis. I called on him this evening to get accurate information of their state. It is worse even than I knew. The number is over 7,000, 2,200 having been sent without coming through Konia, so that I had no account of them. The facts about the cutting off of all food for them are as I have stated. A bin-bashi, an Arnaout,(166) who went there on military service, was greatly moved by what he saw, and sent a strong telegram demanding rations to be given to the families of the men (about 300) who were drafted into the Labour Regiment after being sent to Sultania. This he could do in his military capacity, and it was accepted by the War Department. This provided for about 1,600, leaving, however, nearly 6,000 with nothing. The number of deaths up to last week was 305. Dr. Stepanian, of Baghtchedjik, has distinguished himself by self-sacrificing work for the poor. He testifies to seeing deaths from starvation already.
The refugees are "housed" principally in great camel stables and such like. It is a great camel region, the Government having requisitioned 4,000 of these animals from there. The cattle and animals of the Zeitounlis were mostly requisitioned by the Government en route. What they managed to conceal and bring with them has been put under requisition, but not taken. Meanwhile, the owners are forbidden to sell, are unable to use, and are compelled to feed these animals, because the Government holds them responsible to deliver them when called for. I have before heard of refinements of devilry, but I have seen instances this year that have burned into my soul. The manifest purpose to destroy these people by starvation cannot be denied.
I find that it is the exiles from Ak Shehr and. Baghtchedjik, who are also at Sultania, who have been more generous than those of Konia in giving of their own means. The Kaimakam has been very good, giving out of his scanty purse to help and favouring the efforts of others, in spite of the official attitude in Konia. Dr. Stepanian, of Baghtchedjik, whom you perhaps know, is one of the "Commission" there for distributing all assistance that may be sent. Can you in any way get money to put at my disposal, so that I can send ten liras a week ? With this we may be able to get enough from others here to provide ten paras per person. Of course this is nothing, but may we not do something ?
126. AF. : STATEMENT, DATED 16th DECEMBER, 1915, BY A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT AF. ; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
The events connected with the banishment of the Armenians of the AF. region by the Turkish Government began on the 14th May. On that day the Alai Bey, or Justice of the Court Martial, arrived in AF. from Aleppo, the seat of the Court Martial. The three days following his arrival were spent in seclusion, very probably in consulting with secret agents. On the 18th, 19th and 20th May he had conferences with the elders of the city. He demanded in a very courteous manner that the city should deliver up all arms, and all deserters from the army and other outlaws. He desired that they should comply with his request within the next three days. He took an oath on his honour that, if his demands were obeyed, all would be well for the people of AF. and in no way should harm come to them. In case of disobedience, however, he said that he had at his call three thousand soldiers, who would enforce his demands.
Towards the last of the conferences, however, the Alai Bey's attitude grew threatening, and the people were filled with alarm. The elders and spiritual heads of the communities were at a loss what counsel to give. If they delivered up their arms and were betrayed, they might all be massacred; if they retained them, it would mean open opposition to the Government. A number of the leaders came to consult with Miss B. and me, and. we supported the party which stood for full compliance with the requests. It was finally almost unanimously decided that this should be done, and a general response seemed to follow.
By Sunday, the 23rd May, all but three or four of the deserters had delivered themselves up and about seventy Martinis had been surrendered. C. Bey seemed pleased with the results, and the people were beginning to grow more tranquil. At three o'clock in the afternoon, about two thousand soldiers, cavalry and infantry, entered the city. The local centurion had prepared for their coming by taking forcible possession of the Gregorian Boys' School, the Monastery (which was used for orphanage purposes, the orphans being sent out as the soldiers entered), and the Protestant Boys' Academy. Miss B. immediately put in a protest at the Government House against occupying the last-named building. The cavalry was sent to another building belonging to a certain philanthropic society, for whose properties Miss B. was responsible. As the buildings were empty and not in use, it seemed best to allow this without a protest. The following morning we called upon the cavalry officer, D. Bey, were very courteously received, and were given assurances that the property should be well cared for, which assurances were kept. The Boys' Academy building was not freed of soldiers, but only a very few were stationed there, and all rooms we desired we kept locked. Guards of soldiers were placed in all conspicuous parts of the city, a squad being on duty night and day at the head of the private road which leads to the American Board Compound.
Towards evening on Monday, the 24th, the ammunition and load-animals of the troops came in. The soldiers with these were sent to a building belonging to another institution in the city. This building, though unoccupied because of the absence of the missionaries, was filled with property. Word was sent to Miss B., but before she could get there the attendant had been forced to open the door. She protested to the police in charge, and, finding it useless, sought audience with the justice of court martial. He promised to empty it the following day, and this was carried out.
On the 25th May, Miss B. again called on the Alai Bey to present several personal requests, such as permission to take flour to the mill without molestation, to have our road and premises free from the trespass of soldiers, etc. All was readily and courteously granted. She also reported the gun in our possession, which had been registered in the name of our steward. He smiled graciously and asked whether we did not want a few more ; he had plenty, he said, to give us. In the days that followed there was repeated pressure, always more drastic, for ammunition of all kinds and the delivery of deserters. C. Bey gave repeated assurances that, if the deserters were delivered up, no one would be exiled. On the 27th May a large number of the leading men were imprisoned, and, after that, every day added to their numbers.
The strain upon the people was now so great that the majority could neither eat nor sleep. We were in the same case, and were up from very early until late in the evening to meet the many who came to consult with us. On the morning of the 28th, a party of women from the city besought our aid. The husbands of nearly all of them had been thrown into prison, and they and their children were left defenceless in their homes, with no suggestion of what the future held in store. At their request, then, Miss B. and I interviewed both C. Bey and E. Bey, the military commander. We besought them to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty, and asked mercy for the women and children. We were again received with entire courtesy, but had no satisfaction. The Alai Bey took pains to explain to us that, as we had come from a land of freedom, where people lived in a more enlightened way, we could not fully understand the necessary actions of the Turkish Government ; that there existed a Committee among the Armenian people which was harmful to the Government, but that our hearts and minds were pure and the people easily deceived us.
The last of the deserters was delivered up on the 30th May, and the total number of guns was one Mauser and ninety Martinis. The Alai Bey, however, insisted that there were yet many more guns hidden by the people. either in the city or on the mountains. The soldiers were accordingly set at work to dig into walls and refuse heaps and search all the houses for guns. With the exception of some powder, the results were insignificant. The people of the city charged the soldiers with themselves hiding guns and ammunition in and about the walls of dwellings, for the purpose of securing convictions.
Meanwhile, the atmosphere grew worse and worse, and on the 3rd June it became known that the deportation was about to begin. In response to the desire of the people we, together with Miss R, a German lady, made a last plea before the officers. The only result was that we received permission to send telegrams. We sent messages to Mr. N. and the Ambassador, but afterwards learned that no such messages were ever transmitted. The men to be exiled the following morning were released from prison in the afternoon. Miss B. and I, together with the Protestant pastor, called upon all the families who were going. In the morning we asked permission for the school-girls of the exiled families to remain with us, and were refused on the ground that only the Vali could give such permission. We immediately telegraphed to the Vali, but, as usual, received no answer. The Alai Bey, however, personally gave us permission to keep three girls, as well as the privilege of receiving gifts from our friends who were going away.
Thirty leading Protestant and Gregorian families were marched away in the first batch. Gendarmes were placed to prevent relatives and friends from accompanying those sent out, but Miss B. and I always passed freely among them, giving aid wherever we could. Four days later G. Effendi, our steward and chief servant, received notice to go. Miss B. again Interviewed the Alai Bey with respect to the case of G. Effendi. She said that we were greatly dependent upon him, and asked that he might be left among the last to be sent. The Alai Bey granted one day's delay, but his decision was not carried out in fact. The following morning he was the first to be driven from his house by the soldiers.
By the 10th June, about 150 households had been deported, and new papers were being distributed every day. Some of the men had now been imprisoned fifteen days. They were usually released the day before leaving, and had no chance of making preparations for the journey. The Alai Bey left the same day, delegating the work of further deportation to the military commander and the Kaimakam of AF. The soldiers left some two weeks later. The deportation of the people of AF. continued throughout the summer, until, by the 1st October, only a very few men and their families and about 250 widows and soldiers' families remained.
It was the intention of the Government to provide animals for those sent into exile, as the people of AF. had very few animals of their own and were obliged to journey over rough mountain roads. Horses, mules, camels and donkeys were levied upon all the surrounding villages, whether Christian or Turk. The owners were obliged to go with the animals. It can readily be seen that many of them bore the travellers no good will, and vented whatever cruelty they pleased upon them. Gendarmes were also sent along with the convoys, presumably for protection, but very often they themselves became the greatest menace, and almost never succeeded in preventing the raids made upon the defenceless exiles by marauding bands. Towards the latter part of the summer the supply of animals was so diminished, so many having died upon the road. that Circassian carts were used for transporting the people. The exiles from AF. were sent first to AG., and from there by slow degrees to Aleppo. There is a well-travelled caravan road to AG. by way of AH., which can also be used by the rude mountain cars. This, however, the exiles were not permitted to use, but were forced to travel over a stony and very difficult road leading over a high mountain pass. The entire village of Shar and the Armenian population of Roumlou were deported soon after the deportations began in AF. Being agricultural villages, they came for the most part with their own carts. When they reached the pass, they begged to be allowed to go by way of AH., so that they might have the benefit of their cars ; but this was denied them. All the carts had to be abandoned at the river, and, throwing most of their possessions into the stream, they took what little they could carry, and started up the stony way on foot.
At the beginning of September a very large percentage of the remaining population of AF. was deported, consisting for the most part of the very poor, and including many widows. As very few animals and carts came in response to the call of the Government, a large number of men, women and children started on the long journey on foot, carrying on their backs or strapping to their persons the very few articles deemed most necessary.
Miss B. and I found our position in the face of such terrible events a most difficult one. We felt obliged to help the Armenian people in every way possible, and at the same time felt we could not have a break with the Government, nor give up our cordial relations with the Moslem families. We felt responsible for the American property situated in and about AF ., and also had Armenian orphan teachers and girls in the compound, for whose protection our lives were not too costly. One of the great problems was in connection with the property of the exiled families. They had been told by the Alal Bey that they could place the property left behind wherever they pleased . Naturally everyone wished to put it under our care. We could have filled our whole compound full of all imaginable household articles and treasures, to say nothing of horses, cows, goats, etc. As we had no American gentleman to advise us, and, moreover, wished always to deal in such a way as not to involve the Consul or the Embassy, we decided in general against the taking of property. That which we did accept we paid for, and the purchasing was always to help those in such desperate need. The Government came to understand this, and respected us accordingly.
From the time when the first people left, in early June, until October, we were very fortunate in having the opportunity to render some financial help. Miss B. passed through the line of gendarmes guarding the villages of Shar and Roumlou, and was enabled to leave some pounds with the head men of the villages for the aid of the very poor. To the outgoing people of AF. we gave freely, according to our limited means, and even occasionally could help exiles from other villages passing through from the Kaisaria country. We succeeded also, with the aid of a Greek and a Turk, in sending some relief to the villagers of AJ. and AK. before they left. We felt confident that the authorities knew something of the extent to which we were helping the people, but we encountered no open opposition.
Our servants were nearly all sent away early in the deportation, so that extra and unaccustomed work was imposed upon us. Miss B., for example, always had to take the post in person to the Government Building. Providing for the food supply, and dealing with our shepherd and the villagers who came to sell things, often fell to us personally. A large part of the time we had no cook. Another tax upon our strength and time was the battle with the swarms of locusts which visited Syria and Cilicia. They first appeared in early June and ravaged the country till September. They destroyed our vineyards, and we had to fight day after day to keep them out of the compound. When we destroyed those hatched on our premises, their places were quickly filled by armies coming down the mountain side. When I left, many of the villages were suffering from the lack of food due to the locust scourge.
Another problem was how to relieve, in some small measure at least, the suffering in the city caused by lack of food. A great many widows and orphans and soldiers' families were left with no means of support, after the more well-to-do families had been deported. Moreover, the industrial work, which employed a considerable number of widows, was closed with the coming of the court martial officer. The two Bible Women, up to the time when they also were deported, worked heroically, with the little means that we could spare them each week, to meet and provide for the cases of greatest need. We bought large quantities of cheap wheat to help towards this end. The only shop left open was that of the druggist, so there was no way of obtaining any supplies. The lack of soap and salt was very keenly felt. As our own supply was limited, we could not give freely as we wished, but finally Miss B., in spite of all the demands upon her strength and time, made considerable quantities of soap, so that at least the women might wash their clothes occasionally. All who received it were most grateful, and the supply was never sufficient.
Miss B. and I personally never suffered any discourtesy from either the official or village Turk. Our situation was often delicate, and, in such a case as the affair connected with the Government Industrial, the Kaimakam ignored our rights and courteously took everything into his own hands ; but, on the whole, we were well treated. When we asked Mr. H. to come to our aid from Marash and the Government prevented him from coming, the Kaimakam sent the chief of police to explain the case to us, and assured us that we need not fear, that we were the guests of the Government, and that not a hair of our heads should be injured. When I left AF, although I had the escort of Miss J., the Consul's kavass and their gendarme, the captain in AF. sent with me as a personal escort his best horseman. The postal official showed himself very friendly, and did us many personal favours. When money was sent us through the post office, he tried always to pay in gold or silver, and in such a way that we might get it quickly into the hands of the people. He knew we used it to help those condemned to be exiled. When the first convoys of exiles were driven out of AF. his mother was unable to leave her bed for two weeks, she was so depressed by what she saw and heard. She spoke with great vigour against the terrible events that were happening.
Our head teacher, Miss K., and her mother were with us in the compound. They have Moslem relatives, two of whom were officers' families in AF. These were especially friendly to us, and visited us frequently. They were all outspoken against the horrors. One time U. Effendi had failed to visit us, as was his custom, and, when we asked the reason, he said he was ashamed to come because he could bring us no good news. We saw Moslem women loudly wailing with the Christians when the first families were sent out. When the Alai Bey first came, he called the Mufti and asked his approval of what he was about to do ; but the Mufti refused to sanction it, and said he could see no good in it. This same Mufti was a strong personal friend of one of the leading Protestant Armenians (our special friend and adviser), and he tried in every way to save him from exile, but in vain. When M. Agha left, the Mufti took possession of his house and all his properties for him. He also said he would stand as protector of the Americans and the American compound after M. Agha was gone. Some of the village aghas also expressed themselves freely to us, both on the matter of the war and on the calamity which had befallen the Armenians. They said that such cruelty would not go unavenged, and that their day of reckoning would come.
They complained bitterly that there were now no artisans or shopkeepers left to supply their wants, and that in a short time they themselves would be in desperate want. Our watchman at the summer residence showed us his foot half-naked, because he could not find a shoemaker in all AF. to mend it. All the surrounding Turkish, Kurdish and Circassian villages were in the same need.
A Kurdish Sheikh, N. Effendi, from a village not far from AF., visited the city twice only during the summer. The first time he only remained about an hour, and, with the tears streaming down his cheeks, he said he would return to his village at once; that he could not endure such sights. The second time he came to bid farewell to O. Effendi, his Armenian friend. He kissed each of his children, pressing them to his heart, and left again in tears. A Kurd also brought us the secret information that the new Shar church building had been partially destroyed by dynamite.
The Moslems of AK. and AJ. were very much opposed to the exiling of the Armenians from those villages. They said they were not guilty of anything, possessed no weapons, lived peacefully and were friends with them, and were, besides, their artisans and tradesmen. Through their efforts they put off the deportation about three months; but, in the end, even they were unable to save them. The Turks of AK. ought to have special mention for their honourable attitude throughout the whole affair. Miss K.'s uncle, an officer in AK., broke a water jar over the head of a young Moslem who had entered into a room to molest an Armenian soldier's wife. He said he was obliged to defend the unprotected who dwelt under the shadow of his house. Once when Miss B. was passing through the streets of AF., she was appealed to by two gendarmes who had been ordered to expel from their home for deportation an aged man and his wife and their bed-ridden son. The gendarmes said: "How shall we do this thing ?" and begged Miss B. to beseech the authorities for mercy. These are samples of faint gleams of light in the midst of four months of horrible darkness. Pages and pages might be written on the barbaric and relentless cruelty of the many.
Throughout the summer Miss B. and I were confronted with the question whether we had come to Turkey only to work for the Christians, or whether we would also be willing, now that the Armenians were gone, to take Moslem children into our school. These inquiries finally resulted in expressions on the part of several officers' families of a desire to place their daughters in our school. Every week there were inquiries as to when a decision would be made as to the opening of our school. One Moslem woman even went so far as to inquire about the clothing necessary to prepare for her daughter. Whether they were sincere or not, of course, we cannot tell; but the desire seemed to be a general one.
There is yet one more phase in connection with the summer's events. Shortly after the deportation of the Armenian families of AF. took place, about thirty families of Mouhadjirs were sent in by the Government to take their place. These unfortunate people were refugees from Roumelia since the time of the Balkan War. For two years they had been wandering, always sent on by the Turkish Government from place to place, and finally placed in the houses just vacated by those who were likewise to face months of wandering and homelessness. Four families came to live close to our end of the city. We at once decided to show them friendliness. They responded in a touching way, came frequently to call, and poured out their over-burdened hearts. When they first came, the men were too weak to work; all were subject to chills and fever, and, of the whole village from which these people had come, only two children were living. One of the women spoke with horror at having to live in a house with such associations, saying that only they knew what such suffering meant. The morning when I left and bade them good-bye, one of these Mouhadjir women threw her arms about me and begged me not to go.
Miss Vaughan and I saw the departure of hundreds of Armenians into a hopeless exile. It was heart-breaking and too awful even to imagine in detail ; yet we praise the God of all mankind, whether Moslem or Christian, that we were permitted to see the spirit of Christian faith and humility manifested by so many in the darkest period of Armenian history. There may have been examples of hard-heartedness and cursing against God and an utter losing of faith, but we did not personally come in contact with them. How often did we pray together with those about to go and, with the tears streaming down our faces, beseech God to keep our faith sure ! How often did men and women clasp our hands at parting, saying: "Let God's will be done. We have no other hope!" P. Effendi, the Protestant preacher, came to our compound the morning of his leaving and asked that, with the girls and teachers, we might all have worship together. His young wife, who was about to become a mother, was left to our care. Whether they were ever reunited I do not know. With entire calm he read from God's word, and prayed God's protection for all of us who were left behind. At the close he asked that the girls should sing " He leadeth me."
"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.."
127. AF. : RECORD OF INDIVIDUAL CASES, DRAWN UP BY THE AUTHOR OF THE PRECEDING STATEMENT, AND DATED 17th DECEMBER, 1915.
1. Q. was a young man who had graduated from the law school at Constantinople, and in the winter and early spring of 1915 had served in the Mounted Imperial Guard. Not being well, he returned to his home in AF. a few weeks before the deportation began. Upon the arrival of the court-martial and army officers, he was at once chosen to serve them as a military attendant, and was dressed in full uniform. He was in constant attendance upon them till the evening of the 3rd June, when he was roughly stripped of his uniform and told to be ready for exile in the morning. We saw him go off with the convoy on foot, not even an animal having been granted him.
2. R. was for years a Government officer at AF. At the time when the officers and army entered AF., he was away in the villages on Government business. Two days before the day set for deportation, his wife was notified. She and the four small children were left alone to prepare for the journey. The husband returned from the villages a few hours before the time when the families were deported, having had no information whatever of what was taking place.
3. S.'s husband had been in Syracuse, N.Y., for two years, and she was left alone in AF. with two small children. He intended to send for her as soon as conditions were favourable. Her parents were deported early in the season, and, at the time, she asked permission of the Alai Bey to go with them, as otherwise she was left friendless. She even begged to go. He refused and said: "Have no fear, my daughter, you will not be sent off. Remain quietly in your place." Early in September, she was deported in company with a great many other defenceless women.
4. When the soldiers were digging for ammunition and guns in the walls and refuse heaps of AF., they found in a wall close to a house an iron ball wrapped in a piece of cloth. The woman of the house, a young bride, happened to be standing before the door, and the soldiers noticed that the cloth of her apron was the same as that in which the ball was wrapped. The woman was seized, sent to Adana and thrown into prison. This was on the last day of May, and in October she was still in prison. The Bible Woman in Adana discovered her there, and said her condition was horrible. She is confined in a small room with three or four Turkish women of desperate character, living in terrible filth and mostly without food.
5. The pastor of Tchomakly, a village near Everek, passed through AF. en route for the desert. He is a Marsovan graduate and a pastor in the Kaisaria district. He had been assured by the Everek Kaimakam that nothing should happen to him, and that, even if the village were deported, he would not be included, as he was not a native of the place. At three o'clock in the morning soldiers entered the village, roused all the inhabitants and told them to be ready to depart in two hours. When they came to the pastor's door, they said: " You also must go. You went to Talas to talk with the Americans a few days ago." His wife, not having suitable shoes, had her feet bound up in skins
6. Lydia was the wife of a soldier who, at the time when the court-martial officer came to AF., was a deserter and in hiding. However, he surrendered to the authorities, was pardoned, and was sent to the coast with the labour gang. She was assured by the court-martial officer (and, after his departure, by many of the local officers) that she should never be deported, in consideration of her being a soldier's wife. Throughout the summer, however, they played with her. Again and again she was given notice to leave, and then, upon entering a personal petition at the Government House and stating her case, she would be assured upon their word of honour that she would never be deported. The chief of police gave us the same assurance. Finally, early one morning, gendarmes came to her door and roughly told her to be ready to go in a few hours. She again took her three small children and went to the Government House. All in vain. She was given two camels for herself, the loads and the children. A fourth child was born under the burning sun of AG., and when she arrived in Aleppo with the child dead, she was only able to reach the hospital.
7. T. was for four years in charge of the Government Industrial in AF. This was closed when deportation began. He did his work so well that this Industrial was the best business in AF. He was living quietly in the building, guarding the property and stock of the Industrial. In the middle of September, when almost all the rest of AF. were exiled, he also received notification to go. Gendarmes came in the evening after dark and drove him, his invalid wife, and four children to the Government Building. There they were to wait for animals or a cart to take them on their journey. In company with hundreds of others, they sat down on the bare ground in front of the Government Building, gathering their few possessions close to them lest they should be stolen. He and his family remained there two days and three nights before being sent on, and were exposed during one of these nights to a terrible rainstorm. They were within ten minutes of their home, but were not permitted to go there for shelter. His wife secretly made her way to our compound to ask for a little bread, as their supply for the journey was already gone.
128. ADANA : STATEMENT, DATED 3rd DECEMBER, 1915, BY A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT ADANA; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
When Turkey became a belligerent in the November of last year (1914), there were Armenians and other Christians serving in the Army under arms. Many of these came under fire both at the Dardanelles and in the expedition against Egypt. Later, the arms were taken away from the Armenians, and those in the Army were converted into "Labour Regiments," to which were attached the very considerable number of Armenians drafted into the Army later. These men were employed in road building, transport, trenching, etc., and rendered extensive and very important service. When the arms were taken from them, a feeling of anxiety took possession of the Armenians, in the thought that this action of the authorities might portend something. However, much was done in the Adana Province to reassure the people that Governmental action would be discriminating and severity exercised only against blameworthy or suspected people. In pursuance of this policy a number of men whose names had been listed during and after the massacre period of 1909 were put under arrest or surveillance.
In the early winter, the British and French war-vessels in the Eastern Mediterranean bombarded some points on the Gulf of Alexandretta notably the town of Alexandretta and the branch line of the Baghdad Railway that runs to Alexandretta. The town of Dört Yöl---almost entirely Armenian---lies quite near the head of the Gulf on the plain of Issus about 20 miles from Alexandretta, and is a station on the line. That branch line of the railway was put out of commission. The Government officials made charge that the Dört Yöl people had communication with the hostile ships, affording them valuable information. A number of them were brought before the court-martial and imprisoned, of whom some were executed by hanging. Men were arrested and imprisoned in other places, notably Hadjin, and brought before the court-martial, These and other acts of the Government officials increased the anxiety, but in April the exiles from Zeitoun on their way to Konia (Iconium) passed through the city of Adana. They had suffered terribly, but they had considerable property with them, and also cattle and sheep. It was announced that these people would be settled on lands in the Konia district. This was somewhat reassuring, and there was hope that wholesale deportation or massacre was not in contemplation.
However, this assurance was converted into consternation. At midnight, in the latter part of April, gendarmes went through the city rapping at certain doors, searching the houses for arms and informing the inmates that in three days they were to be deported. In the third week in May, 70 families (three to four hundred people---men, women and children) were sent off in the direction of Konia. They had not reached the Cilician Gates pass in the Taurus Mountains when they were turned back with the announcement that they had been pardoned and were to return to their homes. The joy of their return was almost equal to the consternation caused by the order for deportation. However, exiles from north of the Taurus (Marsovan, Kaisaria, etc.) in considerable numbers were passing through Adana to the Aleppo district. The explanation given was that that was being done because of revolutionary agitation in those districts. As nothing of overt import had been done on the part of the Armenians in Cilicia, the people of the district were reassured. There was an influential element among the Moslems---including influential officials---who opposed oppressive measures. The Governor was, to all appearances, strongly opposed. Insistent orders from Constantinople forced the deportation of groups of Armenians. Early in the movement towards Aleppo, men were left free to take their families or leave them. No massacring was done, though there was an uneasy feeling that it might occur. In this way various batches were deported, from whom word was received of their safe arrival in the Aleppo district. However, the suffering of deportation---abandonment of home and property and friends, the exposure and hunger on the road, the insanitary state of the concentration camps, and the rough treatment by gendarmes, and in many cases outrage and pillage---all this, though heart-breaking in itself, was not as bad as, or rather was much less horrible than, the torture of the crowds that suffered in the north and east.
Later in the year there was a distinct effort to save many of the Armenians. This effort synchronised with the order to exempt Catholics and Protestants. It seemed a success, and everybody was greatly encouraged. But an emissary from the Committee of Union and Progress at Constantinople arrived at that time, and was able to overturn the arrangement and secure an order for the immediate deportation of all. Exception was later made of some widows, of the wives and children of men serving in the labour regiments, and of men working in mills under Government contract and in the Baghdad Railway construction.
The great drive took place in the first week of September, when two-thirds of the Armenian population of Adana City were deported. Hadjin and Dört Yöl were treated very much more harshly, both in the process of eviction and on the road. The people were allowed to dispose of some of their properties, which they did at a great sacrifice ; still, they had to abandon the great mass of their properties, which was later confiscated. I would call attention to the fact that the appalling nature of the deportation is none the less appalling because there was comparatively less torture and outrage. It is only fair to state that one Moslem was scourged to death for participation in the robbery of some Christians that were being deported.
It is not merely the suffering of the outlawed and deported people that is appalling, but the effect of it all on the country. Two-thirds of the business of Adana City was dependent on Armenians, and the markets seemed deserted after they were driven out. The disaster to the whole province from the material standpoint is beyond calculation. However, it would appear that the whole scheme was intended to be a relentless effort on the part of the central authorities either to exterminate the Armenian nation or to reduce them to a condition like that of the people of Moab, as described by Isaiah in the last clause of the 10th chapter: "A remnant very small and of no account." The enormity is not so much in the torture, massacring, outrage, etc., as in the intention and effort to exterminate a nation. The Armenians have endured massacre and outrage and persecution and oppression; this, however, shatters all hope of life and a future.
The Armenian Protestant communities are all deported with the pastors and leaders, but the men deported are a tower of strength to the suffering people in their exile. Let me quote from W. Effendi, from a letter he wrote a day before his deportation with his young wife and infant child, and with the whole congregation: "We now understand that it is a great miracle that our nation has lived so many years amongst such a nation as this. From this we realise that God can and has shut the mouths of lions for many years. May God restrain them! I am afraid they mean to kill some of us, cast some of us into most cruel starvation and send the rest out of this country; so I have very little hope of seeing you again in this world. But be sure that, by God's special help, I will do my best to encourage others to die manly. I will also look for God's help for myself to die as a Christian. May this country see that, if we cannot live here as men, we can die as men. May many die as men of God. May God forgive this nation all their sin which they do without knowing. May the Armenians teach Jesus' life by their death, which they could not teach by their life or have failed in showing forth. It is my great desire to see a Reverend Ali, or Osman, or Mohammed. May Jesus soon see many Turkish-Ch | ||||||||
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] | null | [] | 2024-07-02T21:48:05+00:00 | Memories of occupation by foreign forces are not usually articulated except when prisoners of war speak of their experiences when debriefed. These are usually shameful episodes in the lives of those who survived. Collaboration with the enemy often overwhelms the saga of resistance, especially when examining World War I. Yet combined with the struggle to defy the “peace treaties”, Turkey was a unique example, however unexpected, of a country that reversed the partition plans of its heartland, not its defunct empire. This essay addresses the existential struggle of those Turks who defied the age-old Eastern Question and analyzes the conjunctures that made this success possible. | en | /wp-content/themes/encyclopedia19141918/assets/img/favicon.ico | 1914-1918-Online (WW1) Encyclopedia | https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/occupation-during-and-after-the-war-ottoman-empire/ | Memories of occupation by foreign forces are not usually articulated except when prisoners of war speak of their experiences when debriefed. These are usually shameful episodes in the lives of those who survived. Collaboration with the enemy often overwhelms the saga of resistance, especially when examining World War I. Yet combined with the struggle to defy the “peace treaties”, Turkey was a unique example, however unexpected, of a country that reversed the partition plans of its heartland, not its defunct empire. This essay addresses the existential struggle of those Turks who defied the age-old Eastern Question and analyzes the conjunctures that made this success possible.
Introduction
War endings in historiography are usually confined to conferences, peace treaties, border adjustments, reparations, regime change, and reborn and/or newly born polities. Stories of occupation and resistance, however, remain confined to obscure pamphlets and memoirs. Official but secret documents await declassification. Further, state-centric approaches alone do not provide satisfactory accounts of occupation or resistance. But they do offer the context within which individuals and groups operate and exert their political will against the odds and potentially bring about change when and where it is most unexpected. This is one such saga. In 1919 British Admiral Richard Webb (1870-1950), Deputy High Commissioner in occupied Istanbul, wrote to his friend Sir Eyre Crowe (1864-1925) in Paris, “The situation in the interior, due practically entirely to the Greek occupation of Smyrna, is getting more hazy and unsettled. Were this anywhere but Turkey, I should say we were on the eve of a tremendous upheaval”.
The occupation of Izmir (Smyrna) on 15 May 1919 may have roused many a Turk from the lethargy that had accompanied defeat in the Great War, but was hardly the major reason for the “upheaval” that followed. The major shock had come with the occupation of Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire. Almost simultaneously with the occupation of the capital were occupations of vital provincial cities in the Anatolian heartland and its Mediterranean coast. During the war, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) government had made contingency plans in case of defeat and foreign occupation; withdraw to central Anatolia and continue to fight from that base. When the CUP leadership escaped the country in 1918 bearing both the burden of defeat and the 1915 Armenian massacres, institutional and family networks maintained the resistance while a new leadership took over.
This article addresses the following major questions. First, why was the capital city of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul (Constantinople), occupied by the Allies soon after the Mudros Armistice of 30 October 1918 when no other capital city of the defeated powers was occupied? Secondly, how was it possible that French, British and Greek occupations of major cities in Anatolia (Italian occupation being of an entirely different nature) first met with local resistance and then an increasingly organized military resistance? Third, what were the diplomatic implications of rivalries between the Allied powers that made it possible for the underground resistance in Istanbul to divert the energies of its most vociferous intelligentsia, veterans of multiple wars, and war material to Anatolia? Last but not least: how was it possible that Turkey ended up being the only defeated power to reverse the dictated peace and determine its own political future?
The occupation of Anatolia during the war was the Russian occupation in the northeast and eastern Black Sea coast as of February 1916, namely Erzurum, Kars, Erzincan, Muş and Bitlis, the last three of which were taken back in July and August of 1916. In March and April 1916, the Black Sea towns Rize and Trabzon were occupied, after which the Russian armies made a semi-circular route towards occupying Van. The geographical configuration matched that of the secret Sykes-Picot, alias the Asia Minor agreement of 1916, concluded with the Allies.
A large tract of territory was returned in the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution when Russia unilaterally withdrew from war with the Brest-Litovsk agreement negotiated between December 1917 and March 1918. It was, however, not possible to keep the northwestern borders intact because Armenian militants who accompanied the Russian army remained to continue fighting and perform acts of ethnic cleansing. Moreover, in 1919 the Supreme Council of the Paris Peace Conference demanded the transfer of Kars, Sarıkamış, Ardahan and Iğdır to the Republic of Armenia.
Subsequently, war with the Armenian Republic in 1920 settled the northeastern frontier in Caucasia. In 1921, diplomatic negotiations with Georgia resulted in the return of Ardahan and Iğdır to Turkey in exchange for Batumi. Apart from this geography, Arab provinces of the empire were lost to the British in war and are only referred to here in the context of an effort to establish a unified front against the British and French occupation in 1921, during the Arab resistance movements in Syria/Iraq. In essence, the Ottoman state, no longer financially or economically sovereign, was an empire in name only. Following the loss of its Balkan territories during the 19th century, Egypt was occupied by the British in 1881. Arab nationalism/intellectual awakening was already a fact before and during World War I, albeit confined to urban centers like Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad. Hence, Arab notables and intellectuals found willing allies with the British and French while Ottoman military governors attempted to suppress agents of Arab nationalism by harsh measures during the war. The war concomitant with mobilization, deaths, starvation and economic devastation had literally decimated Arab societies.
By the time Ottoman armies withdrew from or surrendered in the Mesopotamian fronts secession of the Arab provinces was a foregone conclusion. This resonated in Turkey’s National Oath, a manifesto in 1920 that areas with a majority Arab population would remain outside its borders. Therefore, foreign occupation of the Arab provinces, a topic which has its own historians is not part of this study. For the occupation of Ottoman Arab provinces and Egypt see the companion article “Occupation during and after the War (Middle East)“.
This article primarily addresses Allied (British, French, Italian, Greek, U.S. and Japanese) occupation of Istanbul, which lasted from November 1918 to October 1923. The last two had a symbolic presence in Istanbul and were there more as observers than occupiers. Secondly, this article highlights the French, British, Greek and Italian occupation of provincial cities in the southeast, south and Aegean Anatolia. These practically lasted from 1918-1919 to 1922, and in some regions even shorter. Finally, the political-diplomatic vagaries which affected the occupiers as well as the occupied concludes with the end of occupation and the path to a negotiated peace conference on near eastern affairs in Lausanne between 1922-1923. The conclusions cover the main points of this period as well as political and social changes that ten years of war (1912-1922) brought to Turkey.
Besides the frequently mentioned patriotism or nationalist awakening, one must take into account the psychological dimensions of the trauma involving the loss of the core territories in the Ottoman Empire, the Balkans and the Arab provinces. The occupations that followed the armistice that ended WWI were embedded in the Eastern Question. Further, the motivation to defend the last remaining homeland became an existential matter in addition to the leadership profiles, most of whom had been born in lost territories. The Allied forces of occupation assumed that there would not be serious resistance. Nonetheless, war weariness, rivalries, the Red scare and the priority of concluding peace in Europe were also factors that weakened the Allied position. The two-year period spanning from the beginning of occupation in 1918 to the Sèvres peace treaty imposed on the Ottoman government in 1920 provided ample time for resistance to foreign occupation to consolidate. A brief background on the factors that motivated the final resistance in a failed state follows.
The Ottoman Empire as a Failed State
The Ottoman Empire was unquestionably a failed state by the second half of the 19th century. It was bankrupt by 1875, its debts to European powers were governed by the Ottoman Public Debt Administration (Caisse de la Dette Publique Ottomane). Almost all state income went to finance debt. In 1881 came the International Tobacco Regime Company as an extension of the latter (the infamous Reji). The Ottoman state was forced to establish a 6,700-strong police force to prevent tobacco growers from smuggling their own crop. Armed conflict between this force, whose salaries were paid by the state, resulted in at least 50,000 deaths of the peasantry in the Aegean and western Black Sea coastal regions.
Added to financial failure were incessant wars and territorial loss: the 1877-1879 Russo-Ottoman war, whereby the latter lost all its Balkan territories except for Macedonia; British occupation of Egypt in 1881; the brief Greek-Ottoman war of 1897; internecine guerrilla warfare against armed bands of various ethnic origins in Macedonia; the 1911-1912 Italo-Ottoman war over Libya (Cyneraica and Tripolitania); and the Balkan Wars of 1912 on four fronts against a coalition of Serbs, Montenegrins, Greeks and Bulgarians. This war ended in a chaotic route of the Ottoman troops who had no contingencies for orderly retreat. The Bulgarian army would have occupied Istanbul had it not been for depletion caused by cholera and typhus. Of further significance for the proximate memory of belligerents in WWI as well as resistance fighters to occupation in its aftermath were the thousands of refugees, desperate survivors of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans who took shelter in Istanbul. Many sons of Rumelia (Rumeli, the Balkans in Turkish) were attending the Ottoman War Academy at the time or were already young officers. This experience contributed to their political socialization, along with the realization that there was no longer a home to which to return. One group was that of Mustafa Kemal (-1938), known as Atatürk, and his close friends from Salonica, ceded to Greece in 1912. They were to become the future leaders of independent Turkey.
The Eastern Question, basically how to divide the Ottoman territories between the Great Powers without inducing a European war since the late 18th century, remained on paper until 1915. The unexpected defeat of the Allies in the Gallipoli wars that year bought the Ottomans time until 1918 when there were fewer Great Powers left to carry out the mission of partition set out in the Eastern Question.
Occupation and Resistance in Istanbul
War-weary people on all sides welcomed the Mudros Armistice signed by the Ottomans and British on board the HMS Agamemnon on 30 October 1918. Although there was no stipulation in the agreement about occupation except in places where there was an imminent threat to Allied security, British troops began landing in the capital by 13 November 1918, soon to be followed by the French and other Allies. While neither Berlin, Vienna, Budapest or Sofia was occupied, why was Istanbul treated differently? In the short span between armistice and occupation, Lord Nathaniel Curzon (1859-1925), the British foreign secretary, decided on occupation and the Allies followed in tandem. Official reports do not reveal much, but a plausible analysis is found in Philip Mansel’s book in the last chapter entitled “Death of a Capital City”. According to Mansel, the overt reasons for occupation were imperialism, revenge and anti-communism. Moreover, the Allies wanted to expedite disarmament and keep the partition of territories under strict control. London and Paris were out to prove that losses incurred during the fateful Gallipoli campaign were not for naught. Besides, the Allies needed space to deploy military equipment to extend logistical support to the White Russian armies fighting against the Bolsheviks in the civil war (but not successfully at that). Curzon even proposed a very old-fashioned solution for Istanbul, namely that it should be converted into a city-state and the sultan/caliph should move to Bursa or Konya.
Mansel stated that Curzon’s actual aim was to break down the image of Istanbul as the seat of Islam in order to suppress the Khilafat movement among the Indian Muslims and sustain hegemony in India. On 13 November 1918 an Ottoman official confronted the commander of the British troops who were disembarking and told him that this was against the rules of armistice. He was, however, taken aback when the British officer told him that Istanbul was designated as military headquarters.
By 1919 the Allied governance of Istanbul was organized with British, French, Italian, U.S., Greek and Japanese high commissioners as the top echelon, although the authority among them was distributed in the order cited. The Military Command of the Allied Forces of Occupation with its British president was responsible for passport control, special elements (civil police), inter-Allied tribunals and courts martial (1920) as well as prisons. The French had one prison in Kumkapı and the British had five: Galata Tower, Arabian Han, Sansarian Han, Hotel Kroecker and Şahin Pasha Hotel. Under the high commissioners was the inter-Allied Commissions of Control and Organization, a Directing Committee of Generals that controlled sub-commissions such as disarmament, gendarmerie, censor, requisitions and saluting. Orders specified that only those residences that belonged to Muslims were to be requisitioned. The saluting commission, strange as it seems, had to enforce the rule that Turkish officers salute Allied soldiers regardless of rank but not expect to be saluted back. The latter stopped wearing uniforms in public.
The city was divided into zones of occupation: the Galata and Pera districts were under British responsibility, the old city and southwest under French, and Üsküdar (Scutari) on the Anatolian side was under Italian control. Top military command became problematic at first when General George Milne (1866-1948) was appointed as commander of the Army of the Black Sea and Admiral Arthur G. Calthorpe (1865-1937) was high commissioner in 1918-1919. Paris simultaneously sent General Louis Franchet d’Espèrey (1856-1942), commander in chief of the Allied Armies in the Orient, to assume military command of Istanbul. His position remained in flux until 16 March 1920, when London decided to re-occupy the city de jure. This was not the only action carried out under British auspices. From then on the numerous exchange of letters between London and Paris resulted in the removal of Franchet d’Espèrey and early in 1921, General Charles Harington (1872-1940) was assigned as commander in chief of the Allied Forces of Occupation, Constantinople. He remained in this position until Allied evacuation in October 1923.
Meanwhile, the Ottoman government changed numerous times depending on the collaborative actions of the Grand Viziers or the lack thereof. This was apparent in connection with the smuggling of military equipment from arsenals filled by disarmament. Governors who procrastinated to tighten control were removed, but even when collaborative viziers were in power, the smuggling of arms and men to Anatolia continued with ever growing underground forces of resistance. On the one hand, between 1920-1921 the Allies had their hands full with exerting control in a less than friendly environment (except for the majority of Istanbul Greeks and whomever they employed). On the other, they had to accommodate close to 200,000 White Russian refugees they helped evacuate from the Crimea upon Bolshevik victories in the Russian civil war. Among those were Bolshevik agents towards whom the Allies had to be vigilant. General Harington deported some people who were deemed to be Bolshevik agents. And by 1920, there was the Ankara government of the Turkish National Assembly which began to conduct a full scale resistance-turned-to-war against occupation.
How the parliament in Ankara came about has to do with resistance to occupation, first by local militia, which evolved into organized groups, and then to a legal and legitimate parliament because of British conduct in Istanbul. The Ottoman Empire had been a parliamentary monarchy since 1908 and remained so until 1920. When the Allies decided to occupy Istanbul de jure in March 1920, they had no intention of closing down the parliament. However, there were a number of nationalist deputies in the parliament from Istanbul (who were also prominent members of the underground resistance) as well as from the provinces who had allegiance to the Association for Defence of the Legal Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia (Anadolu-Rumeli Müdafa-i Hukuk Cemiyeti).
This association sprang from two congresses held in 1919 in Erzurum and Sivas respectively under the auspices of Mustafa Kemal Pasha and before long had women’s chapters. Its authority extended to umbrella organizations for local resistance as seen in the next section. The next step that the association assumed was to promulgate a parliament in Ankara on 23 April 1920, which was ironically facilitated by British action. When British soldiers walked into the Ottoman parliament and arrested patriotic deputies who sponsored reading the National Oath (that the non-Arab regions populated by Muslim majorities were to remain sovereign) written in Ankara, the parliament closed down in protest. Soon after Mehmed VI, Sultan of the Turks (1861-1926) abrogated the non-existent parliament. The road was now open to the Association to declare that since the Istanbul government and Sultan were captives of the Allies, they had no say in national affairs and that the national assembly in Ankara was the only representative organ of the people. Nonetheless it would take another year until Ankara was recognized, first by France in 1921 with the Franklin Bouillon (Ankara) Treaty. A separate Treaty of Friendship and Neutrality was signed with Bolshevik Russia in 1921 that confirmed delineation of borders in northeast Anatolia, which included previous agreements with the Republics of Georgia and Armenia as their regimes were taken over by indigenous Bolsheviks.
Occupation and Resistance in Anatolia as Allies Part Ways
On 11 November 1918 an armistice was concluded to end WWI. Although armed forces were to halt where they were at the time, the rule did not apply to the Ottoman realm. British and French troops continued to move towards south-eastern Anatolia and the eastern Mediterranean coast, while Italian troops, albeit in smaller contingents, began occupation of previously designated zones. Few, if any in Turkey remembered the secret treaties among the Allies that partitioned the Empire. Revealed by the Bolsheviks in 1917, partition plans spelled out in the Constantinople Treaty (1915), London (1915), Sykes-Picot (1916) and St. Jean de Maurienne (1917) treaties were now being followed with the exception of the first, which had promised Constantinople to Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia (1868-1918). One will probably never know whether London was sincere about this promise or not, because the Bolshevik Revolution rendered that null and void when Russia unilaterally withdrew from the war in 1917-1918.
Article 9 of the London Treaty of 1915 read, “…in the event of total or partial partition [of the Ottoman Empire] in Asia, she [Italy] ought to obtain a just share of the Mediterranean region adjacent to the province of Adalia.” The Treaty of St. Jean de Maurienne reconciled conflicting interests of France and Italy in southwest Anatolia. Accordingly, France was awarded the Adana region and left the rest of the southwest to Italy, including the Vilayet (province) of Aydın with its regional capital Izmir (Smyrna). The Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France divided the Arab provinces of the Empire as respective zones of interest. Consequently, Britain, France and Italy were abiding by the secret agreements that were to seal the Eastern Question.
Having lost the Arab provinces at war was one thing, but occupation in the heartland was another issue, deemed illegal and unjust by inhabitants. Before British and French mandates were spelled out at the Hythe Conference of 1920, British troops proceeded to occupy Mosul, Iskenderun (Alexandretta), Kilis, Antep, Maraş and Urfa in the southeast. Disarmament, arrests and deportation of local notables followed between late 1918 and 1919. Both the British and French were aided by resident or returning Armenians from the forced relocation of 1915. In January 1919, the French occupied Mersin, Osmaniye and Adana. They sent resident commanding Turkish officers to prisoner of war camps in Syria. Later in 1919, the British and French came to an understanding about zones of influence whereby the former delivered Kilis, Antep, Maraş, and Urfa to the French.
Inspired by the national defence organizations that reflected resolutions from the Erzurum and Sivas Congresses of 1919, the local people established regional defence organizations buttressed by officers assigned from Ankara in 1920. Consequently, war was renewed on the southern front of the independence war. The southern front theoretically extended to cover Palestine and Syria, and in 1921 a Turkish officer who was originally from the region with good contacts was sent there in the hope of joining with the Arabs in revolt against the British and French. But the plan failed plausibly because Arab nationalism had no room for the Turks. Maraş fought between 20 January and 20 February 1920; Urfa fought between 9 February and 11 April 1920; Antep fought between 1 April 1920 and 8 February 1921 before surrendering the city; Adana fought between 21 January 1920 and 20 October 1921. That day also marks the Franklin-Bouillon Treaty signed in Ankara which conceded French defeat and confirmed Paris’ recognition of the Ankara government to the chagrin of the British. Although French troops from Cilicia (Adana region) were not withdrawn until 5 January 1922, the split between the Allied ranks was clear. From then on, French officers in the disarmament control missions throughout Anatolia began to fraternize with the Turkish military, invoking the British High Commissioner in Istanbul, Sir Horace Rumbold (1869-1941), to write in a personal letter that “the French are always playing the dirty on us.”
In essence, Italians were the first to cede from the Alliance, albeit subtly. When in 1919 the Greek Premier Eleutherios Venizelos (1864-1936) convinced the Supreme Council of the Paris Peace Conference that they should be allowed to occupy Izmir and was granted his wish, the Italians were disappointed because they were short-changed. Nonetheless, Italians occupied Antalya on 21 January 1919 and proceeded to claim Fethiye, Marmaris, Kuşadası, Bodrum, Milas and Konya, all of which today are known as tourist centres. They had all the trappings necessary, with occupation headquarters in Antalya, commanded by Colonel Alessandro Ciano (1871-1945) and High Commissioner Marquis Eugenio Camillo Garroni (1852-1935), the former Italian ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Rome instructed its occupation troops not to use force or any coercion towards the people in their zones. The Italians seemed content when their occupation of the Dodecanese islands in 1912 was accorded permanency in the secret Treaty of St. Jean de Maurienne of 1917, and now that they linked their presence on the islands with southwestern lands of the Mediterranean. They had long been interested in Marmaris, not because of aesthetics but because it had one of the three bays in the eastern Mediterranean which was most suitable to use as a base for the navy (the other two were the bays of Iskenderun (Alexandretta) and Iskenderiye (Alexandria) of Egypt.
On 11 April 1922, a separate treaty on commercial concessions to Italy was signed between the Ottoman Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmed Izzet Pasha (1864-1937) and Marquis Garroni. Whether Izzet Pasha, known to be clandestinely supportive of Ankara, did this to sustain peaceful Italian actions is not clear. Nonetheless, the Italians proved to be helpful to the national cause in more ways than one. First, they ignored when arms and men were smuggled through their zone in Üsküdar, on the Anatolian side of Istanbul. Secondly, they started selling arms, ammunition and clothing to the Turks, paid for by the Ottoman Red Crescent. The director of the Ottoman Bank and deputy director of the Red Crescent, Berch Kerestejian, was instrumental in depositing money in the Banko di Roma, acquired by selling assets of the Red Crescent. Kerestejian was a friend of Mustafa Kemal from Salonica, so the network built between Ankara and Istanbul proved beneficial to the latter in terms of gathering intelligence, opening channels of informal diplomacy for Ankara’s representatives, operating the underground resistance in Istanbul as well as buying military equipment from the commercially minded Italians.
Although there was a diplomatic war going on throughout, the Turkish war of independence is a military history which focuses on the Greek-Turkish war between 1919 and 1922. The Greek occupation of Izmir on 15 May 1919 met with protests and bloodshed in the city. The occupation was extended to Aydın, Manisa, Turgutlu, Ayvalık, and Tekirdağ (Rodosto) in Thrace. Greek military landings in Thrace were facilitated by British naval vessels, but as soon as the Greco-Turkish war began, London declared neutrality. In 1919, local armed bands displayed resistance to occupation using hit and run tactics. The Greeks did not remain within confines of the Milne Line, named after the British General George Milne who drew the lines of the occupation zone. As they began to expand towards the inner Aegean and then towards Ankara, war became imminent. At one point in early 1921, they reached the outskirts of the city and the Ankara parliament evacuated families and treasure to Konya.
However, the Greek army had moved too far from its logistical support base to its disadvantage. They were isolated in a proxy war on behalf of the British as well as for greater Greece. And, following setbacks received in 1921, another extremely bloody confrontation took place in July 1922 at the Battle of Sakarya that ended in a final Turkish offensive on 30 August 1922. Greek commanders were taken as prisoners of war, and remnants of the Greek army were practically chased towards Izmir. Much human drama accompanied the victory as the receding Greeks destroyed villages and towns on the way and the Greek population in Izmir desperately fought their way to get on board the naval and civilian vessels in the bay to escape to the Greek islands or to Greece proper. On 9 September 1922 the Turkish army entered Izmir. Greek historians were to call this venture the “disaster in Asia Minor”, which depleted the idea of a greater Greece as well as British policy.
It fell on the British to call for an armistice treaty. An armistice conference took place in Mudanya, a suburb of Bursa on the Marmara Sea between 3-11 October 1922. In attendance were the British General Harington, Turkish İsmet İnönü (1884-1973), French General Georges Charpy (1865-1945), Italian General Ernesto Mombelli (1867-1932). The Greeks refused to attend the meetings but signed the armistice treaty three days after it was concluded. The venue was now open to the call for a conference on near eastern affairs where the British were almost sure, though Lord Curzon had reservations, that they could dictate their terms. The Lausanne negotiations and the final peace treaty proved otherwise.
Istanbul remained under occupation, but Refet Bele Pasha (1881-1963), known as Bele, arrived in 1922 to gradually take over the administration. Requisitioned homes were returned to their owners, customs control was taken over by Turks, Istanbul Greeks were required to either register as citizens or if not, obtain passports to remain as foreigners. Sultan Vahideddin found it prudent to leave the country on a British naval vessel and later settled in San Remo, Italy. On 1 November 1922 the Ankara parliament abrogated the sultanate. The regime change from empire to republic officially followed on 29 October 1923 after Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Greece, Romania and the Serb-Croat-Slovene state signed the Lausanne Treaty on 24 July 1923. Istanbul was evacuated during the first week of October 1923 and the Allied military commanders left on 6 October 1923 while Turkish troops entered the city.
Conclusion
The Eastern Question was not overtly on the agenda as far as the war aims of belligerents were concerned. But the notion lurked behind in rhetoric and was operationalized on paper in the secret agreements of WWI, discussed previously. Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859-1941) had welcomed the Balkan War of 1912, exclaiming “The Eastern Question must be resolved by blood and iron!” The Greek Patriarch of Constantinople during the occupation stated in a letter sent to the Paris Peace Conference that the Eastern Question would never be solved until Constantinople was Greek again. The original title of Fabio Grassi’s book İtalya ve Türk Sorunu 1919-1923 was L’Italia e la questione turca 1919-1923, which reflects the problematique aptly. Copts, Maronites and Assyrians, peoples of the ancient eastern Christian denominations of the former Arab provinces of the Empire, accepted foreign occupation as liberation just like the Istanbul Greeks and, to a lesser extent, the Armenians did; a non-negligible dimension of the Question had been to protect the Christians of the Empire. In contrast, the leading Jewish Rabbi Chaim Nahum Effendi (1872-1960) spoke to the European occupiers in favour of Turks. By 1923, however, the Eastern Question was forced outside the borders of Turkey.
Domestic opponents of resistance to foreign occupation also abounded as observed from newspapers and diplomatic records. These people were to be labelled in the Republic “defeatist” and/or “collaborators”. On the one hand, opponents thought that resistance was pure adventurism like that of the CUP which led the country into WWI. On the other, the Palace thought that it may receive favourable peace conditions if cooperation with the occupiers was maintained. But the failed state once again failed to exert authority or control over resistance.
In 1918, Anatolia and part of Thrace were the last realms of the Ottoman Empire akin to contemporary borders. Scions of numerous refugees from the old borderlands in addition to those expelled from tsarist Russia (Tatars and Circassians) in the late 19th century, Muslim Greeks who arrived during the population exchange with Karaman Christians of Turkey in 1923-1924, as well as emigrants from the southern provinces are included in the human profile of the country. Along with them came cultural patterns and an intellectual outlook which facilitated adaptation to social and political change. This was most apparent in women’s public presence as individuals, professional and voluntary alike, a trend visible from the beginning of the 20th century’s era of wars. Occupations, as painful as they were both materially and mentally, stirred many Turks to come of age.
Nur Bilge Criss, Bilkent University | ||||
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Not to be confused with Young Ottomans.
This article is about the reform movement within the Ottoman Empire. For other uses, see Young Turks (disambiguation).
The Young Turks (Ottoman Turkish: ژون تركلر, romanized: Jön Türkler, from French: Jeunes-Turcs; also كنج تركلر Genç Türkler) was a constitutionalist broad opposition movement in the late Ottoman Empire against Sultan Abdul Hamid II's absolutist regime. The most powerful organization of the movement, and the most conflated, was the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), though its goals, strategies, and membership continuously morphed throughout Abdul Hamid's reign. By the 1890s, the Young Turks were mainly a loose and contentious network of intelligentsia exiled in Western Europe and Egypt that made a living by selling their newspapers to secret subscribers.
Included in the opposition movement was a mosaic of ideologies, from democrats, liberals, decentralists, secularists, social Darwinists, technocrats, constitutional monarchists, and nationalists, to name a few. Despite being called the Young Turks, the group was of an ethnically diverse background; in addition to Turks, Albanian, Aromenian, Arab, Armenian, Azeri, Circassian, Greek, Kurdish, and Jewish members were plentiful.[a][1][2][3][4] Besides membership in outlawed political committees, other avenues of opposition existed in the ulama, Sufi lodges, and masonic lodges. By and large, the Young Turks favored taking power away from Yıldız Palace for constitutional governance. Many coup d'état attempts associated with Young Turk networks occurred during the Hamidian era, all of which ended in failure.
In 1906, the Paris based CUP fused with the Macedonia based Ottoman Freedom Society under its own banner. The Macedonian Unionists prevailed against Sultan Abdulhamid II in the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. With this revolution, the Young Turks helped to establish the Second Constitutional Era in the same year, ushering in an era of multi-party democracy for the first time in the country's history. However following events which proved disastrous for the Ottoman Empire as a body-politic, such as the 31 March Incident, Balkan Wars, and 1913 coup, the country fell under the domination of a radicalized CUP. With the strength of the constitution and parliament broken, the committee ruled the empire in a dictatorship. Dragging the Empire into World War I, the genocides against Ottoman Christians were masterminded within the committee, principally Enver Pasha, Talat Pasha, and Şükrü Kaya, and others.
The term Young Turk is now used to describe an insurgent trying to take control of a situation or organization by force or political maneuver,[7] and various groups in different countries have been named Young Turks because of their rebellious or revolutionary nature.
History
[edit]
Origins
[edit]
Inspired by the Young Italy political movement, the Young Turks had their origins in secret societies of "progressive medical university students and military cadets," namely the Young Ottomans, driven underground along with all political dissent after the Constitution of 1876 was abolished and the First Constitutional Era brought to a close by Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1878 after only two years. The Young Turks favored a reinstatement of the Ottoman Parliament and the 1876 constitution, written by the reformist Midhat Pasha.
Despite working with the Young Ottomans to promulgate a constitution, Abdul Hamid II dissolved the parliament by 1878 and returned to an absolutist regime, marked by extensive use of secret police to silence dissent, and massacres against minorities. Constitutionalist opponents of his regime, came to be known as Young Turks.[10] The Young Turks were a heterodox group of secular liberal intellectuals and revolutionaries, united by their opposition to the absolutist regime of Abdul Hamid and desire to reinstate the constitution.[11] Despite the name Young Turks, members were diverse in their religious and ethnic origins,[12][13][14] with many Albanians, Arabs, Armenians, Circassians, Greeks, Kurds, and Jews being members.[b][1][2][3][4]
Opposition
[edit]
To organize the opposition, forward-thinking medical students Ibrahim Temo, Abdullah Cevdet and others formed a secret organization named the Committee of Ottoman Union, which grew in size and included exiles, civil servants, and army officers.
In 1894, Ahmed Rıza joined Ottoman Union, and requested it change its name to Order and Progress to reflect his Positivism. They compromised with Union and Progress. Rıza being based in Paris, the organization was organized around Meşveret and its French supplemental.[15][16][17] The CUP became the preeminent faction of the Young Turks once as absorbed other opposition groups and established contact with exiled intelligentsia, Freemasons, and cabinet ministers, to the point where European observers started calling them the "Young Turk Party". The society attempted several coup attempts against the government, much to the anti-revolutionary in Rıza's chagrin.
Due to the danger in speaking out against absolutism, Young Turk activity shifted abroad. Turkish colonies were established in Paris, London, Geneva, Bucharest, and Cairo. The several ideological currents in the moment meant unity was hard to come by. Ahmet Rıza advocated for a Turkish nationalist and secularist agenda. Even though he denounced revolution, he had a more conservative and Islamist rival in Mehmet Murat Bey of Mizan fame. Rıza also had to deal with the "Activist" faction of the CUP that did push for a revolution. Other CUP branches often acted autonomously with their own ideological currents, to the point where the committee resembled more of an umbrella organization. Meşveret (Rıza) called for the reinstatement of the constitution but without revolution, as well as a more centralized Turkish-dominated Ottoman Empire sovereign of European influence.
The CUP supported Kâmil Pasha's call for responsible government to return to the Sublime Porte during the diplomatic crisis caused by the Hamidian massacres. In August 1896, cabinet ministers aligned with the CUP conspired a coup d'état to overthrow the sultan, but the plot was leaked to the palace before its execution. Prominent statesmen were exiled to Ottoman Tripolitania and Acre. The year after, Unionist cadets of the Military Academy schemed to assassinate the Minister of Military Schools, and this plot was also leaked to authorities. In became known as the "Sacrifices of the Şeref" (Şeref Kurbanları) the largest single crackdown of the Hamidian era resulted in more than 630 high-profile arrests and exiles.[21]
Under pressure from Yıldız Palace, French authorities banned Meşveret, though not the French supplemental, and deported Rıza and his Unionists in 1896. After settling in Brussels, the Belgian government was also pressured to deport the group a couple years later. The Belgian parliament denounced the decision and held a demonstration supporting the Young Turks against Hamidian tyranny. A congress in December 1896 saw Murat elected as chairman over Rıza and the headquarters moved to Geneva, sparking a schism between Rıza's supporters in Paris and Murat's supporters in Geneva.[22] After the Ottoman Empire's triumph over Greece in 1897 Sultan Abdul Hamid used the prestige he gained from the victory to coax the exiled Young Turks network back into his fold. After expelling Rıza from the CUP, Murat defected to the government, including Cevdet and Sükuti. A wave of extraditions, more amnesties, and buy-outs, weakened an opposition organization already operating in exile. With trials organized in 1897 and 1899 against enemies of Abdul Hamid II, the Ottoman Empire was under his secure control. Though moral was low, Ahmet Rıza, who returned to Paris, was the sole leader of the exiled Young Turks network.[23]
In 1899, members of the Ottoman dynasty Damat Mahmud Pasha and his sons Sabahaddin and Lütfullah fled to Europe to join the Young Turks. However, Prince Sabahaddin believed that embracing the Anglo-Saxon values of capitalism and liberalism would alleviate the Empire's problems such as separatism from non-Muslim minorities such as the Armenians, alienating himself from the CUP.
Congresses of Ottoman Opposition
[edit]
The First Congress of Ottoman Opposition [tr] was held on 4 February 1902, at the house of Germain Antoin Lefevre-Pontalis a member of the Institut de France. The opposition was performed in compliance with the French government. Closed to the public, there were 47 delegates present. It included Rıza's Unionists, Sabahaddin's supporters, Armenian Dashnaks and Vergazmiya Hunchaks, and other Greek and Bulgarian groups. It was defined by the question of whether to invite foreign intervention for regime change in Constantinople to better minority rights; a majority which included Sabahaddin and his followers as well as the Armenians argued for foreign intervention, a minority which included Rıza's Unionists and the Activist Unionists were against violent change and especially foreign intervention.
The Ottoman Freedom Lover's Committee, named after the eponymous 1902 congress, was founded by Prince Sabahaddin and Ismail Kemal in the name of the majority mandate. However the organization was contentious and a coup plot in 1903 went no where. They later founded the Private Enterprise and Decentralization League [tr], which called for a more decentralized and federalized Ottoman state in opposition to Rıza's centralist vision. After the congress, Rıza formed a coalition with the Activists and founded the Committee of Progress and Union (CPU). This unsuccessful attempt to bridge the divide amongst the Young Turks instead deepened the rivalry between Sabahaddin's group and Rıza's CPU. The 20th century began with Abdul Hamid II's rule secure and his opposition scattered and divided.[citation needed]
The Second Congress of Ottoman Opposition [tr] took place in Paris, France, on 22 December, 1907. Opposition leaders including Ahmed Rıza, Sabahaddin Bey, and Khachatur Malumian of the Dashnak Committee were in attendance. The goal was to unite all the Young Turks and minority nationalist movements, in order to bring about a revolution to reinstate the constitution. They decided to put their differences aside and signed an alliance, declaring that Abdul Hamid had to be deposed and the regime replaced with a representative and constitutional government by any means necessary, without foreign interference.
Unionist homecoming in Macedonia
[edit]
The Young Turks became a truly organized movement with the CUP as an organizational umbrella. They recruited individuals hoping for the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in the Ottoman Empire. In 1906, the Ottoman Freedom Society[26] was established in Thessalonica by Mehmed Talaat. The OFS actively recruited members from the Third Army base, among them Major Ismail Enver. In September 1907, OFS announced they would be working with other organizations under the umbrella of the CUP. In reality, the leadership of the OFS would exert significant control over the CUP.[citation needed] Finally, in 1908 in the Young Turk Revolution, pro-CUP officers marched on Istanbul, forcing Abdulhamid to restore the constitution. An attempted countercoup resulted in his deposition.
Young Turk Revolution
[edit]
See also: Young Turk Revolution
In 1908, the Macedonian Question was facing the Ottoman Empire. Tsar Nicholas II and Franz Joseph, who were both interested in the Balkans, started implementing policies, beginning in 1897, which brought on the last stages of the Balkanization process. By 1903, there were discussions on establishing administrative control by Russian and Austrian advisory boards in the Macedonian provinces. Abdul Hamid was forced to accept this reform package, although for quite a while he was able to subvert its implementation.
However, eventually, signs were showing that this policy game was coming to an end. On May 13, 1908, the leadership of the CUP, with the newly gained power of its organization, was able to communicate to Sultan Abdul Hamid II the unveiled threat that "the [Ottoman] dynasty would be in danger" if he were not to bring back the Ottoman constitution that he had previously suspended since 1878. By June, Unionist officers of the Third Army mutinied and threatened to march on Constantinople. Although initially resistant to the idea of giving up absolute power, Abdul Hamid was forced on July 24, 1908, to restore the constitution, beginning the Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire.
Aftermath
[edit]
After the revolution, the Young Turks formalized their differences in ideology by forming political clubs. Two main parties formed: more liberal and pro-decentralization Young Turks formed the Liberty Party and later the Freedom and Accord Party.[27] The Turkish nationalist and pro-centralization wing among the Young Turks remained in the CUP. The groups' power struggle continued until 1913, after the CUP took over following Mahmud Shevket Pasha's assassination. They brought the Ottoman Empire into World War I on the side of the Central Powers during the war.
During the parliamentary recess of this era, the Young Turks held their first open congress at Salonica, on September–October 1911. There, they proclaimed a series of policies involving the disarming of Christians and preventing them from buying property, Muslim settlements in Christian territories, and the complete Ottomanization of all Turkish subjects, either by persuasion or by the force of arms.[28] By 1913, the CUP banned all other political parties, creating a one party state. The Ottoman Parliament became a rubber stamp and real policy debate was held within the CUP's Central Committee.
World War I
[edit]
On November 2, 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers. The Middle Eastern theatre of World War I became the scene of action. The combatants were the Ottoman Empire, with some assistance from the other Central Powers, against primarily the British and the Russians among the Allies. Rebuffed elsewhere by the major European powers, the CUP, through highly secret diplomatic negotiations, led the Ottoman Empire to ally itself with Germany.
Armenian genocide
[edit]
Main article: Armenian genocide
The conflicts at the Caucasus Campaign, the Persian Campaign, and the Gallipoli Campaign affected places where Armenians lived in significant numbers. Before the declaration of war at the Armenian congress at Erzurum, Unionist emissaries asked Ottoman Armenians to facilitate the conquest of Transcaucasia by inciting a rebellion among the Russian Armenians against the tsarist army in the event of a Caucasian Front.
The Armenians were perceived to be subversive elements (a fifth column) that would take the Russian side in the war. In order to eliminate this threat, the Ottoman government embarked on a large-scale deportation of Armenians from Eastern Anatolia. Around 300,000 Armenians were forced to move southwards to Urfa and then westwards to Aintab and Marash. In the summer of 1917, Armenians were moved to the Konya region in central Anatolia. Through these measures, the CUP leaders aimed to eliminate the ostensible Armenian threat by deporting them[citation needed] from their ancestral lands and by dispersing them in small pockets of exiled communities. By the end of World War I, up to 1,200,000[citation needed] Armenians were forcibly deported from their home vilayets. As a result, about half of the displaced died[citation needed] of exposure, hunger, and disease, or were victims of banditry and forced labor.
Early on, the Dashnaks had perceived the CUP as allies;[citation needed] the 1909 Adana massacre had been rooted in reactionary backlash against the revolution. But during World War I, the CUP's increasing nationalism began to lead them to participate in genocide.[citation needed] In 2005, the International Association of Genocide Scholars affirmed[non-tertiary source needed] that scholarly evidence revealed[better source needed] the CUP "government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocide of its Armenian citizens and unarmed Christian minority population. More than a million[citation needed] Armenians were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture, and forced death marches."
Assyrian genocide
[edit]
Main articles: Assyrian genocide and Late Ottoman genocides
The genocide of Assyrian civilians began during the Ottoman occupation of Azerbaijan from January to May 1915, during which massacres were committed by Ottoman forces and pro-Ottoman Kurds. Previously, many Assyrians were killed in the 1895 massacres of Diyarbekir. However the violence worsened after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, despite Assyrian hopes that the new government would stop promoting anti-Christian Islamism.
The Sayfo occurred concurrently with and was closely related to the Armenian genocide. Motives for killing included a perceived lack of loyalty among some Assyrian communities to the Ottoman Empire and the desire to appropriate their land. At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, the Assyro-Chaldean delegation said that its losses were 250,000 (about half the prewar population); they later revised their estimate to 275,000 dead at the Lausanne Conference of 1922–1923.
Turkish War of Independence
[edit]
At the end of the War, with the collapse of Bulgaria and Germany's capitulation, Talaat Pasha and the CUP ministry resigned on October 13, 1918, and the Armistice of Mudros was signed aboard a British battleship in the Aegean Sea.[38] On November 2, Enver, Talaat and Cemal fled from Istanbul into exile. Following the war, the Freedom and Accord Party regained control over the Ottoman government and conducting a purge of Unionists. Freedom and Accord rule was short-lived, and with Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) stirring up nationalist sentiment in Anatolia, the Empire soon collapsed.
Currents
[edit]
Materialism and positivism
[edit]
A guiding principle for the Young Turks was the transformation of their society into one in which religion played no consequential role, a stark contrast from the theocracy that had ruled the Ottoman Empire since its inception. However, the Young Turks soon recognized the difficulty of spreading this idea among the deeply religious Ottoman peasantry and even much of the elite. The Young Turks thus began suggesting that Islam itself was materialistic. As compared with later efforts by Muslim intellectuals, such as the attempt to reconcile Islam and socialism, this was an extremely difficult endeavor. Although some former members of the CUP continued to make efforts in this field after the revolution of 1908, they were severely denounced by the ulema, who accused them of "trying to change Islam into another form and create a new religion while calling it Islam".[page needed]
Positivism, with its claim of being a religion of science, deeply impressed the Young Turks, who believed it could be more easily reconciled with Islam than could popular materialistic theories. The name of the society, Committee of Union and Progress, was inspired by leading positivist Auguste Comte's motto Order and Progress. Positivism also served as a base for the desired strong government.
Centralized government
[edit]
After the CUP took power in the 1913 coup and Mahmud Şevket Pasha's assassination, it embarked on a series of reforms in order to increase centralization in the Empire, an effort that had been ongoing since the last century's Tanzimat reforms under sultan Mahmud II.[40] Many of the original Young Turks rejected this idea, especially those that had formed the Freedom and Accord Party against the CUP.[41] Other opposition parties against the CUP like Prince Sabahaddin's Private Enterprise and Decentralization League [tr] and the Arab Ottoman Party for Administrative Decentralization, both of which made opposition to the CUP's centralization their main agenda.
The Young Turks wished to modernize the Empire's communications and transportation networks without putting themselves in the hands of European bankers. Europeans already owned much of the country's railroad system,[citation needed] and since 1881, the administration of the defaulted Ottoman foreign debt had been in European hands. During the World War I, the empire under the CUP was "virtually an economic colony on the verge of total collapse."
Decentralization
[edit]
Social Darwinism
[edit]
Neo-Tanzimat technocracy
[edit]
Nationalism
[edit]
Regarding nationalism, the Young Turks underwent a gradual transformation. Beginning with the Tanzimat with ethnically non-Turkish members participating at the outset, the Young Turks embraced the official state ideology: Ottomanism. However, Ottoman patriotism failed to strike root during the First Constitutional Era and the following years. Many ethnically non-Turkish Ottoman intellectuals rejected the idea because of its exclusive use of Turkish symbols. Turkish nationalists gradually gained the upper hand in politics, and following the 1902 Congress, a stronger focus on nationalism developed. It was at this time that Ahmed Rıza chose to replace the term "Ottoman" with "Turk," shifting the focus from Ottoman nationalism to Turkish nationalism.[citation needed]
Prominent Young Turks
[edit]
Main article: List of Young Turks
Among the prominent leaders and ideologists were:
Pamphleteers and activists
Tunalı Hilmi
Yusuf Akçura, a Tatar journalist with a secular national ideology, who was against Ottomanism and supported separation of church and state
Ayetullah Bey
Osman Hamdi Bey, an Ottoman-Greek painter and owner of the first specialized art school in Istanbul (founded 1883)
Emmanuel Carasso Efendi, a lawyer and a member of the prominent Sephardic Jewish Carasso family
Mehmet Cavit Bey, a Dönmeh from Thessalonica, Jewish, by ancestry but Muslim by religion since the 17th century, who was Minister of Finance;[42] he was hanged for treason in 1926.
Abdullah Cevdet, a Kurdish intellectual who is a supporter of biological materialism and secularism
Marcel Samuel Raphael Cohen (aka Tekin Alp), born to a Jewish family in Salonica under Ottoman control (now Thessaloniki, Greece), became one of the founding fathers of Turkish nationalism and an ideologue of Pan-Turkism.
Agah Efendi, founded the first Turkish newspaper and, as postmaster, brought the postage stamp to the Ottoman Empire (although he died in 1885, he was honored for founding the first Turkish newspaper).
Ziya Gökalp, a Turkish nationalist from Diyarbakir, publicist and pioneer sociologist, influenced by modern Western European culture
Talaat Pasha, whose role before the revolution is not clear
Ahmed Riza, worked to improve the condition of the Ottoman peasantry; he served as an education independent.
Military officers
Ahmed Niyazi Bey, initiator and a leader of the Young Turk Revolution
Enver Pasha, a leader of the Young Turk Revolution and later prominent Young Turk politician
Eyüp Sabri, a leader of the Young Turk Revolution
Bekir Fikri, a prominent participant in the Young Turk Revolution
Atıf Kamçıl, a prominent participant in the Young Turk Revolution
Subhi Bey Abaza (lived in Sidon)
Reşat Bey
Aftermath and legacy
[edit]
In the aftermath of an assassination attempt by remaining Unionists, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, is quoted on the front page of the 1 August 1926 The Los Angeles Examiner as denouncing the Young Turks and especially the CUP (the "Young Turk Party"):[43]
These left-overs from the former [Committee of Union and Progress] Young Turk Party, who should have been made to account for the millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse from their homes and massacred, have been restive under the Republican rule. […] They have hitherto lived on plunder, robbery and bribery and become inimical to any idea, or suggestion to enlist in useful labor and earn their living by the honest sweat of their brow… Under the cloak of the [Progressive Republican Party] opposition party, this element, who forced our country into the Great War against the will of the people, who caused the shedding of rivers of blood of the Turkish youth to satisfy the criminal ambition of Enver Pasha, has, in a cowardly fashion, intrigued against my life, as well as the lives of the members of my cabinet.
Historian Uğur Ümit Üngör, in his book The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, has claimed that the "Republican People's Party, which was founded by Mustafa Kemal, was the successor of CUP and continued ethnic cleansing policies of its predecessor in Eastern Anatolia until the year 1950. Thus, Turkey was transformed into an ethnically homogenous state."[44]: vii
As to the fate of the Three Pashas, two of them, Talaat Pasha and Cemal Pasha, were assassinated by Armenian nationals shortly after the end of World War I while in exile in Europe during Operation Nemesis, a revenge operation against perpetrators of the Armenian genocide. Soghomon Tehlirian, whose family was killed in the Armenian genocide, assassinated the exiled Talaat Pasha in Berlin and was subsequently acquitted on all charges by a German jury. Cemal Pasha was similarly killed by Stepan Dzaghikian, Bedros Der Boghosian, and Ardashes Kevorkian for "crimes against humanity" in Tbilisi, Georgia. Enver Pasha, was killed in fighting against the Red Army unit under the command of Hakob Melkumian near Baldzhuan in Tajikistan (then Turkistan).
List of Young Turk organizations
[edit]
The following is a list of opposition groups founded until the Young Turk Revolution.
Le Parti Constitutionnel en Turquie
Comité Turco-Syrien
Committee of Union and Progress
Committee of the Young Turks
Cemiyet-i İlmiye
Vatanperverân-ı İslâmiye Cemiyeti
Lâ İlâhe İllallah
Ottoman Revolutionary Party
Ottoman Freedom Lover's Committee
Private Initiative and Decentralization League
Motherland and Liberty Committee
Ottoman Freedom Society
References
[edit]
Notes
[edit]
Citations
[edit]
Bibliography
[edit]
Akçam, Taner (2006), A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility .
Akçam, Taner (2007), A Shameful Act, London: Macmillan .
Balakian, Peter (2003), The Burning Tigris: the Armenian Genocide and America's response .
Demonian, Hripsimé (1996), The Sick Men of Europe, Gyumri State Pedagogical Institute .
Fisk, R (13 February 2007), The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, Vintage, ISBN 978-1-4000-7517-1 .
Gaunt, David; Atto, Naures; Barthoma, Soner O. (2017). "Introduction: Contextualizing the Sayfo in the First World War". Let Them Not Return: Sayfo – The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-78533-499-3.
Gaunt, David (2011). "The Ottoman Treatment of the Assyrians". A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-978104-1.
Gaunt, David (2013). "Failed Identity and the Assyrian Genocide". Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands (illustrated ed.). Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-00631-8.
Gaunt, David (2015). "The Complexity of the Assyrian Genocide". Genocide Studies International. 9 (1): 83–103. doi:10.3138/gsi.9.1.05. ISSN 2291-1847.
Gaunt, David (2017). "Sayfo Genocide: The Culmination of an Anatolian Culture of Violence". Let Them Not Return: Sayfo – The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-78533-499-3.
Gaunt, David (2020). "The Long Assyrian Genocide". Collective and State Violence in Turkey: The Construction of a National Identity from Empire to Nation-State. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-78920-451-3.
Hanioğlu, M. Şükrü, The Political Ideas of the Young Turks .
——— (1995), The Young Turks in Opposition, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-509115-9 .
——— (2001), Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks 1902–1908, Oxford University Press
International Association of Genocide Scholars (June 13, 2005). "Letter to Prime Minister Erdogan". Genocide Watch. Archived from the original on June 4, 2007 .
Kieser, Hans-Lukas (26 June 2018), Talaat Pasha: Father of Modern Turkey, Architect of Genocide, Princeton University Press (published 2018), ISBN 978-0-691-15762-7
Schaller, Dominik J; Zimmerer, Jürgen (March 2008), "Late Ottoman genocides: the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish population and extermination policies—introduction", Journal of Genocide Research, 10 (1): 7–14, doi:10.1080/14623520801950820, S2CID 71515470 .
Shaw, Stanford; Shaw, Ezel (1977), History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, vol. II, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-29166-6
Suny, Ronald Grigor (2015). "They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else": A History of the Armenian Genocide. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-6558-1.
Verheij, Jelle (2012), "Diyarbekir and the Armenian Crisis of 1895", in Jongerden, Joost; Verheij, Jelle (eds.), Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, Brill, ISBN 978-9004225183 .
Further reading
[edit]
Necati Alkan, "The Eternal Enemy of Islam: Abdullah Cevdet and the Baha'i Religion", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Volume 68/1, pp. 1–20; online at Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
——— (2008), Dissent and Heterodoxy in the Late Ottoman Empire: Reformers, Babis and Baha'is, Istanbul: ISIS Press .
David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace
M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902–1908, Oxford University Press 2001, ISBN 0-19-513463-X
——— (September 29, 2005), "The Anniversary of a Century-Old Ideology", Zaman, archived from the original on March 2, 2012
Hasan Kayali. Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, 1908–1918. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997
Stephen Kinzer, Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2001, ISBN 0-374-52866-7
Yves Ternon, Empire ottoman : Le déclin, la chute, l'effacement, Paris, édition du Félin, 2002, ISBN 2-86645-601-7 (in French)
Bilici, Faruk (October–December 1991). "La Révolution Française dans l'Historiographie Turque (1789-1927)". Annales historiques de la Révolution française (in French). 286 (286). Armand Colin: 539–549. doi:10.3406/ahrf.1991.1460. JSTOR 41914720. - Discusses how the ideals of the French Revolution affected the Young Turks | ||||||
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Title: The Destruction of the Greek Empire and the Story of the Capture of Constantinople by the Turks
Author: Edwin Pears
Release date: October 17, 2018 [eBook #58119]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DESTRUCTION OF THE GREEK EMPIRE AND THE STORY OF THE CAPTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE BY THE TURKS ***
THE DESTRUCTION
OF
THE GREEK EMPIRE
The Destruction of the Greek
Empire and the Story of the
Capture of Constantinople by
the Turks
BY
EDWIN PEARS, LL.B.
Knight of the Greek Order of the Saviour and Commander of
the Bulgarian Order of Merit
Author of ‘The Fall of Constantinople: being the
Story of the Fourth Crusade’
WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1903
All rights reserved
PREFACE
My object in writing this book is to give an account of the capture of Constantinople and the destruction of the Greek empire. In order to make the story intelligible and to explain its significance I have given a summary of the history of the empire between the Latin conquest in 1204 and the capture of the city in 1453, and have traced the progress during the same period of the race which succeeded in destroying the empire and in replacing the Greeks as the possessors of New Rome.
It may be objected that the task which I have set before me has already been accomplished by Gibbon, and that, as his chapter on the last siege of the city is carefully compiled and written with a brilliancy of style which he has nowhere surpassed, there is no need for any further study of the subject. My answer is twofold: first, that an important mass of new material is now at the disposal of any one who wishes to retell the story, and second, that Gibbon told it with a bias which makes it desirable that it should be retold.
The historian of the ‘Decline and Fall’ had less than half the material before him which is now available, and the story of the siege deserves telling with more accuracy and completeness than either the authorities available to him or the scope of his monumental work permitted. It is true that Professor J. B. Bury, the latest editor of Gibbon, has, by the aid of scholarly notes and of careful research, enabled the reader to become possessed of many of the details vi regarding the siege which have recently become known, but he would be the first to admit that there is ample room for a fuller history of the siege than that given in the ‘Decline and Fall’ even with the aid of his valuable notes.1 Gibbon himself regretted the poverty of his materials and especially that he had not been able to obtain any Turkish accounts of the siege.2 The only eye-witnesses whose narratives were before him were Phrantzes, Archbishop Leonard, and Cardinal Isidore. If we add to their narratives the accounts given by Ducas and Chalcondylas together with what Gibbon himself calls ‘short hints of Cantemir and Leunclavius,’ we have substantially all the sources of information which were available when the ‘Decline and Fall’ was written.
The new sources of information regarding the siege brought to light since Gibbon’s day enable us to gain a much more complete view of that event and of the character of its principal actors than was possible at the time when he wrote. Several Continental writers have taken advantage of some at least of the new stores of information to rewrite its story,3 but I may be allowed to claim the good fortune of being the first Englishman who has even attempted to write a narrative of that event with the whole or even with any considerable portion of the new material before him.
viiBefore, however, proceeding to indicate what the new sources of information are, I must say something regarding the second reason I have assigned why those interested in the account of an event which marks the end of an epoch of great traditions and of a civilisation on ancient rather than on modern lines should not remain satisfied with Gibbon’s account of it. Though he claimed to examine the authorities before him with philosophical impartiality, the writers known to him belonged to the Roman Church, and he was influenced unconsciously by their representations. These writers wrote under the influence of the most bitter theological controversies. They are imbued with a spirit of rancour towards those Greeks (that is, towards the great majority of the population) who had not accepted the Union with the Church of Rome which had been decreed at Florence. Their testimony throughout their narratives is for the most part that of violent partisans. But even if Gibbon, when dealing with the disputes between the great historical Churches, had been in possession of statements of the Greek case, his contempt for both Churches was too great to allow him to do justice to the questions which divided them, questions which nevertheless, as they prevented the united action of Europe to resist the Turkish invasion, were among the most important of the time. His habit of thought as an eighteenth century theist did not allow him to attach sufficient weight to the theological aspect of the struggle between the East and the West. Everything that smelt of the cloister was hateful. The theological questions themselves were not worth discussion. The disputants were in his view narrow-minded, ignorant, and superstitious. The refinements of the definitions of the Double Procession were useless, trivial, or ridiculous. Religious zeal or enthusiasm was a thing to be condemned—was the mark of fanaticism and always mischievous. In this attitude of mind Gibbon was neither better nor worse than the majority of his viii philosophical contemporaries. He differed from them in being able to bequeath to future generations a work of monumental learning, in which his and their reading of the progress of Christianity in the Eastern empire was destined to have a long and deservedly great reputation. His research and eloquence, his keen sarcasm, his judicial manner, and the powerful influence of the ‘Decline and Fall’ were employed to discredit Christianity rather than to try to discover amid the fierce wranglings of theologians over insoluble problems what was their signification for the history of the time of which he was treating and in the development of the human mind. He began with a period in which the emperor is worshipped as Divinity and traced the establishment of Christianity as a national faith among Pagan subjects until in a diversified form it became accepted by all; but he did this without affording us any help to see how the human mind could accept the first position or what were the movements of thought which led to the evolution of the questions which agitated men’s minds in the later period.
The century in which he and his contemporaries lived was for them one of hostility to Christianity rather than of investigation, the period of Voltaire, who could only see in Byzantine history ‘a worthless repertory of declamation and miracles, disgraceful to the human mind’ rather than of the Continental and English writers of the modern historical school. Happily, in the twentieth century those who look upon Christianity with an independence as complete as that of Gibbon recognise that insight can only be obtained by sympathetic investigation, that for the right understanding of history it is essential to put oneself in the place of men who have attached importance to a religious controversy, to consider their environment and examine their conduct and motives from their point of view, if we would comprehend either the causes which have led such ix controversy to be regarded as important or the conduct of the controversialists themselves. The absence in Gibbon of any sympathetic attempt to understand the controversies which play so large a part in his great drama of human history renders him as unsatisfactory a guide in regard to them as a writer of English history during the period of Charles the First would be who should merely treat with contempt the half religious, half political questions which divided Englishmen. While the objection I have suggested to Gibbon’s attitude would apply generally to his treatment of religious questions, I have only to deal with it in reference to the period of which I am treating. When writing of this period Gibbon did not realise that the religious question was nearly always a political one, and that union with Rome meant subjection to Rome. But unless it be realised how completely the citizens of Constantinople and the other great cities of the empire were engrossed with semi-religious and semi-political questions, no true conception of the life of the empire can be formed; for these questions were of interest not merely to Churchmen but to all.
Among the documents brought to light during the last fifty or sixty years which have contributed to our better knowledge of the siege the most important are the ‘Diary’ of Nicolo Barbaro and the ‘Life of Mahomet’ by Critobulus.
Barbaro belonged to a noble Venetian family. He was present in Constantinople throughout the siege, kept a journal4 of what he saw and heard, and, though full of prejudices against Genoese, Greeks, and Turks, contrives to tell his story in a manner which carries conviction of its truthfulness. His narrative conveys the impression of an independent observer who had no object in writing except to relate what he knew about the siege. While probably written from day to day, the diary bears internal evidence x of having been revised after he had left the city. Its language is old-fashioned colloquial Venetian and has often puzzled Italians whom I have called in to my aid.
The original manuscript of the diary was preserved in Venice by members of the Barbaro family until 1829. After various adventures it came in 1837 into the possession of the Imperial and Royal Marciana Library in Venice. In 1854 it was entrusted to Enrico Cornet, and was published by him for the first time in 1856.
Critobulus, the author of the ‘Life of Mahomet the Second,’ was a man of a different type. Nothing is known of him beyond what is contained in his Life of Mahomet.5 He describes himself as ‘Critobulus the Islander.’ After the capture of Constantinople, when the archons of Imbros, Lemnos, and Thasos feared that the Turkish admiral would shortly approach to annex these islands, messengers were sent to the admiral and succeeded, by offering voluntary submission and by paying him a large bribe, in avoiding the general pillage which usually followed a Turkish conquest. Shortly afterwards, Critobulus took service under the sultan and was made archon of Imbros. In this capacity he received the submission of Lemnos and other places. He continued to hold this office for at least four years. Book III. of his history contains (inter alia) an account of what he himself did as the servant of Mahomet. Probably he went to reside in Constantinople in 1460. His history covers the first seventeen years of Mahomet’s reign. It is dedicated to the sultan and is followed by an apology to his fellow Greeks for having written it. While open to the charge of not allowing himself an altogether free hand in revealing the faults and cruelties of his master, Critobulus claims that he has taken great pains to know the truth of what he relates. As he wrote a few years after the siege and at leisure, his narrative does not show the signs of haste xi which mark many of the shorter narratives of that event: such, for example, as those of Leonard, of the Podestà of Pera, of Cardinal Isidore in the ‘Lamentatio,’ and of others. As he continued to belong to the Orthodox Church and to the Greek as opposed to the Roman party in that Church, his history is free from the denunciations of his fellow Christians for having refused the union agreed to at Florence. The writer’s characteristics as a Greek, but also as a servant of the sultan, show themselves in his work. He expresses sympathy with his own people, extols their courage, and laments their misfortunes. But in places his biography of the sultan reads like the report of an able and courageous official. His training and experience in the work of government, his service under Mahomet, and perhaps something in the nature of the man, make his narrative sober and methodical and impress the reader with the idea that the author felt a sense of responsibility for the truthfulness of what he was writing. While the narratives of Phrantzes, Chalcondylas, and Ducas recount some of the incidents of the siege more fully than that of Critobulus, the latter gives more details on others and supplies valuable information which none of them have given. His Life of Mahomet is by far the most valuable of the recently discovered documents, and, as will be seen, I have made use of it as the nucleus of my narrative of the siege.
The manuscript of Critobulus was discovered by the late Dr. Dethier less than forty years ago in the Seraglio Library at Constantinople. It was transcribed by him and also by Herr Karl Müller and was published by the latter in 1883 with valuable notes.6
Two other works of importance unknown to Gibbon xii were due respectively to Tetaldi and Pusculus. Each of these authors took part in the defence of the city. Tetaldi, who was a Florentine soldier, tells us of his escape from the slaughter immediately following the capture, and of his being picked up out of the water by a Venetian ship.7
Pusculus was a citizen of Brescia. Though his account of the siege is given in Latin verse, it contains many details of value of what he himself saw which are not to be found elsewhere. His poem was never altogether lost sight of, but until its publication by Ellisen,8 in 1857, with a useful introduction, its historical value had not been recognised. The MS. from which Ellisen made his copy is dated 1470.
The late Dr. Dethier, who devoted much time and intelligent study to the topography and archæology of Constantinople, compiled four volumes of documents relating to the siege, many of which were previously unknown. Two of them were printed about 1870, but they can hardly be said to have been published, and are only to be procured with difficulty. The remaining two contain, besides Critobulus, the ‘Threnos,’ Hypsilantes, an Italian and a Latin version of the ‘Lamentatio’ by Cardinal Isidore, an Italian version of Leonard’s report to the Pope, and other documents of interest to which I refer in my pages. These volumes were printed by the Buda-Pest Academy but never published. I am indebted, however, to that learned body for a copy.
I append a list of documents (other than the four principal xiii which I have described) relating to the siege now available to the historical student which were unknown to Gibbon:
1. Zorzo (or Zorsi) Dolphin (or Zorsi Dolfin), ‘Assedio e presa di Constantinopoli nell’ anno 1453.’ This is mainly a translation from Leonard, but the author claims to have added what he heard from other eye-witnesses of the siege. It was published by G. M. Thomas in the ‘Sitzungsberichte’ of the Bavarian Academy in 1868. Another version is given by Dethier in his collection of documents relating to the siege, a collection which I refer to simply as Dethier’s ‘Siege.’
2. ‘Rapporto del Superiore dei Franciscani presente all’ assedio e alla presa di Constantinopoli.’ This report was made immediately after the siege and has long been published, but apparently was not known to Gibbon. Dethier also published it in his ‘Siege.’
3. ‘Epistola Ang. Johannis Zacchariae,’ Podestà of Pera, written within a month of the capture of the city, was first published in 1827. The version revised by Edward Hopf and Dr. Dethier is the one used by me.
4. Montaldo’s ‘De Constantinopolitano excidio’ is reproduced in Dethier’s ‘Siege,’ and contains useful hints by an eye-witness.
5. Christoforo Riccherio, ‘La Presa de Constantinopoli,’ first published in Sansovino’s ‘Dell’ Historia Universale,’ was republished with notes in Dethier’s ‘Siege,’ and is a valuable and brightly written narrative.
6. Θρῆνος τῆς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, was first published by Ellisen in ‘Analekten,’ Leipzig, 1857. If the author was in Constantinople during the siege, he has not given a single item of information which is of value to the historian. His long wail is curious and interesting, but otherwise useless.
7. The Θρῆνος of Hierax the Grand Logothetes, or ‘History of the Turkish Empire,’ though only written near the end of the sixteenth century, has valuable topographical hints. It was translated by H. E. Aristarchi Bey, the present Grand Logothetes, from a MS. existing in the Monastery of the Holy Sepulchre at the Phanar, and edited by Dethier.
8. ‘Libro d’ Andrea Cambini Florentino della Origine de’ Turchi et Imperio delli Ottomanni.’ I am not aware whether xiv this has been published at a later date than the copy in my possession, which was printed in Florence in 1529. It was then published by the son of the writer, and Book II., which treats of the siege, suggests that the author has gained his information from spectators of the siege. It contains many useful statements.
9. ‘A Slavic Account of the Siege,’ published by Streznevski, is judged by Monsieur Mijatovich, on account of its peculiar idioms, to have been written by a Serbian or Bulgarian. He speaks of it as the ‘Slavonic Chronicle.’ A translation and a slightly different version was published by Dethier as the ‘Muscovite Chronicle.’ Though the narrative has been largely added to by subsequent hands, there is reason to believe that it was written by an eye-witness of the siege.
10. Another Slavic version is conveniently spoken of as the ‘Memoirs of the Polish Janissary.’ Its author, after serving with the Turks and, according to his own statement, being present at the siege, withdrew to Poland. The original MS. was first published in 1828.
The Turkish authors available who speak of the siege are:
11. Sad-ud-din, ‘The Capture of Constantinople from the Tajut-Tevarikh (1590),’ translated into English by E. J. W. Gibb (Glasgow, 1879). This work professes to be based on the accounts of earlier Turkish historians.
12. ‘Tarich Muntechebati Evliya Chelibi,’ a translation of which is given in the elder Mordtmann’s ‘Eroberung.’
13. Ahmed Muktar Pasha’s ‘Conquest of Constantinople and the Establishment of the Ottomans in Europe,’ brought out only in 1902, on the anniversary of the present sultan’s accession.
14. An Armenian ‘Mélodie Élégiaque,’ written by a monk named Philip, who was present at the siege. This was printed in Lebeau’s ‘Histoire du Bas-Empire.’ Dethier published the original version in Armenian.
I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. Mordtmann’s studies of the archæology and topography of Constantinople,9 and to Professor A. van Millingen’s ‘Byzantine Constantinople’10 a work which is the most careful study of xv the history of those parts of the walls and other portions of the city treated of which has yet been published. I must also tender him sincere thanks for many suggestions made in the course of friendly intercourse and in the discussion of matters of mutual archæological interest, and for permission to reproduce his map of Constantinople. All future writers on the topography and archaeology of Constantinople will be under obligations to Dr. Mordtmann and Professor van Millingen, who have worthily continued the work of Gyllius and Du Cange.
A few words must be added as to the title of this book. Why, it may be asked, should it be the ‘Destruction of the Greek Empire’? Why not follow the example of the late Mr. Freeman, and of his distinguished successor, Professor J. B. Bury, and speak of the ‘Later Roman Empire’? My plea is one of confession and avoidance.
I admit that when Charles the Great, in 800, became Roman Emperor in the West the imperial territory of which the capital was Constantinople may correctly be spoken of as the Eastern Roman Empire. But I avoid condemnation for not adopting this name and for not calling the empire Roman by pleading that I am reverting to the practice of our fathers in the West during many centuries, and by defending their practice. The Empire has sometimes been described as Byzantine and sometimes as the Lower Empire. But these names are undesirable, because the first has a vague and doubtful meaning, since no two writers who employ it use it to cover the same period; and the second has a derogatory signification which the researches of Freeman and Professor Bury, Krumbacher, Schlumberger, and other modern writers, have shown to be undeserved. The name ‘Roman’ has more to recommend it. The Persians and the Arabs knew the empire simply as Roman, and the overwhelming reputation of Rome led them to speak even of Alexander the Great as ‘Iskender al Roumy.’ The name xvi of Rome, or Roum, given to Roumelia, and found in other places as far east as Erzeroum, had been applied when the Latin element dominated the empire. The tradition of Rome passed on to the Turks, and the inhabitants of the empire were and are to them I-roum or Romans. The Byzantine writers usually called themselves Romans. But the term Roman can hardly be applied to the empire without distinguishing it as Eastern, and while it is true that down to 1453 the empire was Roman in name, there is some danger in employing the term of forgetting how far the New Rome and its territory had become Hellenised, and that a large portion of the population preferred the name Greek. There had been a long struggle within the empire itself between those who wished to adopt the latter designation and those who desired to call it Roman. The inhabitants of Greece were indeed for centuries preceding and during the Crusades disloyal subjects of Constantinople. Even during the reign of Heraclius (610 to 641), they insisted upon being called Hellenes rather than Romans. From that time onwards a contest was continued as to whether the name of Greek or Roman should be applied to the population. The influence of the Greeks henceforth was constantly working to Hellenise the empire. In the reign of Irene, at the time when the Western Roman Empire commenced to have a separate existence, Greek influence was especially strong. Lascaris, four centuries later, when he made his stand at Nicaea after the Latin conquest, spoke of the empire as that of Hellas. On the recovery of the city under Michael, the Church generally employed the term Roman, but declared that Greek and Roman might be employed indifferently. Various writers speak of the Latins as Romans and of the Byzantines as Hellenes.11 Manuel Bryennius represents the preacher in St. Sophia as calling upon his hearers to remember their Greek ancestors xvii and to defend their country as they had done. At times the people were appealed to as the descendants alike of Greeks and Romans.
As being a continuation of the Roman Empire whose capital was New Rome, the empire is correctly called Roman, and the name has the advantage of always keeping in view the continuity of Roman history. It was the Eastern Roman Empire which declined and fell in 1453. But if we admit that the empire continued to be Roman till 1453, it must be remembered, not only that its characteristics had considerably changed, but that to the men of the West it had come to be known as the Greek Empire. Latin had been as completely forgotten as Norman French was by English nobles in the time of Edward III. Greek had become the official language, as did English in our own country. The inscriptions on the coins since the time of Heraclius are in Greek. The Orthodox Church, which aided as much as even law in binding the inhabitants of the country together, employed Greek, and Greek almost exclusively, as its language, and, although the great defenders of the term Roman as applied to the population are found among its dignitaries, the Church was essentially Greek as opposed to Roman, both in the character of its thought and teaching and in the language it employed. Hence it is not surprising that to the West during all the middle ages, the Empire was the Greek Empire, just as the Orthodox Church was the Greek Church.12 The Empire and the Church were each alike called Greek to distinguish them from the Empire and Church of the West. It is in this general use of the word Greek that I find my justification for speaking of the capture of Constantinople, and the xviii events connected with it, as the Destruction of the Greek Empire.13
I have only in conclusion to call the attention of the reader to one or two matters connected with the authorities which I quote. I must plead that my residence in Constantinople has not allowed me to refer to the uniform series of Byzantine authors available in the great public libraries of Western Europe. My edition of Phrantzes is that published in the Bonn series; Pachymer, Cantacuzenus, Chalcondylas, Ducas, and their contemporaries, are quoted from the Venetian edition of the Byzantine writers edited by Du Cange. My references to Archbishop Leonard are almost always to the version in the collection of Lonicerus. Dr Dethier, however, published a contemporary Italian version which has certain important variations, and to this I have occasionally referred. The editors of other authorities are mentioned in the notes to the text.
I have sometimes abstained from discussing the trustworthiness of my authorities, but have said once for all that their statements, especially in regard to the numbers they represent as engaged in battle, of victims slaughtered or captured, and the like, can rarely be regarded as satisfactory. The means of controlling them seldom exist. Even in the case of Sir John Maundeville, I have quoted him without hinting that a doubt of his very existence has been uttered. Whether he lived and was or was not a traveller, or whether his book was, as has been suggested, a kind of mediæval Murray’s Guide, does not in the least affect the statements which I have reproduced from it. The work of sifting the evidence, new and old, to ascertain its value has been long and tedious, and I must leave to other students of the same period to say whether I have succeeded in selecting what is of use and xix in rejecting only what is valueless. To have attempted a critical examination of every important statement which I quote would have extended my book to an inordinate length, and in regard to most of them the reader will not find much difficulty in arriving at his own conclusions as to their trustworthiness.
Edwin Pears.
Constantinople, February 1903.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I PAGE
The Latin empire (1204–1261) and its struggles with and final overthrow by the Greeks of Nicaea
1 CHAPTER II
Condition of and difficulties in reconstructing the empire: difficulties arising (a) from attempts by Latins to recover the empire, (b) from Catalan Grand Company
22 CHAPTER III
The Turks: their entry into Asia Minor: not at first exclusively Mahometan: their characteristics: Othman founds a dynasty: progress of Moslems in Europe and Asia Minor: capture of Brousa in 1326
52 CHAPTER IV
Dynastic struggles in empire: appeals to Pope for aid; reigns of Andronicus the Second, John Cantacuzenus, and John; repeated failure of efforts by Popes to induce Western Powers to assist in checking Moslem advance
65 CHAPTER V
Reign of Orchan: struggles with empire; its successes and reverses; invasions of Tartars. Reign of Murad: defeat of Serbians and Bulgarians by Turks; battle of Cossovo-Pol and assassination of Murad
97 CHAPTER VI
Reign of Manuel: encroachments of Turks; Manuel visits West, Sultan Bajazed summoned by Timour; friendly relations between Manuel and Mahomet the First; John associated with Manuel. Siege of Constantinople by Murad; its failure. Efforts at union; misconceptions in West regarding Greek Church; constancy of attempts at union; negotiations for meeting of Council of Church. Internal struggles in Latin Church. Emperor invited by both parties; accepts Pope’s invitation; meeting of Council at Ferrara and Florence; union accomplished; John returns to capital; divisions in Greek Church
109 xxii CHAPTER VII
Progress of Turks between 1391 and 1425: Sultan Bajazed’s reign: conquests in Europe: Bulgarian kingdom ended: Western armies defeated at Nicopolis: Anatolia-Hissar built: capital threatened: summons by Timour to Bajazed: Timour’s progress: reply of Bajazed: battle of Angora and crushing defeat of Turks: further progress of Timour: death of Bajazed, 1403: alarm in Western Europe: departure of Timour: struggle between the sons of Bajazed: ultimate success of Mahomet: his good understanding with Manuel: death of Mahomet, 1420: accession of Murad: war with empire: siege of Constantinople, 1422: death of Manuel, 1425: triumphal progress of Murad: he besieges and takes Salonica: besieges Belgrade but fails: combined movement under Hunyadi against Murad: battle of Slivnitza, 1443, and defeat of Turks: Murad sues for peace: treaty made with Ladislaus: violated by Christians: battle of Varna, 1444: Murad ravages Morea: Iskender Bey, his origin: captures Croia: Hunyadi again attacks Murad: defeated at Cossovo-pol, 1448: reasons for failure of Christian attempts: John has to forego joining Western combination against Turks: death of Murad, 1451: Mahomet the Second becomes Sultan
131 CHAPTER VIII
Causes leading to decay of empire: not due to demoralisation of Court; internal and external causes; Latin conquest and form of government had produced internal dissensions and checked assimilation of hostile races; method of Turkish conquest and its fatal consequences; ravages of black death; population of capital in 1453; its commerce; relations of people with government; resemblance to Russia; difficulty of obtaining idea of domestic life
180 CHAPTER IX
Accession of Constantine Dragases; Patriarch Gregory deposed; renewed attempt to obtain aid from the West; emperor meets with little success; arrival of Cardinal Isidore; reconciliation service December 12, 1452, in Hagia Sophia; dissensions regarding it
201 CHAPTER X
Character of Mahomet the Second; receives deputation from city; returns to Adrianople from Asia Minor; his reforms; builds Roumelia-Hissar; rejects overtures from emperor; castle completed, August 1452; war declared; Mahomet returns to Adrianople; he discloses his designs for siege of city. Constantine’s preparations for defence; arrival of six Venetian ships; aid requested from Venice; Justiniani arrives, January 1453; boom across harbour placed in position. Turkish army, estimate of; notice of Janissaries; mobility of army; religious spirit of; casting of great cannon; Turkish fleet arrives in Bosporus; description of vessels composing it. Mahomet’s army marches to city; offer of peace
206 CHAPTER XIxxiii
Topography of Constantinople; disposition of Mahomet’s forces and cannon; estimate of fighting men under emperor; Venetians and Genoese: disparity in numbers: arms and equipment: attacks on Therapia and Prinkipo
237 CHAPTER XII THE SIEGE
Investment by Turks; first assault fails; attempt to force boom; attempt to capture ships bringing aid; gallant fight and defeat of Turkish fleet; Turkish admiral degraded; transport of Turkish ships across Pera into the Golden Horn
254 CHAPTER XIII
Constantine alleged to have sued for peace; attempt to destroy Turkish ships in the Golden Horn; postponed; made and fails; murder of captives; reprisals; operations in Lycus valley; bridge built over Golden Horn; sending to seek Venetian fleet; proposal that emperor should leave city; attacks on boom; jealousy between Venetians and Genoese; new assaults fail both at walls and boom; attempts to undermine walls; construction of a turret; destroyed by besieged; failure of vessel sent to find Venetian fleet; unlucky omens
277 CHAPTER XIV
Dissensions in city: between Greeks themselves; between Greeks and Italians; between Genoese and Venetians; charge of treachery against Genoese examined; failure of Serbia and Hungary to render aid; preparations for a general assault; damages done to the landward walls; construction of stockade
300 CHAPTER XV
Last days of empire: sultan again hesitates; message inviting surrender; Turkish council called; decides against raising siege; proclamation granting three days’ plunder; sultan’s final preparations; his address to the pashas and last orders to generals. Preparations in city: religious processions: Constantine’s address to leaders and to Venetians and Genoese; last Christian service in St. Sophia: defenders take up their final stations at walls, and close gates behind them: emperor’s last inspection of his forces
313 CHAPTER XVI
General assault: commenced by Bashi-Bazouks; they are defeated; Anatolians attack—are also driven back; attacks in other places fail; xxiv Janissaries attack; Kerkoporta incident; Justiniani wounded and retires; emperor’s alarm; stockade captured; death of Constantine: his character; capture of Constantinople
334 CHAPTER XVII
Attacks in other parts of the city: by Zagan and Caraja; by fleet; the brothers Bocchiardi hold their own; panic when entry of Turks became known; incident of Saint Theodosia’s church; massacre and subsequent pillage; crowd in Saint Sophia captured; horrors of sack; numbers killed or captured; endeavours to escape from city; panic in Galata; Mahomet’s entry; Saint Sophia becomes a mosque; fate of leading prisoners: attempts to repeople capital
358 CHAPTER XVIII
Capture of Constantinople a surprise to Europe; conquest of Trebizond; summary of its history. Character and conduct of Mahomet: as conqueror; he increases Turkish fleet; as administrator; as legislator; his recklessness of human life; as student; was he a religious fanatic? summary
386 CHAPTER XIX
Dispersion of Greek scholars, and their influence upon revival of learning; Greek a bond of union among peoples of empire; disappearance of books after Latin conquest; departure of scholars to Italy begins after 1204; their presence stimulates revival of learning; enthusiasm aroused in Italy for study of Greek; students from Constantinople everywhere welcomed; increased numbers leave after Moslem conquest; Renaissance largely aided by Greek studies; movement passes into Northern Europe; MSS. taken from Constantinople
399 CHAPTER XX
Conclusion; the capture epoch-marking; alarm in Europe; disastrous results; upon Christian subjects and on Eastern Churches; demoralisation of both; poverty the principal result; degradation of Churches: two great services rendered by the Churches; results on Turks: powerless to assimilate conquered peoples or their civilisation
414 APPENDICES I.Note on Romanus Gate and chief place of final assault429 II.Where did the sea-fight of April 20, 1453, take place?436 III.Note on transport of Mahomet’s ships. What was the route adopted?443 IV.The influence of religion on Greeks and Moslems respectively447 INDEX459
ILLUSTRATIONS
Approximate Restoration of the Land Walls of Theodosius the Second between the Golden and Second Military Gates
Between
pages 240–1 Present Condition of a Portion of the Landward Walls
from photograph by M. Irenian of Constantinople. Mahomet the Conqueror
from painting by Bellini. Between
pages 388–1 Mahomet the Conqueror
from medallion by Bellini in the British Museum.
MAPS
Map illustrating Progress of Turks during Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Centuries
Facing p. 1 Map of Byzantine Constantinople237
Sketch Map showing the Disposition of Turkish Troops during the Last Days of Siege; May 1453
335
Map illustrating Progress of Turks during 13th., 14th., & 15th. Centuries.
1
DESTRUCTION
OF
THE GREEK EMPIRE
THE LATIN EMPIRE (1204–1261) AND ITS STRUGGLES WITH AND FINAL OVERTHROW BY THE GREEKS OF NICAEA
The later Roman Empire and its capital Constantinople never recovered from the blow inflicted by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. A huge filibustering expedition had been gathered together at Venice under pretext of making an attack upon the Saracens in Egypt. Under the leadership of Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, and Dandolo, the famous doge of Venice, the expedition had been diverted from its purpose, and, in spite of the strongest possible protests by Innocent the Third, had attacked Constantinople. The strength of the empire had been weakened by a hundred and fifty years’ resistance to the hordes of Asia, during which it had served as the bulwark of Europe. Its reputation had been lessened by thirty years of dynastic wars, during which the government had allowed its fleet to decay so that it was unable to resist the Venetians and Crusaders. The result was that, for the first time in its long history, the city was captured. There then followed the plunder and division of its enormous wealth—a large part of which found its way to the West, while perhaps a still larger portion2 was destroyed—the appointment of a Latin emperor in Constantinople, and the partition of such portions of the empire as could be occupied among the conquerors.
Baldwin, 1204–1205.
Baldwin, a Belgian, was elected emperor. An arrangement for the division of the spoil had been made by the leaders before the attack on the city, and this seems to have been fairly carried out. To Baldwin were assigned the two imperial palaces in Constantinople and one fourth of all that should be captured within the city and throughout the empire. The remaining three fourths were to be divided equally between the Crusaders and the Venetians. The difficulties of the conquerors began with this further division of the spoil. The task of parcelling out the empire was almost hopeless.Difficulties regarding division of empire. It was next to impossible to accomplish such a partition, even on paper, because of the ignorance of the Western conquerors of the empire they had destroyed. Its extent was so great, the difficulty of communication so extreme, and ignorance of geography so profound, that the conquerors did not know what there was to divide. They sent into the provinces to obtain information as to the revenues and general condition of the country so that the partition might be fairly made; but, without waiting for the information, they proceeded to divide up the countries and provinces which they imagined to be within the empire. In their happy ignorance they drew lots for Alexandria and for the various countries along the north shore of the Mediterranean as well as for Georgia, Persia, and Assyria. They competed for the possession of Konia itself, the capital of the Seljukian Turks.
It was still more difficult to make a partition which should represent territory which could come at once into the occupation of the Crusaders. The one system of land tenure with which they were acquainted was the feudal. The lands of the empire must therefore be divided into fiefs and the barons and persons of higher and of lower degree must have grants according to their rank. But though Constantinople was in the possession of the men of the West, they held no more of the remainder of the empire3 than was within the actual sight of the barons and the comparatively small bodies of retainers who were under them. The Greeks—or, as the subjects of the later empire still generally called themselves, the Romans—had no intention of recognising either the lordship of the barons who had become their feudal superiors or the overlordship of Baldwin. They knew nothing of a feudal system, and recognised the representatives of the late empire as having a first claim to their service. They were ready to follow almost any leader against men whom they knew only as invaders, belonging to a different race, speaking a different language, and professing a form of Christianity which was hateful to them because the conquerors tried to impose it upon them.
The difficulties of the Latin empire were both internal and external.
Dissensions among leaders.
The men from the West soon found that they were too few to hold the country. Some of the Crusaders had insisted upon leaving the city in order to proceed to the Holy Land in fulfilment of their vows and to avoid the censure of Innocent. Others were anxious to return home with their share of the spoils. ‘Never since the world was created,’ says Villehardouin the historian, who took an active part in the capture of the city, ‘was there so much booty gained in one city. Each man took the house which pleased him, and there were enough for all. Those who were poor found themselves suddenly rich.’ If they remained they had hardships to face which as the possessors of newly obtained wealth they would rather avoid. As soon as new dangers appeared the numbers of those who wished to get away increased. During the very first year of Baldwin’s reign, his army on its retreat from an expedition against the Bulgarians found at Rodosto seven thousand men at arms who had quitted the capital and were leaving the country. It was in vain that a cardinal and the leaders sent by the army, among whom was Villehardouin himself, implored them even with tears to remain, for ‘Never,’ said these leaders, ‘would they be able to succour a country in so4 great a need.’14 The most favourable answer that they could obtain was that a reply would be given on the morrow. The deserters set sail in the night without even giving the promised response to the prayer made to them.
The internal difficulties were increased by the jealousy which existed between the leaders of the Latins themselves. All through the journey to Constantinople before the capture of the city, the Crusaders and Venetians had mistrusted each other. Boniface, the leader of the Crusade, considered himself ill treated because he had not been named emperor. Though defeated, he had a large number of adherents. To him had been assigned territory in Asia Minor. He applied to exchange it for the kingdom of Salonica, alleging that as he had married the widow of the Emperor Isaac, who was the sister of the King of Hungary, he would be at Salonica in a better position to aid the emperor. His request was granted. Baldwin, however, did not trust him, and, apparently under the impression that it was the intention of Boniface to establish an independent sovereignty, insisted on accompanying him to his newly acquired capital. To this course Boniface objected so strongly that when the emperor started for Salonica, Boniface not only refused to accompany him but went off towards Adrianople, captured Didymotica, and laid siege to the former city. The Greeks flocked to his standard, possibly being induced to do so by the belief that as he had married the widow of Isaac he was entitled to their allegiance.
As soon as Dandolo, Count Louis, and the other nobles who had remained in Constantinople heard what Marquis Boniface was doing, they at once took counsel in ‘parlement’ as to the measures to be adopted: ‘for,’ says Villehardouin, ‘they thought that they would lose all the conquests they had made.’ They decided to send a knight to Boniface without delay, and the historian was himself chosen for the mission. He went at once to Adrianople and succeeded in persuading the marquis to submit the questions between him and the emperor to the arbitration of Dandolo and Count 5 Louis, and for the present to cease hostilities. Meantime the emperor had occupied Salonica. As soon as he heard of the siege of Adrianople he at once hastened to its relief and ‘pour faire tout le mal qu’il pourrait au marquis.’ On the way he met the messengers from the city, who besought him to submit his case, as Boniface had consented to do, to arbitration, at the same time plainly telling him that Dandolo, Count Louis of Blois, and the other barons would not tolerate war between him and Boniface. The emperor hesitated and consulted his council. Some of the members urged that the message was an outrage and advised resistance. Violent language (‘grosses paroles’) was used, but the emperor, who was unwilling to risk the hostility of so strong a combination as Dandolo and Louis, gave way to the extent of stating that he would undertake not to attack Boniface until he went to Constantinople, although he would not pledge himself to refer the questions between them to arbitration. Shortly after, when a peace was patched up between them, it was under conditions which show that neither party trusted the other. Villehardouin undertook to hold Didymotica until he knew by a trusted messenger that Salonica had been handed over to Boniface.
Nor were the external differences which at once presented themselves less serious. The history of Constantinople and the Latin empire during the period between 1204 and 1260 is indeed that of a series of struggles between Baldwin and his successors on the imperial throne, on the one side, and the leaders of the Greek race who had refused to recognise the authority of the invaders, on the other.
Opposition of Greek population.
The Western barons seemed to have thought that with the conquest of the capital the whole empire would fall to their lot. They were soon undeceived. In Macedonia and in Epirus Greek leaders appeared, who rallied to them all who were indisposed to accept new rulers. At Trebizond on the Black Sea, and at Nicaea, the once famous city of the Creed, the Greeks flocked from the capital and its neighbourhood, and soon there were rulers of these cities who assumed the title of emperor.
6
Empire of Nicaea. Theodore Lascaris, 1204–1222.
The most important of those who refused to accept the Latin rule was Theodore Lascaris. He had been the last of the Greek nobles to leave the city when the invaders captured it. He made his way to Nicaea, and was followed by many Greeks. Able, courageous, and patriotic, he was soon recognised by the notables as the fittest man to have rule among them, and, though without hereditary claim to the imperial throne, he aspired to be emperor and was accepted as best suited to receive that dignity. Two years after the capture of Constantinople, a new patriarch was elected, who consented to live at Nicaea and who amid as much ceremony as if the coronation had taken place in St. Sophia placed the crown on the head of Theodore in the church of the same name at Nicaea. The prudence and judgment of the new emperor did much to rally the best of his countrymen around him, and justified the choice made in electing him to the imperial throne. The Greek priests flocked to the city from all parts of Western Asia Minor as well as from Thrace.
Nevertheless, his task was beset with difficulties. He had enemies on all sides, pretenders of his own race, the Latin emperor and the sultan of the Seljukian Turks. The latter, whose capital was at Konia, had no idea of allowing any neighbour to become formidable. A Greek pretender held the country to the west of Nicaea. The Latin emperor and barons chose to regard Theodore as a rebel because he would not make submission. After unsuccessful attempts against him by Baldwin and his successor, Theodore was allowed in 1207 to remain in possession of Ismidt (the ancient Nicomedia) and Cyzicus for a period of two years. He employed the period in strengthening and extending his empire. At the end of it, Henry the brother of Baldwin, whom he succeeded as emperor, made an alliance with the sultan of the Seljukian Turks: that is to say, the Crusaders who had justified themselves to Innocent the Third for attacking a Christian city on the ground that the Greek emperors had allowed the Moslems to have a mosque7 within the city, now found themselves under the necessity of joining forces with the infidel to attack a Christian prince.
Upon the declaration of war by the sultan, Theodore pushed forward into the valley of the Meander, and a battle was fought which, if the Byzantine authorities are to be trusted, was decided in single combat between the two sovereigns. The sultan was killed, and the empire of Nicaea was saved. The Emperor Henry, however, when he heard of the extent of the loss in Theodore’s army exclaimed, ‘The Greek is not conqueror: he is ruined.’
So far from being ruined, his success caused many Greeks to flock into his empire from Constantinople. When, in 1214, the Emperor Henry again declared war, Theodore was ready for him; and as the Greeks in Epirus had commenced a vigorous attack on the crusading barons in Macedonia, Henry was glad to make a peace which left Theodore undisputed master of a territory bounded on the west by a line from Heraclea on the Black Sea to Ismidt, thence to Cyzicus and to the coast just north of Pergamos. The fruitful valleys of the Meander, the Cayster, and the Hermus marked his boundaries on the south-west.
Theodore died in 1222. The first duty of the Greeks when driven out of Constantinople was to make themselves secure against the conquerors and to prevent the progress of the crusading armies into Asia Minor. This duty had been effectually done by Theodore. During the eighteen years of his reign he had made his capital and its beautiful neighbourhood the rallying-place of what was best in the Greek-speaking populations of Asia Minor and of Thrace. He had checked the progress of the crusaders into Asia Minor and had left to his successors the task of working for the recovery of Constantinople.
Henry succeeds Baldwin, 1205–1216.
Meantime, the history of the Latin conquerors of Constantinople had been one of almost continuous disaster. The first Emperor Baldwin had been lost in an encounter with the Bulgarians near Adrianople in April 1205, and was probably killed. As his fate remained doubtful, his8 brother Henry acted as regent for a year and was then crowned emperor. Shortly after the commencement of his reign in 1207, Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat and King of Salonica, was killed in a skirmish. Henry seems to have realised that in a policy of conciliation towards the Greeks lay the only hope of the continuance of his empire. He made peace with the Bulgarians and concluded an arrangement with both the emperor of Nicaea and the Greek prince who had made himself recognised as despot in Epirus. He employed Greeks in the public service. He refused to take part in the persecution of the Greeks who would not obey the decrees of the pope’s legate. He allowed them to employ the Greek language in their services, and restrained the pretensions of the Roman priests. Unfortunately for the Latin empire, the reign of the chivalrous Henry lasted only ten years.
Peter succeeds, 1217–1219.
He was succeeded by Peter of Courtenay, who was invited by the barons to occupy the throne in the absence of male heirs of Baldwin and his brother Henry. Peter left France with 140 knights and 5,500 men at arms, whom he had obtained with the aid of his royal kinsman, Philip Augustus. The reports of the rich plunder which had been obtained in the capture of the city had already induced many French knights to leave their native lands to take service in the empire, but the detachment with which Peter crossed the Alps was the largest which had left the West for such purpose.
The Venetians bargained to transport them across the Adriatic on condition that they would assist in recovering Durazzo from Theodore, the Greek despot of Epirus. After a useless assault on that city, Peter started with his followers on a journey across the peninsula to Salonica. He and his host were soon lost amid the mountains of Epirus. Their provisions were exhausted. They found the passes fortified, and their only chance of life was to surrender to Theodore, who had held the country in defiance of the regent who was governing in the name of the son of Boniface. Peter was detained in captivity, and his death is as mysterious as that9 of the first Latin emperor. He probably perished in prison in 1218.
Robert, 1219–1228.
Peter’s successor, Robert of Courtenay, succeeded in finding his way to Constantinople, though not across Macedonia, accompanied by a number of troops furnished at the request of Pope Honorius the Third. His reign was a series of disasters. He made a treaty of peace with Theodore of Nicaea in order that he might devote all his attention to the defeat of the other Theodore, the despot of Epirus. The latter had been denounced by the pope for his detention of Peter and of the legate who accompanied him. Honorius indeed had invited the princes of the West to undertake a crusade for their deliverance. When, however, the legate was released, Peter seems to have been forgotten. The despot Theodore made a well-concerted attack upon Salonica, captured it, and was proclaimed emperor in 1222. Robert led all his forces against this new claimant for the imperial title and was badly beaten. Theodore pushed on to Adrianople and hoisted his standard on the walls of that city almost without opposition.
There were thus in 1222 four persons claiming to be emperors, and occupying separate portions of what had been twenty years earlier the Roman Empire in the East. These were Robert at Constantinople, Theodore at Nicaea, another Theodore at Salonica, and Alexis at Trebizond.
Nicaea, success of John Ducas Vataces, 1222–1254.
The history of the next forty years (1222–1261) is that of the strengthening of the Greek empire at Nicaea and the decadence and downfall of the other so-called empires, and especially of that of the Latin Crusaders in Constantinople. The successor of Theodore Lascaris was John Ducas Vataces, who during a reign of thirty-three years fortified his position at Nicaea and increased the prosperity of his empire. He restricted the boundaries of the Latin territory in Asia Minor to the peninsula formed by a line parallel to the Bosporus from Ismidt to the Black Sea. He rendered property and life safe, and in consequence the Greek population continued to flock into his territory. Even French soldiers in considerable numbers quietly slipped away from10 Constantinople to take service with Vataces. At the commencement of his reign he was attacked by the newly appointed emperor, Robert of Courtenay, and in the combat which ensued not only was Vataces successful, but the last of the knights who had taken part in the capture of the city were left dead on the field. Until Robert’s death in 1228, Nicaea had few troubles with the Latin empire.
Latin empire. John of Brienne, 1228–1237. Baldwin II., 1237–1261.
Robert’s successor was a boy of eleven, who continued nominally emperor under the title of Baldwin the Second for upwards of thirty years, but the Latin knights wisely placed power in the hands of John de Brienne. Indeed, the crusading leaders seem throughout the whole Latin occupation to have assumed a large measure of the imperial authority. The period is contemporary with that of the barons who resisted King John in England, and who continued to assert their independence under the reign of Henry the Third. The French barons in Constantinople had much of the same spirit, with the additional incentive to independence that, as the emperors were of recent creation, the glamour which had already gathered about the kingly office in England and France was absent. The emperor was indeed nothing more than primus inter pares, and his own designs were often set aside for those of his associates. No one can doubt that they acted wisely in appointing John de Brienne, but even he, with all his experience and caution, failed as his predecessor had done when he attacked Nicaea.
The courage and ability of the old Crusader, who was already eighty years of age, hardly retarded the decay of the Latin empire. Its needs were great, and accordingly Baldwin the Second was sent on a visit to the pope and to the Western courts to obtain further supplies of men and money. Indeed, the greater part of his reign was Baldwin visits France, occupied by three of such journeys. His first visit to France was in 1237. Hardly had he arrived in Paris when he learned the death of John de Brienne. The messenger who brought the tidings told a terrible story of11 the distress in the imperial city. The barons and soldiers15 dared not venture outside the walls. The supply of food had run so short that many of the gentlemen of France who were charged with its defence disguised themselves and escaped by sea or, notwithstanding that the country was full of dangers, endeavoured to make their way by land to their own country. The peril was so great that Baldwin was assured that if aid were not sent the city could not resist an attack. Upon these tidings Baldwin did his utmost to obtain aid. He was received with honour wherever he went, but he received little else. In 1238, he paid a visit to England. On his landing at Dover he was asked and England. how he presumed to enter the country without the permission of its independent sovereign, Henry the Third. Henry had had enough trouble with Crusaders. John de Brienne, who had been in England, had obtained aid from the king and had been honourably received. On his return to France he had joined with Philip Augustus against England. Henry, however, sent word to Baldwin that as he had arrived without troops he might come on to London. After receiving this permission he paid a visit to the king and finally left England with the miserable sum of seven hundred marks.
Pope supports Latin empire.
The pope had taken Baldwin’s cause greatly to heart. He enjoined all Christian princes to give him aid. He ordered the leading archbishops of the West to publish a new Crusade against the Greek schismatics. He directed part of the Peter’s pence to be given for the furtherance of the Crusade and ordered that the money which St. Louis with pious zeal had extorted from the Jews as obtained by usury should be employed for the same purpose. He begged the king to direct that one third of the revenues of the churches should be thus employed, and he wrote to the king of England with a similar request. In 1238 John de Bethune started from France with men and money. The expedition, however, came to grief. Its leader died at 12 Venice and the army melted away, very few ever arriving at the Bosporus.
Decay of Latin empire.
The character of the news from Constantinople continued constantly to be more and more distressing. The revenue was yearly decreasing. The money obtained in Europe was already spent, and the knights were driven to desperate expedients to obtain more. Copper was torn from the domes of the churches and other public buildings to be converted into coin. Empty houses were pulled down to supply fuel. The sacred relics, which in the eyes of the Crusaders constituted not only the most valuable treasures of the city but the talisman of its safety, were sold to meet pressing needs.Sale of relics. The Sacred Crown of Thorns had been pledged for a sum of about seven thousand pounds, and when the time came for redeeming it, the Latins were not able to find the money. A Venetian endeavoured to obtain it in order to add to the prosperity of the Bride of the Seas, but Baldwin, possibly out of gratitude to Saint Louis of France, and with the object of obtaining a larger sum, preferred that it should be sent to France. After considerable difficulty and many negotiations, the sacred relic was redeemed and taken with solemn procession from Venice to Paris, where the king himself, clothed in penitential garments and barefoot, went out to meet it and to accompany it to its temporary resting-place. This was in 1239. Baldwin received from Louis, in recompense of his labour to obtain so valuable a prize, the sum of ten thousand marks.
Nor was this the only relic which the crusading empire was obliged to convert into money. A large portion of the true cross, the lance, the sponge, and other objects, the parting with which must have cost Baldwin and his barons many a regret, were also sent to France in order to raise money.16
By July 1239 Baldwin had collected in the West all the money and forces available and started for Constantinople. The number of his army was greatly exaggerated by the rumours which preceded it and greatly alarmed the Greeks at Nicaea. He arrived at Constantinople at the end of Prosperity of Nicene empire. 13December. John Vataces, in consequence of these rumours and as a precaution, allied himself with the Bulgarians. The armies of the two states attacked Constantinople. The Venetians saved the city by arriving in time to make it necessary to raise the siege. Then the Bulgarians made friends with the Latins and allowed a band of Comans (or Tur-comans) who had been driven over the Danube by the Mongols to pass through Bulgaria and take service with the Latins. The emperor of Nicaea could, however, play a similar game, and he induced a band of the same race, who formed excellent light cavalry, to settle on the banks of the Meander and in Phrygia.
John Vataces succeeded, partly by force, partly by persuasion, in inducing the despot of Salonica to abandon the title of emperor and to recognise Nicaea as the true representative of the former empire of Constantine. Vataces thereupon became acknowledged ruler of the kingdom of Salonica from the Aegean to the Adriatic.
Decay of Constantinople.
Meantime the wealth and population of Constantinople were diminishing every day. Its commerce had almost gone. What was left was in the hands of the Venetians. No taxes could be levied on the poverty-stricken population. The Greeks of the country around Constantinople, who had been the food-producers and the source of revenue to the merchants of the capital, fled from the constant harass of war and invasions, now by Latins, now by Bulgarians, and now by Greeks, into Asia Minor, where they could labour in the fields or trade in peace and quietness.
The population in other parts of the country were in like straits. The continual money difficulties among the Latin knights and the Crusaders generally caused a widespread spirit of lawlessness. Necessity compelled them to live on the country they were passing through, and wherever they were under the command of a weak ruler, pillage was common and almost unchecked. Before men thus lawless, poor peasants fled in alarm across the Marmora to be not only among their own people but where life and property were secure.
14
As illustrating the lawlessness among the Latin nobles, a story told of the Emperor Robert himself is significant. He was engaged to marry the daughter of Vataces, a marriage which promised obvious advantages to the Latin empire. He preferred, however, a lady who was affianced to a knight of Burgundy. Her mother had acquiesced in her throwing over her fiancé in favour of the young emperor. The Burgundian and his friends forced their way into the palace, threw the mother into the sea, and brutally disfigured the face of the girl. The barons approved of the deed, and the king went whining to the pope to condemn the wrong-doers, since he himself was powerless to avenge the insult offered to him.
Under such conditions of lawlessness, capital fled the country. The Latin government had once more to resort to every possible device for raising money, and the ornaments of the churches and other public buildings were sent to the melting-pot or to auction.
While disaster and decay marked the condition of things in Constantinople, Nicaea continued to increase in prosperity. The city itself, in a healthy situation on the beautiful lake of Ascanius, had under the rule of John Vataces already become wealthy. Taxes were light because the revenue was not squandered, and the emperor had carried into the public expenditure the same habits of carefulness which he displayed in the management of his own private estates. It is recorded of him, as an illustration of his thrift, that on presenting the empress with a coronet decked with jewels he explained to her that it had been bought with money exclusively obtained from the sale of eggs produced on his own estates. He paid especial attention to agriculture, and, though distinguished as a warrior, set the example of attending personally to his farm, his flocks and herds, the cultivation of his fields, and the welfare of his labourers. We may excuse his sumptuary laws for the reason that the object was to check the luxury of the nobles and to encourage home manufactures. When he died, in 1254, after a reign of thirty-three years, Nicaea had deservedly obtained15 the reputation of being the chief city of all Greek-speaking people, whether in Europe or in Asia, the city to which the people lifted up their eyes in confidence of a speedy return to the queen city on the shores of the Bosporus.
Theodore II. of Nicaea, 1254–1258.
The reign of Theodore Lascaris the Second, son of John Vataces, lasted only four years, and though he lacked the ability of his father, and was a sufferer from epilepsy, the empire of Nicaea continued to prosper. His military administration was able and successful. He continued the policy of Vataces in endeavouring to induce or to compel all the Greeks in the Balkan peninsula to come under his rule. It may be fairly said of him that on his death, in 1258, the position of Nicaea was stronger than on his accession.
During these two prosperous reigns in the Greek empire that of the Crusaders had continued to go from bad to worse. In spite of the anathemas of the popes against those who should attack Constantinople, the Bulgarians and the Greeks made war upon it whenever they thought the opportunity favourable. In spite of the exhortation of the popes to Western Europe to furnish men and money, and of the fact that both were furnished, the empire grew weaker in men and its financial situation became worse.
We have seen that Baldwin returned to Constantinople with an army which is said to have numbered 30,000 men, and which in any case was sufficiently large to alarm the Nicene emperor. But these reinforcements seem to have been a burden rather than an advantage, and the chief of the crusading empire had to shock Christian Europe by consenting to give his niece in marriage to the sultan of Konia in order to secure an alliance with him against the Greek emperor. Second visit of Baldwin to West.Baldwin’s necessities again compelled him to visit France. He was once more received with honour, and at the Council of Lyons, in 1245, he was given the position of supreme honour, and was placed on the right hand of the pope. All, indeed, that the sovereign pontiff could accomplish in favour of his guest in this Council was done. An alliance which the Emperor Frederick had made with John Vataces was denounced, and the head of the16 Holy Roman Empire was solemnly excommunicated. While nothing was said about the alliance with the Seljukian Turk, Frederick was condemned for allowing his daughter to be married to a schismatic Greek. Large sums were ordered to be contributed by the dignitaries of the Church and by the religious orders for the succour of the empire. St. Louis again gave Baldwin a welcome, and entertained him at his court during nearly two years while aid was being collected. The pope gave power to absolve from sins those who should join the Crusade or contribute to the support of the empire. But, as Matthew Paris says, his empire nevertheless daily decayed. It was not till 1248 that Baldwin returned to his impoverished capital. Perhaps the lowest depth of degradation was attained by him when in 1259 his necessity was so great that he was obliged to put his only son in pledge to certain Venetian nobles as security for the payment of what he had borrowed. The unfortunate lad was taken to Venice, and his father was unable to redeem him until after the recapture of Constantinople.
Before the death, in 1258, of Theodore Lascaris the Second, the ruler of Nicaea was acknowledged emperor, not merely throughout the northern part of Asia Minor, but in the kingdom of Macedonia, and even in a considerable portion of Thrace.John Ducas Emperor of Nicaea, 1258–1260. His successor, John, was a boy. John’s guardian was Michael Palaeologus, who was proclaimed emperor in January 1259–60. Seeing that there was some disorder in Nicaea, occasioned by the disputes between those in favour of the boy, who, in the ordinary course of succession, would have been emperor, and those who had recognised that the times were too critical to allow him to reign, and had Michael Palaeologus.consequently followed Michael, the Latin emperor, Baldwin, judged the moment opportune to stipulate for concessions. Accordingly he sent a mission to Nicaea to learn what Michael would give in order to avoid war. The historian Acropolitas, who was at Nicaea at the time, records what passed. The emperor mocked the ambassadors. They asked that he should surrender Salonica. The reply was that that city was the emperor’s birthplace; how could he17 part with it? They suggested Seres. The emperor responded that what they were asking was neither just nor decent, since he had received it from his father. ‘Give us, then, Bolero.’ But that was the emperor’s hunting-ground, and could not be spared. ‘What, then, will you give us?’ ‘Nothing whatever,’ replied the emperor. ‘But if you want peace with me, it is well, because you know me, and that I can fight. Pay me part of the tribute collected at Constantinople, and we shall be at peace.’ No better terms were to be had, and the ambassadors left.
Michael probably understood that his refusal would be followed by war. He therefore visited the fortifications already gained in Thrace by the Greeks, strengthened them, and within a few months the Latin empire was reduced to the occupation of Constantinople and a small strip around it. In the following year, 1260, Michael’s general, Strategopulus, was entrusted with the command in Thrace. He stormed Selymbria (the modern Silivria), and tried but failed to capture Galata, which was already in the occupation of the Genoese. Thereupon a truce was made for one year.
Seeing that the Venetians, whose great power in the Levant dates from the fall of Constantinople in 1204, in which they had played so important a part, still maintained their connection with the empire on the Bosporus and, indeed, continued to be the principal source of such strength as it possessed, Michael, to the great indignation of the pope and the West, made an alliance with their rivals, the Genoese, an alliance which was the foundation of their supremacy in trade in the Black Sea.
Capture of Constantinople by the Greeks.
It is not impossible that Strategopulus had been sent into Thrace in 1260 rather to form a judgment of the chances of capturing the city than of making war. It is quite possible, as suggested even by Pachymer, that the attempt on Galata was a mere feint in order that he might get into communication with friends in the capital. In consenting to give a year’s truce, however, Michael seems to have been sincere. Accordingly, when, in 1261, he again sent18 Strategopulus into Thrace it was with instructions that he was not to attack the city. He had with him only 800 men, but as he passed through the country behind Constantinople the Greek settlers (Volunteers, as they are called, (Θεληματάριοι), who had friends in the city, flocked to him, and urged that he would never have a better chance of capturing it than at that time. The last detachment of troops which had come from France had left the city, with the Venetian fleet, upon an expedition into the Black Sea to capture Daphnusia. Constantinople might be surprised in their absence. In spite of the imperial orders, the chance was too good to be missed. He brought his men to the neighbourhood of the capital, and hid them near the Holy Well of Baloukli, situated at about half a mile from the Gate of the Fountain,17 one of the important entrances into the city through the landward walls. His volunteers had not deceived him when they stated that they had friends in the city. Probably every Greek was a secret sympathiser.
George Acropolitas, who died in 1282, and whose account, therefore, must have been written while the events were fresh in his memory, gives the most trustworthy version of what happened. He says: ‘But as Strategopulus had some men near him who had come from the city and were well acquainted with all that had passed there, from whom he learned that there was a hole in the walls of the city through which an armed man could easily pass, he lost no time and set to work. A man passed through this hole; another followed, then others, until fifteen, and perhaps more, had got into the city. But, as they found a man on the walls on guard, some of them mounted the wall and, taking him by the feet, threw him over. Others having axes in their hands broke the locks and bolts of the gates, and thus rendered the entry easy for the army. This is how the Cæsar Strategopulus, and all the men he had with him, Romans and Scythians (for his army was composed of these 19two peoples), made their entry into the city.’18 Probably there were few inhabitants in that quarter, and the advance to the principal part of the city might be made in the dark. At dawn the invaders pushed on boldly, met with a brave resistance from a few—a resistance which they soon overcame—and the rest of the French19 defenders were seized with panic and fled. While the city was thus passing once more into the hands of the Greeks, the French and Venetian ships were coming straggling down the Bosporus, on their return from Daphnusia, which they had failed to capture. Accordingly, the army of Strategopulus and his volunteers set fire to the dwellings in the French and Venetian quarters in the city and to their villas on the European shore of the Bosporus near Galata. While the foreigners were occupied in saving their own property and their women and children from the fire, Strategopulus strengthened his position in the city.
Flight of Baldwin II.
The weak and incapable Baldwin was at the palace of Blachern when the Greeks entered the city. Afraid to pass through the streets where the fighting was going on, he entered a boat, made his way down the Golden Horn, and took refuge among other fugitives with the Venetian fleet.
End of Latin empire.
His flight was on July 25, 1261, and with it ends the history of the Latin empire in Constantinople. It had been established by perjured Crusaders and filibustering Venetians who were justly anathematised by Innocent the 20Third. It had always been a sickly plant in a foreign and uncongenial soil, and, though popes and kings had made quite remarkable exertions to make it grow, it never even gave a sign of taking root. The empire had succeeded, as Innocent predicted that it would, in making the Greeks loathe the members of the Latin Church like dogs, and in rendering the union of the two Churches impossible. The Crusaders, as Innocent had likewise foretold, had seized an empire which they could not defend.20 Their expedition had broken up the great machine of Roman government which had been working steadily and, in the main, well for nearly a thousand years. It had done irreparable mischief unaccompanied by any compensatory good. In the course of two generations, the barons who had taken part in the capture had died, and though among those who, at the bidding of successive popes and of St. Louis, replaced them there must have been many actuated by worthy motives, none among them have left any evidence whatever of statesmanship or of those qualities which have enabled nations to conciliate or to assimilate the people whom they have conquered. In sixty years the peasants might have become content to acknowledge a change of rulers had they been allowed to till their fields in peace: the traders might have forgotten the hostility of their fathers if they had been permitted to exercise their industry in security; but the continued and ever increasing exactions of their masters forbade them to forget that they were under alien rulers. All that were worthy in the city had sought refuge elsewhere: the priests, the students with their priceless manuscripts, and the traders had escaped to Nicaea or to Trebizond. The oppressors had seen themselves deserted and the limits of the empire restricted almost to the boundaries of the city. The Latin empire, which had never been formidable, had become an object of contempt. When, however, its last emperor slunk away as a fugitive from his imperial city, he was hardly more contemptible than when 21he was present as a mendicant at the court of St. Louis or of Henry the Third. His empire deserves only to be remembered as a gigantic failure, a check to the progress of European civilisation, a mischievous episode, an abortion among states, born in sin, shapen in iniquity, and dying amid ignominy.
22
CONDITION OF AND DIFFICULTIES IN RECONSTRUCTING THE EMPIRE: DIFFICULTIES ARISING (A) FROM ATTEMPTS BY LATINS TO RECOVER THE EMPIRE, (B) FROM CATALAN GRAND COMPANY.
Condition of capital on Baldwin’s flight.
When Constantinople was captured by the Crusaders and Venetians it was adorned with the accumulated wealth of centuries and decorated with art treasures for which not only Greece but the whole Roman Empire had been ransacked. When the city was recaptured by the Greeks it was a desolation. Houses, churches, and monasteries were in ruins; whole quarters were deserted. Heaps of rubbish marked where extensive fires had consumed houses which no one cared to rebuild. The imperial palace itself was in so disorderly and filthy a condition that it was some time before it could be occupied. In place of a large population of the most educated and highly civilised people in Europe, was a miserably small number of Greeks who had been reduced to poverty with a number of foreign and principally French colonists. While the foreign captors had plundered the city and carried off the bronze horses of Lysippus and innumerable other objects of art and value to Western Europe, they and their successors during the fifty-eight years of occupation had, in their contemptuous ignorance of the art of a conquered people, destroyed probably more than had been taken away as plunder.
The Queen City, which during many centuries had preserved her inviolability and had largely for that reason become the treasure-house of the empire and even of a large part of the Western world, had lost her reputation as23 a place of safety. Amid the devastation in Egypt, in Syria, and in Asia Minor, marked and mainly caused by the advances of the Saracens and Seljukian Turks, by the struggles of the Crusaders, and the destruction of the ancient civilisations of Eastern Asia Minor occasioned by the westward movements of Asiatic hordes, the merchant had known only of one city where his merchandise was safe and where he could trade in security.
Loss of its commerce.
The stream of commerce between the East and the West which had flowed through the Bosporus had been diverted into other channels, and the great emboloi and warehouses were lying empty or in ruins. Tana or the Azof, which had been the starting-point of a great caravan route through Bokhara, Samarcand, and Balkh, now no longer contributed largely to the commerce of Constantinople. Such of its trade as was not sent overland to Western Europe was held by the Venetians, and at a somewhat later period by the Genoese or other Italians, and scarcely contributed at all to the wealth of the capital. The Danube became during the thirteenth century the highway between the Black and the North Seas. The city which had been the great centre for the collection and distribution of the furs, the hides, the caviare and dried fish, the honey, wax, and other produce which the Russian merchants collected and stored for the use of the West, was now studiously avoided. The Western traders who had met those from Novgorod, Tchernigov, and Kief at Constantinople now found their way to the mouth of the Dnieper and arranged for the transit of their goods so as to avoid the pirates whom the Latin rulers of Constantinople were unable to suppress, or the exactions levied upon their merchandise if they came within the power of the ancient capital. Trade which had come to Constantinople along the ancient roads through Asia Minor had either ceased to exist or had been diverted into other channels. The confidence arising from a sense of security which through a long series of years had attracted commerce could not be restored and in fact was never regained. The loss of her trade took from Constantinople the only external source of24 revenue. The restored empire had thus to depend almost exclusively upon the contributions which it could levy upon the long harassed and impoverished peoples who recognised its rule.
The recapture of the capital, though an epoch-marking event, was only one step towards the restoration of the empire. It never really was restored. It never recovered the commanding position which it had occupied during even the worst periods of its history since Constantine. Its existence from 1261 to its capture by the Turks in 1453 is one long struggle.
Difficulties of restored empire.
The capital had been a centre which had kept well in touch with even the remote corners of the empire. In it had been the seat of government, the highest law courts presided over by the ablest jurists, the continuators of the work of Justinian, whose labour had formulated the law of all continental Europe. There also was the centre of the theological and religious life of the empire and the seat of the administration. Unhappily, during the sixty years of Latin rule the whole framework of this administration had been broken up. A new plan of government had to be devised. The new officials of the emperors were called upon to govern without rules, without experience, and without traditions. The forms of provincial and municipal government were hardly remembered, and there were no men trained in affairs to breathe life into them.
The influences at work in the capital had bound the empire together, but they had been exercised through local administrations. The result now was that the government became centralised: that is, that matters which previously would have been dealt with in the provinces by men with local knowledge had to be dealt with in the capital by men who were necessarily under many disadvantages. The effort of its rulers after the city was recaptured was not merely to restore to it the territory which had acknowledged its sway, but to administer good government directly from its capital.
Unfortunately, the desolation wrought in Constantinople was reproduced throughout every portion of what had been25 the empire before the Latin conquest. The country had been everywhere impoverished and the population diminished by successive raids of Crusaders or pretenders.
From foreign states.
Nor were the external difficulties of the restored empire less alarming. When Michael the Eighth entered the recaptured city he found anarchy throughout his European territory and neighbouring states eager to enlarge their boundaries at his expense. The Bulgarians were a formidable power, whose dominions were not divided from his own by any natural boundary. The Serbians had utilised the period of the Latin occupation to gather strength and were rising once again to importance. The crusading families who had obtained fiefs in Greece and the southern portion of Macedonia still retained their independence. Genoese and Venetians, while struggling against each other for the favour of the emperor, were each on the alert to obtain territory as well as trading privileges at his expense.
From hostility towards Roman Church.
One of the most serious evils inflicted on the empire by the Latin occupation was the fierce antagonism it had created in the Orthodox Church towards that of the elder Rome. We have seen that Innocent had foreseen this result, but even he, great statesman though he was, could hardly have anticipated that the hatred aroused would be of so long a duration. When the city had been captured a Latin patriarch had been appointed, the union of the Churches had been forced upon clergy and people, and the Church, which had always considered itself the equal if not the superior of Rome, was relegated to a position of inferiority. All attempts at reunion were henceforward regarded not merely from the point of view of religion, but from that of patriotism. Union was part of the heritage of bondage. Union meant voluntary submission to the foreign Church which had been able to impose its rule during two generations. Union, therefore, in the minds of a majority of both clergy and laity had to be resisted as a badge of slavery.
Though the Latin empire had perished, there still remained a Latin emperor or pretender, and he and his descendants, with the support of successive popes and aided by26 adventurers from France, Italy, and Spain, made many and constant attempts to regain the position which had been lost. For upwards of a century after the city’s recapture there was a general scramble by the European neighbours of the empire and Western powers for adjacent territory. The dominions of the emperor were large and sparsely populated, and offered an irresistible temptation to neighbouring states. More formidable, however, than all other enemies were the Turks. Though they had been attacked in the rear and were for a while rent by internal dissensions, they were steadily increasing: adding constantly by conquests to the territory over which their emirs ruled, and increasing in numbers by the never-failing stream of immigrants and born warriors coming into Asia Minor from Central Asia.
From Michael’s usurpation.
Among the first difficulties encountered in the reconstruction of the empire must be noted that arising from the irregularity of Michael’s own position. It is worthy of note, not merely as a difficulty, but as showing the independent spirit of the Orthodox Church. The reader will have ample evidence of the inflexibility of its resistance on questions of dogma, but the very commencement of the reign of Michael illustrates how it was prepared to make a vigorous stand even against the deliverer of the empire on the simple ground of righteousness. We have seen that Michael had no legal claim to the throne. The de jure heir was John, a child of eight years when his father, Theodore Lascaris, died. His guardians were Michael, who had been made Grand Duke, and Arsenius the Patriarch. When a year afterwards, in 1261, the city was recaptured, it was expected by some persons of influence that Michael would either simply act as regent or associate John with him as co-emperor as soon as he became of age. Michael, however, in the same year, blinded the boy, so as to render him incapable of ascending the throne.21 Arsenius the Patriarch, as soon as the cruel deed became known, called a meeting of the bishops and boldly pronounced against the 27emperor a formal sentence of excommunication. None of the bishops opposed. They did not attempt to depose him. One can only conjecture why they hesitated. Possibly it was because they considered it expedient that he should remain on the throne, or it may be that they regarded such a step as beyond their jurisdiction. The emperor was alarmed, feared the consequences of excommunication among the troops, but feared probably still more the spiritual penalties which would follow the sentence. He preferred, says Pachymer,22 to die rather than to live burdened with the anathemas of the Church. He sought out friends of the patriarch and begged them to use all their influence to have the penalties removed. He urged that penance should be imposed, and professed himself ready to undergo any which might be deemed necessary to atone for his fault. The patriarch replied that, even if he were threatened with death, he would never remove the excommunication. The emperor went himself to visit Arsenius, and in the conversation asked whether it was his wish that he should abdicate, unbuckling his sword as he did so. When, however, the patriarch stretched out his hand to receive it, the emperor put it back. The patriarch remained firm. The emperor complained bitterly to his friends of the conduct of Arsenius, and threatened that, as his own Church would not grant him absolution, he would have recourse to the pope, who would be more conciliatory. Years passed and Arsenius constantly refused to give way. Every means thought of by the emperor of conciliating him had failed, and he at length determined to have him deposed. But threats and promises were equally unavailable. He had called together the bishops on several occasions and complained that it was impossible for him to govern the country unless he was relieved of so heavy a burden.23 On the last of these occasions he claimed that by the law of the Church every Christian had a right to absolution on doing penance, and he asked whether such laws were to be construed less favourably for princes than for other sinners. He submitted that the patriarch had treated him not only 28unjustly but illegally, and concluded by inviting the bishops to depose Arsenius.
Once more he sent to ask the patriarch whether or not he would grant absolution, and once more Arsenius refused. Upon this, as the bishops would not consent to declare that he was not justified in maintaining the anathema, the emperor had Articles of Accusation drawn against him. The charges were not altogether of a trivial character. He accused him of having shortened the prayer for the emperor in matins; of having ordered the omission of the Trisagion; of having conversed in a friendly manner with the sultan of the Seljukian Turks; of having allowed him and other Mahometan companions to bathe in a bath belonging to the Church, where there were crosses; of having ordered a monk to administer the Sacrament to the sultan’s children, although he was not certain that they had been baptised.
An assembly of bishops was convoked to examine the charges. The patriarch replied by objecting to the meeting of the court in the palace, refused to appear, and promised to send his answer to the charges in writing. Pachymer recounts in some detail how the emperor endeavoured to obtain absolution by a trick, and how Arsenius on discovering it asked him if he thought he could deceive God. The emperor in reply insisted that some of the charges should be pressed on to hearing and obtained a majority of votes condemning the patriarch.24
The patriarch was thereupon exiled.
His successor, Germanus, removed the anathema, but doubts arose in the emperor’s mind whether the removal was valid. After a few months Germanus was persuaded by the emperor to retire, and in his place the nominee of Michael, a certain Joseph, was named. The new patriarch was a courtier, and probably knew that the principal reason for his election was that absolution might be effectively and publicly given. The emperor allowed Joseph a month within which to consider the best means of granting him 29absolution, and then all was arranged. On the great feast of Candlemas, February 2, 1267, there was a notable function in Hagia Sophia for the removal of the anathema. The ceremony was a long and solemn one, the patriarch and the bishops, and probably the emperor and his suite, having had to pass the whole night in the church. The great church was crowded with worshippers or spectators. When the liturgy was completed the emperor, who had thus far remained standing surrounded by his guards and senators, drew near the Holy Gates25 behind which stood the bishops. Then, uncovered, he prostrated himself to the ground at the feet of the patriarch, publicly confessed his sin, and humbly demanded pardon. While he was thus prostrate, the patriarch, and after him each of the bishops, read the formula by which he was absolved from the crime committed against the young emperor. When all had thus given absolution, the emperor rose, was admitted to Holy Communion, and, says Pachymer, henceforward treated John with every kindness. The point, however, to be noted is that even the emperor, strong-willed usurper as he was, was not merely afraid of the terrors of the Church, but found it extremely difficult to bend it to his will so as to obtain the removal of its sentence for an unjust act, although there were many obvious advantages to the state in complying with the emperor’s wish.
Difficulties arising from attempts by Latins to recover the Empire.
From the first year of his accession Michael the Eighth set himself the task of diverting from the empire the attacks of Western states. It was not to be expected that Baldwin and the statesmen of the West would settle down resignedly to the loss of a Latin empire. During many years their attempts to regain the city constituted the most pressing danger to the empire and contributed more than any other cause during Michael’s reign to render it unable to hold its own against the encroachments of the Turks. To Michael, as to all other statesmen in Europe, the representative of the 30West was the pope. To satisfy the pope was to appease Western Europe, to divert attacks from the empire, and to cause aid to be sent against the Moslems. But the pope, on the accession of Michael, was doubly offended: first, because the Latin empire had been overthrown, and second, because the prospect of union between the two Churches was put back. Several years had to pass and many struggles had to be borne before the pontiffs reconciled themselves to the final disappearance of that Latin empire the foundation of which the great statesman Pope Innocent the Third had dreaded.
Attempts at reconciliation with Roman Church.
Michael, while resisting all attacks made or favoured by the pope, saw the desirability of being reconciled with him so as, if possible, to induce him not to lend his support to the efforts of Baldwin to recover the city. With this object he never lost an opportunity, even at the cost of alienating the sympathies of his own people and being denounced by his own ecclesiastics, of endeavouring to gain the pontifical favour by attempting to bring about the Union of the Churches.
It is remarkable that from his accession until the end of his reign these attempts fill a part of all contemporary histories quite disproportionate to what at first sight appears their importance. It is even more remarkable that during the whole period between the capture of the city by Michael and the Moslem siege in 1453 the dominant question of interest was that of the Union of the Churches. The fact that the representative of Western Europe was the sovereign pontiff accounts to a great extent, though not altogether, for the prominent part played by the religious question in nearly all the negotiations between the later emperors and the West. Not even the constant and almost unceasing struggle with the Turks occupies so much attention as do the negotiations with Rome, the embassies, the Councils, and the ever-varying tentatives to bring the two Churches into reconciliation. No true conception of the life of the empire can be formed unless it is realised how completely its citizens were occupied with these semi-religious, semi-political questions. On one side the popes were almost constant in their31 attempts, now to compel the Eastern Church to come in, now to persuade it; on the other, the emperors, while fully cognisant of the importance of diverting Western attacks and, at a later period, of receiving aid against the common enemy of Christendom, had constantly to meet with the dogged and unceasing opposition and bitter hostility of the great mass of their subjects to purchasing help at the price of union with the Latin Church.
A struggle began immediately on the accession of Michael and soon became a curiously complicated strife. The pope in 1262 proclaimed a Crusade against him and against the Genoese, who still remained allied with him. The pontiff characterised Michael as a usurper and a schismatic, and granted the same indulgences to those who took up arms or contributed to the expenses of the expedition against him as to those who fought for the deliverance of the Holy Land. He urged St. Louis to collect tithes for the same purpose.26 Michael, on the other hand, while preparing to resist invasion and strengthening the city walls, increasing his fleet, and raising new levies, yet sought to satisfy the pope by offering to do his utmost to bring about the Union of the Churches. Possibly owing to the emperor’s representations, Urban the Fourth countermanded the proposed expedition, diverting it against the Tartars who were then invading Palestine. He sent friars to Constantinople to exhort the emperor to carry out his proposal for reunion. His successor, Clement, was, however, a man of a different spirit and replied to the promises of Michael that they were only fair words intended to prevent him from aiding the dethroned Baldwin. While Michael had undoubtedly this object in view, he seems to have been sincere in his desire for Union. One of his objections to the patriarch Arsenius was that he would have nothing to do with the Latins. The Greek priests clamoured to such an extent against the patriarch who succeeded Arsenius, because he was believed to be willing to follow the emperor’s example in working for Union, that he was compelled to resign.
32
As time went on, the Venetians, whose influence in the city had fallen with the Latin empire, began to lose hope of seeing Baldwin re-established on the throne, and in 1267 sent to make peace with Michael. Gregory the Tenth threatened the doge with anathema if he even made a truce with him. The emperor endeavoured, though in vain, to appease the wrath of the pope by obtaining the intervention of Louis of France. Gregory, whom Michael had congratulated on his accession upon the death of Clement, was more conciliatory. He sent legates to the capital to treat once more on Union. Pachymer gives a vivid account of the negotiations which followed, an account from which it is difficult to doubt the sincerity of the emperor’s wish for reconciliation or the persistence of the opposition which he had to encounter. He states27 that the emperor followed the example of John Ducas of Nicaea, that he sent many embassies to Rome, and that his real object was to obtain from the popes protection for the Greeks. Gregory assured him that no time was so favourable as the present for putting an end to the Greek schism. The emperor on his side did his utmost to persuade the patriarch and the bishops to aid him. The Latin delegates themselves were men of piety who showed every possible respect for the Greek rite. They were invited to discuss the differences between the dogmas of the two Churches. In their interviews with the bishops they claimed that the Filioque clause which constituted the great point of discussion was a divine mystery which was impenetrable, that while the difference between the Latin formula which declared that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father | ||||||
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TURKEY AND THE ARMENIAN ATROCITIES
Note from the administration of ArmenianHouse.org: the page numbering is preserved, so the book can be used for quoting. Also we did our best to keep the layout as close to the original as possible.
[page 164]
CHAPTER IX.
RISE AND DECLINE OF OTTOMAN POWER.
Capture of Constantinople — Victories of Mohammed II — The Sultans Assume the Caliphate — Reign of Suleiman the Magnificent — Attack upon Venice — Constant Strife over the Danubian Principalities — Internal Disorganization — Weak Sultans and Powerful Viziers — Alliances with Foreign Powers — Repeated Disasters — Weak Rule in Asia — Revolt in Egypt and Syria — Condition at Commencement of Present Century.
For a little more than half a century after the foundation of the Ottoman dynasty, the Ottomans merely formed one of the many bands of Turks who roamed over Western Asia and Southeastern Europe, plundering the Christians where they could and fighting each other in a promiscuous contest for the supremacy; always, however, showing an upward tendency. Not only were they vigorous on the battle-field, but shrewd in their policies. The close of the Seljuk dynasty was the signal for the division of the once famous empire of Rum. One by one these divisions fell into the hands of the new Sultans; some by conquest, some by purchase, some by politics, until they were by far the most powerful element in that whole section. The weakening of the Byzantine Empire, and its practical loss of power over the Danubian provinces, tempted these Turks across the Dardanelles, and they measured swords with the Serbs, Wallachs and others. Under Amurath, the founder of the
[page 165] CAPTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
Janissaries, they became a terror to all, and the flag, whose red color was established by himself as token of the blood that flowed wherever they went, was flaunted in the very face of Christian Emperors. Then, however, came a check; Timour-Lenk (Timour the Lame, Tamerlane), who had risen against his Sultan in the small canton of Trans-Oxiana, gathered to his standard the semi-barbarous tribes of Turkestan, spread through Khorassan, Persia, Georgia and Southern Russia; then south through Armenia and Mesopotamia into India. Then he turned again westward, and, influenced not a little, perhaps, by the presence in his court of some Turkish princes, deposed by the Ottoman Sultans, he captured Syria, and just as Bajazet was under the walls of Constantinople he heard that his own kingdoms were in danger. At the famous battle of Konieh (Iconium) the Ottoman power was broken; but with the death of Timour his empire went to pieces and the Ottoman line again resumed its power. For another half century advance was made even more rapidly than before, and on either side of the Bosporus and Dardanelles the arms of the Turks were victorious.
The capture of Constantinople, which followed in 1453, really marked the beginning of the Turkish Empire. The series of forays, with the occasional capture of an important city or even of a province in Asia Minor or the Balkan Peninsula, had become an organized campaign for the subjugation of the whole of Western Asia and Southeastern Europe. More than that, an entire change in form of government became necessary. Hitherto all of government that there had been was that of the army, and pertained to the immediate Moslem followers of the Sultan. The various tribes or nations who yielded to his arms, but refused to accept Islam, really had no
[page 166] NOW AN EMPEROR.
relation whatever to his rule. They paid what tribute was demanded, but there was no such thing as regular civil government. When, however, Constantinople was captured, this condition could no longer continue. It was essential that there be some definite relation arranged between the Sultan and the large class of Greeks who had come to form so important a part of the empire. He realized that the whole position was changed; that he was no longer merely a general, but an emperor, and an emperor over a very heterogeneous empire.
To begin with, there were the Greeks in Constantinople, all through Western Asia Minor and in Europe; there were the Armenians, scarcely recognized as a distinct people, with at the time no government of their own, scarcely more than a race, an ecclesiastical unit, held together by their church relations, and with a sort of tribal organization; there was the Syrian Church in its varied forms, Nestorian and Jacobite; there were the different branches of the Slav race, all combined under the Greek Church. Undoubtedly Mohammed II, would have been glad to have made them all Moslem. That, however, he could not do, and very possibly he realized that while such a course might flatter his pride, it would not be so advantageous for his treasury, for he collected taxes from Christians which Moslems would refuse to pay. Still, there must be some method arranged by which these different nationalities should not only have their existence recognized, but should be allowed a certain development with a view to the strengthening of the empire.
During the century that had elapsed since the Ottoman dynasty began, the various Sultans had come into contact with the forms of Roman government. They had taken advantage
[page 167] CHURCH AND STATE.
of it in arranging for Moslems within the territories of the Greek Emperors, and the Roman system of one law for the citizen, another for the foreigner, was perfectly familiar to them. Mohammed adopted this principle, and basing it upon the idea, which dominates the whole growth of Moslem power, of absolute union of Church and State, developed the system which has governed in all that region until the present day, and established a series of communities centering about the different ecclesiastical leaders. Although it was not till a later date that the Sultans assumed the title of Caliph, they had practically ruled as Caliphs among their Moslem subjects. The same principle Mohammed II applied to the Christians of his empire. Recognizing the Greek Patriarch at Constantinople as the centre of authority, he called to that office the head of the party, which under the last Constantine had opposed a union with the Latin Church, and thereby, as he thought, had made his own conquest easier, and confirmed him in the dignity of the double office, civil and religious, which he was to exercise over his people. He associated with him the clergy and learned men of the church, and treated them with marked indulgence. He instituted a court, giving the rank of Vizier to the Patriarch and granting to him a guard of Janissaries. He established a system of government by which all community and social rights and duties were vested in the Patriarchate, which had sole authority in cases of marriage contracts, legacies, wills, divorces, and even had absolute authority in criminal matters, except such as directly involved the Sultan’s authority. Thus there grew up a distinct community life involving a national life. The principle of the Moslem being that there could be no legitimate relations between himself
[page 168] COMMUNAL RIGHTS.
and the non-Moslem, there were accorded to these all the various community or communal rights. They had their own quarter of the city, town or village; their own shops, butchers, bakers, tailors; their own mills as well as their own churches. True, there was demanded of them a heavy tax, the regular capitation or poll tax, and the kharadj or military exemption tax, demanded of every non-Moslem male from the age of three years. These taxes were by no means light, and it was the general principle of the government to so administer them as to impress it very clearly upon the unbeliever that his condition was abject, and that even his life was a mark of the Sultan’s favor. Still, there was a certain independence, and the Greeks gathered again to their city, and the wiser of the Sultans that followed Mohammed II carried out the idea of developing rather than of fiercely oppressing these communities.
With this granting of communal rights to the Greeks came in due time the recognition of the same principle in the case of the other Christians, and each was represented at the Sublime Porte by its Patriarch, with the various attendants of bishops and clergy.
One marked result of this course was to intensify the separation between these different nationalities. The communities of Greeks, Armenians and Syrians being so distinct, there arose more or less of strife between them as to which should secure the greater privileges and develop the most of community life. Hence the original hostilities arising out of the differences of creed and worship were emphasized rather than lessened, and whether intentionally or not, there grew up the custom under the Sultans of ruling in a great degree by force of jealousies between different classes of their subjects.
[page 169] DISTURBING INFLUENCES.
This general principle adopted in Constantinople was carried out in minor detail all through the empire. In every city Christians were organized into their communities and the ecclesiastical head, whatever he might be, whether bishop or priest or deacon, was recognized by the local government as the civil head of his community. Appeals could be made to his higher ecclesiastical authorities, and the whole power of the Turkish Government was brought to bear to enforce the decrees of these semi-civil, semi-ecclesiastical rulers.
It was not, however an easy thing to develop any system of this kind throughout the empire. Among the disturbing influences was the confiscation of the lands of the great Greek families and their transformation into fiefs’, which were conferred on distinguished warriors who held them on condition of serving the Sultan with a certain number of followers, helped to solidify the empire, but operated very heavily to repress the Christians. It left them at the mercy of these feudal chiefs, and the situation during the centuries that followed was one of increasing oppression. This was assisted by the degradation of their own priesthood. Their position as civil representatives of their people detracted more and more from their spiritual teaching, and they became addicted to all sorts of intrigues.
Two notable results followed. One was the formation of bands of freebooters in the mountain regions, who preyed upon the plain villages in proportion as the feudal lords were careless or weak; the other was the gradual dispersion of these Christian communities. This affected the Armenians more than any others. They wandered here and there over the empire in search of some place where they should be left unmolested. It was about this time that they established
[page 170] EXTENDING CONQUEST.
their quasi-kingdom at Sis in Cilicia, and spread over the plains of Northern Syria and of Central Asia Minor. Their kingdom had a short life, and the effect of their wandering from the ancestral home was to bring them still more under the oppression of the Turks, so that they even lost the ordinary use of their language.
Of the events that followed the capture of Constantinople it is impossible here to do more than to give the very briefest summary, and emphasize only such points as are most essential to the understanding of the situation as it is to-day. First came the extending of conquest, and during the thirty years that followed the capture of Constantinople, it seemed as if more had been done than at any time before. Servia yielded; then came Greece, although the famous Scanderbeg held his own in Albania. More than one historian has suggested that the effort to subdue him was only half-hearted out of regard for his bravery and for the memories of his early life with the Turks. Then Wallachia yielded and the people of Transylvania found the Moslem no severer ruler than Wlad, called by his subjects Drakul (the devil). Bosnia yielded its rule next, and war spread on southward and westward against the Albanians and Venetians. Meanwhile the princes of Karaman, who for a century and a half had held a varying rule in Central Asia Minor, were finally subdued and the Sultan’s power over what is now Asiatic Turkey was practically complete. Again he turned to Europe, crossed the Dardanelles, took Moldavia and captured the Crimea, which had for a time been under the Khans of that country, though they had in turn yielded to a Christian republic, which had maintained itself for some time with its capital, the most important town of the northern Black Sea coast. Always,
[page 171] THE SULTAN’S EXALTATION.
however, there was the outlook westward, and although Venice checked the advance of the Ottomans, they still threw themselves upon Transylvania and made incursions into Hungary and Italy, and Mohammed II closed his reign with an attack upon Rhodes, which, however, was repulsed.
From the death of Mohammed II, in 1481, to the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, in 1520, there were expeditions into Hungary and Moldavia, and war with Venice and Persia, but no great additions to the Ottoman domain. This, however, was more than made up by the conquest of Syria and Egypt. The significance of these conquests was great as mere territorial enlargement of the empire, but more important still were the attendant influences which resulted in placing the Turkish Sultans at the head of the Moslem world. The last Mameluke Sultan, of Egypt, was hanged at the gate of Cairo in 1517, and Sultan Selim passed a month longer in that capital presiding at two great Egyptian ftes — the opening of the Cairo Canal, and the departure of the annual caravan for Mecca, and received from the Sherif of Mecca the keys of the Kaaba. His army, however, became restless and he returned to Constantinople. To that city he summoned Mohammed XII, the last representative of the Abbas-side Caliphs, to whom the rulers of Egypt had always given the honorary title. Selim required of him to relinquish the rights and distinctive ensigns of the Caliphate, the standard, the sword and the mantle of the prophet, and assumed the political and religious chieftainship of Islam. This conquest of Egypt and the assumption of the Caliphate attracted the alarm of European powers and resulted in treaties with Venice and Hungary. A second attack on Rhodes was
[page 172] SULEIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT.
planned, but not carried out, and in 1520 Selim gave place to his son Suleiman the Magnificent.
The reign of Suleiman from 1520 to 1566, deserves more than a passing mention. It was the golden age of the Turkish rule, when the empire reached its greatest extent and achieved its highest success; when all Europe was either dreading its advance or treating for its assistance. But it was also noticeable for its internal organization, which remained until Mahmud II, under the pressure of the altered circumstances of 250 years later, made changes which have resulted in the present system.
The relations between Turkey and the European powers, inaugurated practically during this reign, will be treated of later. Here it is the purpose to survey the general history of that reign. The first act was the suppression of a revolt along the Danube, and Belgrade was taken, its Serb population being transferred to Constantinople in pursuance of a policy inaugurated by Mohammed II for the building up of that city. Then the Sultan turned his eyes to Rhodes, and with a fleet of 300 vessels and 100,000 men undertook its capture. For five months the Grand Master of the Knights held out, but was finally forced to yield, and betook himself with his men to Malta, where they planned anew the war against the Koran. Next to Rhodes, Hungary was the great object of the Sultan’s ambition, and it was only a few years later that he made vast preparations for an invasion. At the battle of Mohacz, in 1526, the Hungarian kingdom was destroyed, and on the 10th of September Suleiman entered Budapesth.
Revolts in Asia, however, called back the Sultan, though the war continued in Hungary, and a second expedition was
[page 173] ATTACK ON VIENNA.
started three years later. It was the Turkish theory that any place in which the Sultan had slept was within the bounds of his empire, and accordingly again Budapesth was occupied; this time, however, merely as a vantage ground from which to attack Vienna itself. The history of the defense of the Austrian capital is one of the most brilliant in the military history of Central Europe during that century. Notwithstanding the overwhelming power of the Turks, with their army of 300,000 men and 300 cannon, besides a strong flotilla, the Austrians, reinforced by the Protestants — so-called since the protest at Spires in the spring of that year — resolved to defend the place. The city walls were weak and out of repair, and the Sultan apparently thought conquest easy, for he sent a message that if the garrison would surrender he would not even enter the town, but press on in search of the emperor; if they resisted he would dine in Vienna on the third day, and then he would not spare even the child in the womb. They, however, would not yield, and he never entered. The bravery of the troops who gathered from every part of Germany, assisted by the valor of the citizens, repulsed the Turks again and again, and, as the season was advancing, the Sultan returned to Constantinople. A third expedition resulted again in a most humiliating disgrace; 350,000 Turks, led by the Sultan himself, were detained more than three weeks by a garrison of about 700 men at a little town in Styria. Germany amassed all its forces, and now there came in the influence of Western Europe. France had already made advances to the Turkish Government, and Venice, seeking protection for her commerce, had entered into treaty, and both of them through their ambassadors advised the Sultan, with a weakened army, not to meet the well-organized troops of Charles
[page 174] INTERNAL HISTORY.
V. The expedition, therefore, was reluctantly withdrawn, to be renewed again later, and again given up when a general truce was arranged with the German power. Meanwhile, however, Barbarossa had come in conflict with the Venetian Doria, and the Italian shore was threatened by the Turkish troops. But no great gains were made, and at the death of Suleiman, in 1566, no positive advance had been registered. The internal history of the empire was in some respects more important than the external. Suleiman is known among the Ottomans as the Legislator. He organized the Ulemas, altered the system of fiefs, and arranged matters of finance, justice, civil and penal law, and the various departments of his empire. The general principle of land tenure was based upon the doctrine that the soil belonged to God, and thus to his representative, the Sultan. It was, however, apart from that reserved for the Sultan himself, divided into three classes; land occupied by Mussulmans after the conquest, subject only to the tithes; land let to conquered populations, especially Rayahs (non-Moslem subjects), who, aside from the tithe, paid capitation and exemption taxes; and the domains given by the Sultan as military rewards under the arrangement inaugurated by Amurath I. In general, the principle of the collection of taxes had been to make them as onerous as possible. Suleiman recognized the unwisdom of this, and introduced various modifications, which had the effect of lessening the harshness, and at the same time of increasing the revenues. He also looked very closely after the fiefs, demanding that only the smaller ones should be under the control of the governors of provinces; that the larger ones must be referred to Constantinople. This last order had special reference to the taxes levied by these governors upon the peasants. Notwith-
[page 175] PAYMENT FOR CRIME.
standing this organized system of revenue, the income was not sufficient, and additional contributions of one kind and another were laid, especially upon conquered provinces, such as Hungary and Transylvania, which resulted in the almost utter destruction of their prosperity. In the matter of crime, corporal punishment was sparingly inflicted. Almost every crime could be atoned for by the payment of a fine. Notwithstanding the brilliant success achieved, it was in this very reign that the decadence of Moslem rule commenced. The heavy expenses of the various wars, and of the organization of the empire, had a great influence in bringing about a condition of venality which rapidly sapped the strength of the government. Suleiman saw it, but allowed it to pass, only taking care that it did not interfere with his army. His power over the army, however, weakened. It had hitherto been the custom that the Janissaries should never enter war except under the personal lead of the Sultan. This privilege was withdrawn. Their numbers also were recruited by adventurers of every kind, and the general discipline was weakened by allowing them to marry, follow trades, and become stationary in the garrisons, where they were practically citizens, merchants, operators, etc. In the general conduct of the government also, the Sultan no longer presided over the Cabinet Meeting or Divan, as it was called. He confined himself more and more to his palace, and came under the effeminating influence of a luxury carried to such an extent that the surroundings of the Christian princes of Europe paled before the pomp of the Moslem Court. The formal condemnation by the Koran of such luxury was passed by entirely, the simplicity of manners to which the empire owed its advance was greatly corrupted; the use of wine became quite common,
[page 176] CHRONIC WAR.
and the use of coffee, just introduced, was carried to excess. The result was that in every department of the government there were sown the seeds of the weakness that manifested itself, with occasional exceptions, in the history of the succeeding two and one-half centuries.
The history of the following years, aside from the relations with the European Governments, must be passed over very briefly. They include expeditions to Arabia, the conquest of Cyprus in 1570, the battle of Lepanto, when the fleets of Europe — Spanish, Italian and Venetian — blotted out the Turkish marine, and freed the Mediterranean coast from the terror of their devastations. This was, however, somewhat compensated for by the capture of Tunis. There was chronic war with Hungary and Persia, that with the latter power resulting in the addition to the Ottoman Power of Georgia and a considerable portion of Northern and Southeastern Persia. The whole Balkan Peninsula was in a chronic state of revolt and subjugation. There were powerful Sultans, such as Amurath I, and great viziers, as the Kuprulis. At times the Turkish successors threatened again the peace of Europe, but they were generally used by one and another government, particularly France, as a check to the encroachments of enemies.
In 1669, “the Ottoman Empire included forty governments and four tributary countries: in Europe all Greece, Illyria, Maesia, Macedonia, Pannonia, Thrace and Dacia; the kingdoms of Pyrrhus and Perseus; the states of Treballi and the Bulgarians: in Africa the kingdom of the Ptolemies, with the territory of Carthage and Numidia: in Asia the kingdoms of Mithridates, Antiochus, Attalus, Prusias, Herod and Tigranes; those of the obscure sovereigns of Cappadocia,
[page 177] SOBIESKI’S ASSISTANCE.
Cilicia and Comagena; the territories of the Iberians and the Scythians, and a portion of the empire of the Parthians. Without reckoning the Greek Republics and the Tyrian colony, there were twenty kingdoms included in these forty governments, from the Syrtes to the Caucasus, and to the countries watered by the Hydaspes.”
To these territories was added the lower part of Russia, held by the Cossacks of the Ukraine, who voluntarily submitted to the Sultan’s rule as protection against the Russians and Poland. This occasioned the war with Poland, when the Poles were led by John Sobieski. The famous general, Kara Mustapha, in 1683, sought to rival the conquests of Suleiman, and with an army more powerful than any the Turks had ever sent from Constantinople, determined to besiege Vienna. The Austrian king called for Sobieski’s assistance, and secured it notwithstanding the intrigues of Louis XIV, who vainly sought to convince the Pole that his real enemies were in Austria, and in that power of the north whom the Dutch papers had begun to call “ His Russian Majesty.” Loyal to his religion, however, Sobieski went to the aid of Vienna. His cavalry, aided by that of the Germans, put the Turks to flight after more than 10,000 of their troops had been left on the field of battle. Then came a panic, and the Turks fled in disorder, leaving an immense booty to the victors. Of this the King of Poland received as his share 4,000,000 florins, while arms studded with precious stones, and banners and treasures to a very heavy amount, were divided among the victors.
The war with Austria developed into the war against the Holy Alliance, a league against the Turks, under the protection of the Pope, and formed by the Emperor of Austria, the
[page 178] PEACE OF CARLOWITZ.
King of Poland, and the Republic of Venice, to which also the Czar was invited. This war went on with varying fortunes until the peace of Carlowitz, in 1699. This period included the rule of the famous Kupruli Mustapha Pasha, one of the most successful and most noted of the Macedonian family, which supplied five viziers to the Ottoman throne. He was probably one of the most intelligent, courageous and humane statesmen of Turkey, and his death in battle was regretted alike by Christians and Turks, who named him Kupruli the Virtuous. The tide, however, had set against Turkey, and under the influence of William of Orange the intrigues of Louis XIV, were set aside, and Turkey signed the peace of Carlowitz. By this Hungary and Transylvania were ceded to Austria, with the exception only of a small territory. Poland recovered Ukraine and Podolia; Russia retained Azof; Venice on her part gave up her conquests to the north of the Gulf of Corinth and almost the whole of Dalmatia, and all the tributes paid by the Christian powers to the Ottoman courts were abolished.
This was the first great gap made in the Ottoman Empire, and from this time it ceased to be an object of dread in Europe. Hitherto it had been isolated and owed its greatness to that fact in considerable degree. Now it was dominated by its allies and had to submit to the influence of ambitious neighbors or interested friends. Its decline could no longer be hindered, and already there was upon its borders that power of the north, which, by gaining an entrance to the Black Sea, commenced really its European life.
The example of Kupruli the Virtuous was followed by Kupruli the Wise, who immediately set himself about improving the general condition of the empire. In the European
[page 179 - illustration]
[page 180 - illustration]
[page 181] SULTAN’S RULE NOMINAL.
provinces he favored his Christian subjects in regard to the payment of arrears of taxes, and in Syria he gave them freedom of pasturage for flocks. The Mussulmans under the general influences of the time retrograded in their devotion to their religion, and he strove by every means to recall them to the study and practice of that religion, but failed to keep a a hold even upon the Moslem leaders, and yielded his life to their intrigues. This was about the commencement of the eighteenth century, and through that century the history, so far as the immediate empire itself is concerned, is a varying one. It commenced with a time of peace, under the diminution of French influence and a general disregard of the Russian power. That, however, under Peter the Great, commenced aggressions that soon aroused Mussulman pride, which, irritated at the appearance of the infidel on the Black Sea, hitherto regarded as sacred to Islam, declared war. This resulted in the restoration of Azof to the Ottoman Government and the shutting out of Russia from the Black Sea. More and more, however, the influence of European politics (dwelt upon more in detail in another chapter) was evident in internal disturbances, which had their effect not merely upon Christians, but upon Moslems, and Russian intrigue played an increasingly powerful part in the general development of the empire.
Even throughout Asiatic Turkey the rule of the Sultan was scarcely more than nominal. The province of Bagdad was practically independent, furnished no revenues, and, although a certain suzerainty of the Sultan was acknowledged, even war with a European power brought no troops, which were held to be necessary as a defense against the Arabs. Throughout Eastern Turkey there were whole nations or tribes of
[page 182] THE MAMELUKES.
people independent of the Sultan and his pashas, and the Pasha of Trebizond was master of the whole country. Aghas, or independent lords, maintained armies even up to the borders of Smyrna, and the mountains throughout Asia Minor and the Lebanon were perfectly independent. Most of them, aside from the Armenians and Greeks, were Moslems, yet not a few sectaries, as Kurds and the Metawelis, united religious to political hostility. On the coast of Syria, only the ports were under strong Turkish rule, and caravans from Alexandretta to Aleppo dared not cross the mountains because of the Kurds. At this same time was developed the power of the Mamelukes in Egypt, under the famous Ali Bey, who joined with him an Arab chief, and dominated pretty nearly all of Syria. In 1770 the empire seemed near its dismemberment. The Russians held the Danube and Azof, Georgia was in rebellion, even Damascus was threatened, and Ali Pasha, of Janina, was laying the foundations of his power in Albania. The next step downward was the treaty of Kainardji in 1774, which gave Crimea to the Czar, accorded the navigation of the Black Sea to Russia, and ceded a portion of the Caucasus. True, some of the Danube provinces were regained, but this was of comparatively little moment. Another peace, that of Jassy, signalized an additional step in the same downward direction. Constantly there were increasing disorders in administration. The Sultans were less and less men of ability, dominated by the Janissaries or by the ecclesiastics, and Turkey became the football of the various strifes for predominance in Europe.
The present century opened with another war with Russia, when the latter invaded the Danubian principalities, taking advantage of a revolt of the Servians.
Table of Contents | The Cover, Frontispiece, Title Page, Copyright Notice, etc.
Introduction | Preface | Turkey in Asia (map) | Table of Contents (as in the book)
List of Illustrations | 1. The Turkish Empire | 2. Population and Languages | 3. Religions
4. The Turks | 5. The Kurds | 6. The Armenians | 7. The Greeks | 8. Other Oriental Churches
9. Rise and Decline of Ottoman Power | 10. Turkey and Europe | 11. Russia and Turkey
12. Mahmud II | 13. Reform and Progress | 14. Treaties of Paris and Berlin
15. Condition of the Christians | 16. The Turkish Government | 17. Protestant Missions in Turkey
18. The Armenian Question | 19. General Situation in 1894 | 20. The Sassun Massacre
21. Politics and Massacre at Constantinople | 22. Massacres at Trebizond and Erzrum
23. Massacres in Harput District | 24. Aintab, Marash and Urfa | 25. Character of the Massacres
26. Religious Persecution | 27. Relief Work | 28. Partition of Turkey | 29. America and Turkey
30. General Survey | Alphabetical Index | ||||||||
3581 | dbpedia | 1 | 68 | https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/locusts-of-power/bibliography/FDC0468766F123CAB64E6801806579F5 | en | Locusts of Power | [
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"Samuel Dolbee",
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] | null | Locusts of Power - May 2023 | en | /core/cambridge-core/public/images/favicon.ico | Cambridge Core | https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/locusts-of-power/bibliography/FDC0468766F123CAB64E6801806579F5 | To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
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3581 | dbpedia | 0 | 32 | https://www.academia.edu/22849385/THE_SIEGE_OF_KUT_AL_AMARA_ON_THE_100TH_ANNIVERSARY_AND_THE_DEFEATS_OF_THE_BRITISH_RELIEVING_FORCE_IN_MEMORIES | en | THE SIEGE OF KUT AL AMARA ON THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY AND THE DEFEATS OF THE BRITISH RELIEVING FORCE IN MEMORIES | http://a.academia-assets.com/images/open-graph-icons/fb-paper.gif | http://a.academia-assets.com/images/open-graph-icons/fb-paper.gif | [
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] | 2016-03-05T00:00:00 | The British Army, who had been defeated by the Turkish Forces during the First World War firstly in Gallipoli, opened up the frontier of Iran-Iraq to be able to recover their dignity and also possess valuable resources in the region. Their invasions | https://www.academia.edu/22849385/THE_SIEGE_OF_KUT_AL_AMARA_ON_THE_100TH_ANNIVERSARY_AND_THE_DEFEATS_OF_THE_BRITISH_RELIEVING_FORCE_IN_MEMORIES | The British Army, who had been defeated by the Turkish Forces during the First World War firstly in Gallipoli, opened up the frontier of Iran-Iraq to be able to recover their dignity and also possess valuable resources in the region. Their invasions at this frontier gained momentum very quickly. The British advanced into Iraq step by step as they had planned previously. First of all, they invaded Amara on June 3, and then Nasiriyah on July 24.Following this successful advance attained in a short time, General John Nixon, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force in Iraq, began to think of taking Baghdad. British were all dreaming of being in Baghdad on the Christmas Day.However, with the Battle of Ctesiphon, their rapid move ceased and the British under General Townshend's command had to take refuge in Kut Al Amara. Hoping that reinforcements would arrive soon, General Townshend decided to holdKut Al Amara. He took defensive measures in the town against the oncoming Turkish forces. On December 7, Turkish Army, under Colonel Nurettin's command, laid total siege around the British Army at Kut Al Amara.Inconclusive offensives carried out until 25 December showed the Turks that Kut Al Amara could not be taken so easily. As a result of this, large-scale offensives were abandoned and it was decided that it would be more appropriate to force the town to surrender by continuing the siege. The British troops at Kut Al Amara were expecting General Fenton Aylmer, the Commander of the British Relieving Force, to save them from that siege. They couldn't know that this wait would last too long, because all the attempts by General Aylmer, who was charged with the duty of relieving the British forces that were under siege at Kut Al Amara, were to end up in complete failure.Following General Aylmer's failure, General Gorringe was put in charge of the British forces. However, General Gorringe's relief operation also came to nothing. On 22 April, General Gorringe's final rescue effort in the Fourth Battle of Hanna failed and this led to the exhaustion of all the remaining hopes. As a last resort, they decided to send a ship (Julnar) loaded with food and ammunition up the river on the night of 24 April. This was the last rescue effort, which ended up in the capture of the ship by Turks. This hopeful wait ended up in frustration. Several rescue efforts carried out by the British Government and British-Iraq Army Command turned out to be inconclusive and now it was time for the British forces in Kut Al Amara to surrender. The British, who were surrounded by the Turkish forces at Kut Al Amara, could stand against it for 144 days. At the end of the 144-day siege, 13,309 soldiers surrendered and as they were hoping to save their troops at Kut Al Amara, the British losses were around 21973 during the entire siege process. What was more painful was not that the British were besieged at Kut Al Amara, but that all the operational attempts to put an end to that siege resulted in complete failure. General Townshend personally made a great contribution to these failures, because he had never attempted to break out of the encirclement and eventually was forced to surrender together with all his troops. | |||||
3581 | dbpedia | 3 | 67 | https://anca.org/the-lasting-legacy-of-the-second-congress-of-western-armenians/ | en | The Lasting Legacy of the Second Congress of Western Armenians | [
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] | 2018-05-24T16:39:15+00:00 | From the Armenian Weekly 2018 Magazine Dedicated to the Centennial of the First Republic of Armenia Refugees Returning Home (Photo: Vratzian, S. Hayastani Hanrapetutiun [Republic of Armenia] 2nd ed., 1958) When I first read about the Second Congress of Western Armenians, held in Yerevan in 1919, I felt pride that two of my ancestors had […] | en | Armenian National Committee of America | https://anca.org/the-lasting-legacy-of-the-second-congress-of-western-armenians/ | From the Armenian Weekly 2018 Magazine Dedicated to the Centennial of the First Republic of Armenia
When I first read about the Second Congress of Western Armenians, held in Yerevan in 1919, I felt pride that two of my ancestors had been key participants. That feeling soon gave way to a need to further explore that historic event.
An analysis of the Congress reveals striking parallels between the attitudes of Western Armenians regarding the “repugnant Russianism” of the First Republic and its inhabitants—and the attitudes of many Western Armenians in the Armenian Diaspora regarding today’s Armenia, a century later.
For the survivors of genocide, who subsequently fell victim to hunger and disease, the newly independent republic of 1918 seemed neither haven nor home. To make the lessons from that nuanced chapter in Armenian history relevant to our world today—to best move forward—we must first look back.
***
Despite the perception of relative liberty in the south Caucasus after the February Revolution in Russia overthrew the Tsar in 1917, the 300,000 Western Armenian refugees who were fleeing genocide could not escape persecution.
From Bayazid, in Russian-held Western Armenia, came complaints that former Romanov officials continued to oppress and disarm the populace while Kurdish violence against Armenians ran rampant.1 Two years earlier, prior to the Russian occupation of portions of Western Armenia, General Yudenich had informed Count Vorontsov-Dashkov of his intent to prevent the Armenian refugees now in the Caucasus from reclaiming their lands in the Alashkert Plain and Bayazid valley, expressing his desire to instead populate the border area with Russians and Cossaks.2
The First Congress of Western Armenians was convened in Yerevan in May 1917, and initiated the creation of an executive body to secure the physical existence of the Western Armenians, revive their disrupted economy, rebuild their homeland, and provide a progressive education for their youth. By the end of 1917, 25 primary schools were in operation in the Van area alone to serve the native population that had streamed homeward. Nearly 150,000 natives of Van, Bitlis, Erzerum, and Trebizond vilayets had repatriated.3
After the October Revolution of 1917, Russian forces withdrew from the Caucasus. Taking advantage of the subsequent vacuum, the Turkish armies of General Vehib Pasha succeeded in occupying Erznga (Erzincan), Papert (Bayburt), Garin (Erzerum), Sarikamish, Kars, and Alexandropol (Gyumri) starting in Jan. 1918. The Turkish advance was finally halted at the battle of Sardarabad, deep into Armenian territory, on May 26, 1918. Consequently, the treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Batumi awarded the Turks nearly 20 percent of the territory of Armenian Republic. Thus unable to harvest crops from the fertile Ararat valley, more than 200,000 among the population of the Armenian Republic perished from hunger and disease in the following months.4
***
Yerevan was merely a provincial town a century ago, yet it formed the nucleus of the infant Armenian republic that emerged after nearly six centuries of foreign rule. Western Armenians would have preferred for that state to re-emerge in the heart of the Armenian Highlands, in Asia Minor. Instead they found themselves refugees in a peripheral province that bore the marks of all things Russian.5 Some half a million Western Armenians impatiently awaited the opportunity to return to their homes; to them, the government and capital of liberated Armenia should have been in Garin, Van, or even a major city in Cilicia, but certainly not, as General Antranig put it, “in the capital of an Armenia carved out by the hand of the Turk.” 6
The political and intellectual leaders of Western Armenians shared such popular misgivings, but they also recognized the potential consequences of lasting internal division.
The Armenian Republic’s government initiated the Second Congress of Western Armenians, which met in Yerevan Feb. 6-13, 1919, to discuss the political goals of the Western Armenians and issues associated with their repatriation. A nine-person elected Executive Body was instructed to implement the decisions of the Congress and to function until the creation of a combined government of United Armenia.7
Two of my ancestors, both from Bayazid, were members of that Executive Body: Vahakn Kermoyan, a Lausanne-educated lawyer and writer, was an influential member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF);8 Arsen Gidour, a graduate of the Kevorkian Jemaran (Seminary) in Etchmiadzin, was a member of the Hnchakian party and a veteran of the Battle of Sardarabad.9
The Western Armenian leaders placed their aspirations in the hands of the Armenian National Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, led by Boghos Nubar Pasha, an influential politician and the former chairperson of the Armenian National Assembly of the Ottoman Empire. Although ARF members and sympathizers formed the majority of the Second Congress, they regarded Boghos Nubar as the person best qualified to advance Armenian interests at the Peace Conference.10
The Congress’s Executive Body communicated its demands to Paris: Armenia’s right to statehood, the liberation of Western Armenia in order to constitute a United Armenia, and punishment for the architects of the systematic massacre of the Armenians.
A new National Delegation was named in April and included the famed ARF revolutionary Karekin Pastermadjian (Armen Garo), respected in both Western and Eastern Armenian circles, with the hope that his history of collaboration with Boghos Nubar would create a more unified front during negotiations.11
On May 28, 1919, in Yerevan, on the anniversary of independence, Prime Minister Alexander Khatisian read the adopted text of The Act of United Armenia and invited the 12 newly designated Western Armenian deputies to sit alongside members of the Republic’s Parliament. Speaking on behalf of those 12 parliamentarians, Vahakn Kermoyan pledged active Western Armenian participation in the Republic to work toward the goal of a united, independent Armenia.12 Despite having no jurisdiction beyond the Republic’s borders, Yerevan festively celebrated the declaration of Armenian unification.
***
Nearly a century later, we again have an independent Republic—despite the Turkish crescent and the Russian sickle. Yet, the unfortunate reality remains that Armenians are dispersed across the globe, and more of us reside outside of our homeland than within it.
Recently, however, many Western Armenians have sought refuge in Armenia to escape war in the Middle East, and some others from the Diaspora have also “repatriated” and are playing a role in the country’s revitalization. The issues prevalent a century ago continue to be discussed among this new generation of Diasporans returning to Armenia.
No Armenian is immune to foreign influence, whether in Armenia or in the diaspora. To overcome the obstacles of dialect, custom, tribalism, and mistrust, both the government and its citizens must collaborate to foster an environment of inclusivity, encourage and provide incentive for repatriation, and denounce all types of discrimination.
And perhaps such measures might include following the example of the First Republic by having active Western Armenian participation in all strata of government to bridge our artificial divisions.
Notes
Hovannisian, R.G., Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918; University of California Press, 1967, pp 77-78
Ibid., 57-58
Ibid., 78-79
Ibid., 210-211
Hovannisian, R.G., The Republic of Armenia, Vol. I; University of California press, 1971, pp 450
Vratzian, S., Hayastani Hanrapetutiun [Republic of Armenia] 2nd ed.; 1958, pp 256
Hovannisian, The Republic of Armenia, pp 454
Tarbassian, H.A., Erzurum (Garin): Its Armenian History and Traditions; Garin Compatriotic Union of the United States, 1975, pp 222
Kitur (Gidour), A. Patmutiun S. D. Hnchakian Kusaktsutian, 1887-1963 [History of the S. D. Hnchakian Party, 1887-1962] Vol 1; Beirut, 1962, pp 480
Hovannisian, The Republic of Armenia, pp 453
Ibid., 458-459
Vratzian, Hanrapetutiun, pp 264
Author information
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] | null | [] | 2011-08-19T08:35:11-07:00 | A • B • C • D • E • F • G • H • I • J • K • L • M • N • O • P • Q • R • S • T • U • V • W • X • Y • Z Saadi (Ruth) Collection, ca. 1984-1993. Files relating to League of Women Voters – Santa Barbara concerns, including air pollution, energy, environment, growth and development, oil and gas, voting and elections. Ruth Saadi was an active member and Energy Director of the | en | https://www.library.ucsb.edu/sites/all/themes/custom/ucsblib_theme/favicon.ico | UCSB Library | https://www.library.ucsb.edu/special-collections/collections/s_z_guides | A • B • C • D • E • F • G • H • I • J • K • L • M • N • O • P • Q • R • S • T • U • V • W • X • Y • Z
Saadi (Ruth) Collection, ca. 1984-1993. Files relating to League of Women Voters – Santa Barbara concerns, including air pollution, energy, environment, growth and development, oil and gas, voting and elections. Ruth Saadi was an active member and Energy Director of the organization. (SBHC Mss 14).
Sackett, Edwin M. (1844-1915) [Artificer, New York Engineers, 50th Regiment (Vol), Company B]. Papers, including Civil War diary (1865), discharge, and typescript biographical sketch. (Wyles SC 363).
[Sacramento]. Bill (Joseph T.) Oral History, 1991-1994. Interviews with Joe Bill, an urban planner who served as Executive Director of the Community Redevelopment Agencies in Sacramento and Los Angeles, Director of Planning for the architectural firm of William L. Pereira, member of the New Communities Administration in Washington, DC., and advisor to UCSB Chancellor Barbara Uehling and her staff on the Long-Range Development Plan for UCSB. Related interviews with John C. Harkness, H. Ralph Taylor, Congressman James H. Scheuer, Yukio Kawaratani, Ray Hebert, Jack Bevash, James Langenheim, Niels Stoermer, Cesar Pelli, Edward Logue, Edward L. Barnes, Harry Cobb, Bruce Allen, and Edward Helfeld. (OH 18).
[Sacramento]. Gonzalez (Luis C.) Papers. Works of art on paper by the Sacramento, California based Chicano artist, also known as Louie-the-foot). (CEMA 74).
[Sacramento]. Lincoln Scrapbooks, ca. 1860s-1930s. Five scrapbooks, mainly clippings ca. 1860s-1930s, pertaining to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. Newspapers represented include the Christian Science Monitor, Examiner (New York), Harper’s Weekly, Los Angeles Times, New York Herald Tribune, New York Reformer, Northern N.Y. Journal, Sacramento Daily Union, Santa Barbara Daily News, Santa Barbara News-Press, and the Standard (Chicago). (Wyles Mss 93).
[Sacramento]. Royal Chicano Air Force Archives, 1973-1988. Extensive collection of slides and silkscreen prints, along with administrative records, news clippings, correspondence, exhibition descriptions and flyers, photographs, creative writings, and miscellaneous publications of the Sacramento-based artists collective. Founding members of the RCAF include José Montoya, Esteban Villa, Juanishi V. Orosco, Ricardo Favela, and Rudy Cuellar. (CEMA 8).
[Sacramento]. U.S. Mail Line, Oregon Stage Company. One document, Way-bill for Sacramento-Marysville run, 14 Dec. 1866. (Wyles SC 689).
[Sacramento]. Villa (Esteban) Papers, 1974-2002. Original sketches, correspondence, exhibition announcements, collected writings, and research files of the Sacramento Chicano artist and muralist, and one of the founding members of the Royal Chicano Air Force, an artists’ cultural collective. (CEMA 50).
St. Charles [Charles de] Peru Correspondence, 1870-1872. (SC 958).
St. George, George A. 1 letter (ALS) to [?] Wyant, thanking him for signing book. Bombay, India, 27 Oct. 1944. Laid in St. Geroge’s With Lyre and Saxophone (Spec PR9499.3.S23 W59 1943). (SC 124).
“St. Louis or Baron de Kalb, the First U.S. Ironclad, Launced Oct. 12th, 1861….” Engraving by George E. Perine & Co., New York, [ca. 1860s]. (Wyles SC 759).
[St. Mary’s Academy]. One letter (ALS) from unknown author to Rev. C. B. Perry of Baltimore, MD, re placement of two boys in St. Mary’s Academy, upon recommendation of a Mr. Flowers, who the author does not know “… but am of the opinion that he is a white man.” Washington, D.C., Feb. 18, 1886. (Wyles SC 1062).
Saint-Pierre, H. C. [Corporal, New York Volunteers, 76th Regiment, Company F; later, Judge]. One typescript ms re escape from the Confederate prison camp at Andersonville, n.d. (Wyles SC 368).
[Saipan]. Japanese Saipan Photograph Album, 1914-1944. About 170 b/w snapshots and a few postcard views, of the Japanese period in Saipan. Includes a number of shots of the local Saipan population and scenery, but most of the photos are of Japanese adults and children, families, groups, leisure activities, sports (including several shots of baseball teams), boy scouts, geishas, and the extensive sugar cane industry. (Bernath Mss 69).
[Saipan]. Neilson (Hugo) World War II Scrapbook, 1944-1945 [bulk date 1944]. 157 black and white snapshots (captions in English), documents, clippings, and two 1944 issues of the Seabees Coverall newspaper, on scrapbook pages and loose, compiled by Hugo Neilson, Seaman First Class, with the 51st NCB (Naval Construction Battalion). Includes images of Ulithi (Caroline Islands) – fellow seamen, base, chapel, living quarters, 51st shop crew, local terrain and huts (describes construction), building airstrip in 12 days; on board ship (showing cramped quarters); Saipan – Japanese women and children, prisoners (men), Suicide Point (where hundreds of Japanese civilians leapt to their deaths), Japanese fortifications, train, sugar mill, caves, African American Marines, shop crew and shop, building airstrip; and honorable discharge, Oct. 1945. (Bernath Mss 346).
Saipan, Philippines, and Guam Photograph Album, 1946-1950. (Bernath Mss 298).
Saipan Post-World War II Photograph Collection, ca. 1945-1946. 16 b/w snapshots, including aerial views of POW camp and local Saipan population. (SC 952).
[Salt Lake City]. Four letters (ALS) from I. R. (Ike) Thompson to William L. Vennard, 1861-1862. Includes description of 10 ½ day coach ride to Salt Lake City and account of the area. (Wyles SC 871).
Saltus, Edgar. One note (ANS) from American writer and philosopher Saltus to [?] Allen re a libelous aricle about Saltus. Laid in Eden: An Episode. [11 Apr. 1888]. (SC 272).
Saltzman, Nolan. Typescript autobiography and articles, ca. 1986-1987. (HPA SC 106).
Salvation Army. Dec. 23, 1893 issue of the War Cry (San Francisco, CA). (SC 1078).
[Samoa]. de Chetelat (Enzo) Papers, ca. 1901-1980s [bulk dates 1920s-1960s]. Autobiography, correspondence, documents, maps, reports, black/white photographs and photograph albums, several thousand color slides, and artifacts of a Swiss-born mining geologist who visited or worked in many countries from the 1920s to the 1970s, including Albania, Algeria, Bali, Belgian Congo, Brazil, British Honduras, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Ceylon, Czechoslovakia, Dahomey, France, French Guinea, French Guyana, French Polynesia, Ghana, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Macau, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mali, Martinique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria, Paracel Islands, Peru, Samoa, Senegal, Singapore, Somalia, Sumatra, Syria, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Upper Volta, Vietnam, and Yugoslavia. (Bernath Mss 316).
Sample [Kenneth C.] Civilian Conservation Corps Photograph Album, ca. 1933-1935. Includes images from South Dakota, North Dakota, Arkansas, and New Orleans. (Mss 275).
[San Diego]. Alurista [Alberto Urista] Papers, 1954-2010. Scripts, correspondence, photographs, autographed books and ephemera of the Chicano artist and poet, one of the leading literary figures of the Chicano Movement era, who helped to establish The Centro Cultural de la Raza in San Diego. (CEMA 21).
[San Diego]. Archer (John F.) Susohn Etching Plates, 1976. 18 original etching plates [linoleum cuts], used in Archer’s printed portfolio, Susohn: A Personal Journey (San Diego, CA: Atavistic Press, 1976). Also, author’s autograph copy of Susohn, no. 13 of an edition of 30, as well as other titles by Atavistic Press. (Printers Mss 29).
[San Diego]. California Picture Postcard Album, ca. 1900. 45 b/w and color picture postcards, mainly California, including several images of Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Catalina Island, San Diego, and Pasadena. Also a few from New Mexico and Kingman, Arizona. (SC 823).
[San Diego]. Centro Cultural de La Raza Archives, 1970-1999. Slides and other materials relating to the San Diego artists’ collective, co-founded in 1970 by Chicano poet Alurista and artist Victor Ochoa. Known as a center of indigenismo (indigenism) during the Aztlán phase of Chicano art in the early 1970s. (CEMA 12).
[San Diego]. Gray [Ethel C.] California, Canal Zone, Cuba Photograph Album, 1935. Album, approx. 100 pages, recording Ethel C. Gray’s six-week rail trip from NYC to the western U.S. (including Yosemite, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego), then by ship (S.S. Virginia) to the Canal Zone and Cuba. Includes photographs, postcards, railroad timetables, hotel brochures, menus, and other ephemera. (Bernath Mss 46).
[San Diego]. Mexican Revolution / U.S. Navy Picture Postcard Collection. Ten black/white picture postcards documenting U.S. Navy actions, mainly of the U.S.S. Maryland along the west coast of Mexico during the Mexican Revolution, ca. 1915. Includes images of the Maryland leaving San Diego Harbor, at Matazlan and Tuxedina Bay, and several photos of torpedoes fired at Mexican ships. (Wyles SC 948).
[San Diego]. One letter (ALS) from Lillie [?] to brother Maurice about personal matters and mutual acquaintances. San Diego, April 6, 1895. (SC 494).
[San Diego]. Ochoa (Victor) Collection, 1962-2000. Art files, exhibition files, ephemera, posters and prints and other printed matter, photographs and slides, correspondence files, and recordings of the Chicano painter/muralist long considered to be one of the pioneers of San Diego’s Chicano art movement and co-founder of the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park, a multidisciplinary community-based arts center devoted to producing and preserving Indian, Mexican, and Chicano art and culture. (CEMA 66).
[San Diego]. Prigoff (James) Slide Collection, 1975-2003. 429 slides, overwhelmingly of mural art and of spray can art, visually documenting important aspects of the Chicano art movement in California, in particular in the San Diego and Tijuana area. (CEMA 102).
[San Diego]. Torero (Mario) Collection. Materials of the San Diego artist, political activist, and teacher, also known as co-founder of several local cultural organizations, including the Centro Cultural de la Raza, the Chicano Park Murals Outdoor Museum, and the San Diego/Tijuana artists’ group United By Art (UBA). (CEMA 44).
[San Diego]. Torres (Salvador Roberto) Papers, 1934-2002 [bulk dates 1962-2002]. Personal and biographical information, files relating to professional activities and teaching, and correspondence of the Mexican-American artist, mural painter, and activist, best known for his work in creating San Diego’s Chicano Park, which includes the largest collection of Chicano murals in the world, and as a founder of the Centro Cultural de la Raza and Las Toltecas en Aztlán, a Chicano artists group. (CEMA 38).
[San Francisco]. Alternative Press Collection. Mainly U.S. newspapers, with an emphasis on California, but also some foreign titles. In most cases there are only single or scattered issues, not long runs. Included are newspapers environmental, issues, with titles such as Earth Times (San Francisco, CA, 1970) and Iowa Environmental News (Ames, IA, 1971). Some longer runs of newspapers such as Green Revolution, are cataloged separately. (Mss 169).
[San Francisco]. Asian American Theater Company (AATC) Archives. Administrative and financial records, correspondence, production files, scripts, audio and video recordings, photographs, slides, posters, and other materials relating to the San Francisco-based AATC, one of only three Asian American theaters in the United States, founded in 1973 by the Chinese American writer and playwright Frank Chin and others. (CEMA 9).
[San Francisco]. Beecher [John] Collection, ca. 1957-1977. Broadsides, prospectii, flyers, announcements, quartos, and other printed matter relating to radical poet, steel mill worker, teacher (San Francisco State and elsewhere), rancher, descendant of the New England abolitionist Beecher family, and printer John Beecher and his poetry. Several items were hand-set and printed at the Morning Star Press and Rampart Press by John and Barbara Beeecher. (Printers Mss 77).
[San Francisco]. Belcher, Sir Edward (1799-1877). One map, “Geological Plan of the Port of San Francisco, California,” coloured by Lieutenant E. Belcher, [Dec. 1826]. (SC 22).
[San Francisco]. Bill Graham Presents, 1967. Three psychedelic, color postcards/flyers, Wes Wilson artist, advertising events presented by Bill Graham at the Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco. Headliners include Jefferson Airplane and Butterfield Blues Band. (SC 982).
[San Francisco]. Bishop [Edith] Collection, 1892-1895. Correspondence and autographs from actors and actresses, to a San Francisco autograph collector. (SC 2).
[San Francisco]. Bookplate Collection, ca. 1800s-mid 1900s. Bookplates from various sources, mainly 20th century American, including a number from Santa Barbara and other parts of California. Included are works by artists/designers such as Marc Chagall. Some in the early 20th century Arts & Crafts style. Represented in the collection are bookplates for a number of well-known individuals such as Edward Borein, Charlie Chaplin, Sally Fields, and Tom Mix. Includes Paul Elder & Co. bookplates (Santa Barbara and San Francisco). (Printers Mss 34).
[San Francisco]. California and the West Picture Postcard Collection, ca. early 1900s. Includes 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. (Mss 231).
[San Francisco]. California Infantry, 3rd Regiment (Vols), Co. A. Civil War document appealing for volunteers. San Francisco, 18 Sept. 1861. (Wyles SC 308).
[San Francisco]. California Picture Postcard Collection. 17 items, including images of 1906 San Francisco earthquake and homes of Hollywood stars such as Bob Hope, Mickey Rooney, and Jack Benny, ca. late 1930s. (Wyles SC 608).
[San Francisco]. Chinese American Political Association Archives, 1984-2006 . Records of a San Francisco Bay Area organization focused on educating and empowering Chinese Americans in the political process. (CEMA 48).
[San Francisco]. Chinese American Voters Education Committee, Inc. (CAVEC) Archives, 1984-2000 [bulk dates 1986-1992]. Files of the CAVEC, a non-profit, non- partisan citizen education organization in the San Francisco Bay Area, founded in 1976 to help the large population of Asian immigrants become active participants in the civic life of the area. (CEMA 61).
[San Francisco]. Cobb, George H. One disbound photo album containing 115 black/white images, various sizes, of family and friends, Santa Barbara and Montecito scenes including Santa Barbara Mission and Riven Rock, President McKinley’s visit to Santa Barbara, San Francisco, ca 1900-1905. (Wyles SC 613).
[San Francisco]. “The Co-operato, No. 2.” Printed pamphlet for “Self Respecting, Self Supporting, Small Salaried Women,” San Francisco, CA, ca. 1899-1900. (SC 1005).
[San Francisco]. Dewing [James] Papers, 1865-1936. Thirteen items of Barbara DeWolfe’s grandfather, James Dewing, including a photograph, materials relating to his service in the 18th Regiment of Connecticut Infantry, Company A, during the Civil War (discharge papers, widow’s pension, GAR receipts), publishing/piano manufacturing business in San Francisco (letterhead stationery, calling card, court records re failure of the business), and death (memorial service address, National Cemetery Regulations). (Wyles SC 1012).
[San Francisco]. Dougan [Robert Ormes] Collection, ca. 1950s-1970s. Mainly printed ephemera from the Zamorano (Los Angeles) and Roxburghe (San Francisco) clubs, collected by Dougan, former President of the Friends of UCSB Library and Director of the Huntington Library, 1958-1972. (Printers Mss 39).
[San Francisco]. Driscoll [Mrs. Thomas] Oral History. Interview with a prominent Santa Barbara resident, re family history and their association with Admiral Farragut, Cyrus McCormick, Mark Twain, and Theodore Roosevelt. Also personal experiences of Santa Barbara elite society ca. 1900 and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Central Coast Regional Projects. (OH 34).
[San Francisco]. Gahagan [G. William] Collection, ca. 1935-1953 [bulk dates 1942-1945]. Includes propaganda magazines, pamphlets, and leaflets used both in the Pacific and Atlantic theaters of war; OWI outpost reports; U.N. Conference press releases, circulars, correspondence and photos relating to a public relations officer for the Office of War Information’s Overseas Branch in San Francisco. (Bernath Mss 8).
[San Francisco]. Galería de la Raza (GDLR) Archives, ca. 1966-1989. Administrative records, programs, subject files, correspondence, clippings, slides, photographs, serigraphs, posters, silkscreen prints, ephemera and other creative materials documenting activities of the San Francisco Bay Area Chicano cultural arts center. Includes work by many of the prominent Chicano(a)/Latino(a) artists, such as Juana Alicia, Rodolfo (Rudy) Cuellar, Alfredo De Batuc, Ricardo Favela, Gilbert Luján (Magu), Ralph Maradiaga, Juanishi Orosco, Irene Pérez, Patricia Rodríguez, and René Yañez. (CEMA 4).
[San Francisco]. Gonzalez (Maya) Papers. Slides of art work and biographical ephemera of acclaimed San Francisco-based Chicana painter and children’s book illustrator. (CEMA 103).
[San Francisco]. Gray [Ethel C.] California, Canal Zone, Cuba Photograph Album, 1935. Album, approx. 100 pages, recording Ethel C. Gray’s six-week rail trip from NYC to the western U.S. (including Yosemite, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego), then by ship (S.S. Virginia) to the Canal Zone and Cuba. Includes photographs, postcards, railroad timetables, hotel brochures, menus, and other ephemera. (Bernath Mss 46).
[San Francisco]. Gresham Family California Photograph Album, ca. 1900-1907. 189 mainly black and white photographs, assembled in a soft leather album by the Gresham family of San Francisco who travelled, in part, on their yacht “Gypsy.” Locations include Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, Santa Barbara (mission, alleged bullfight), Diamond Canõn, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz, San Mateo, Sausalito, Redwood, and Sacramento. Also a few images of Bagio, Philippines. (Mss 268).
[San Francisco]. Haight-Ashbury Collection, ca. 1967. Mainly handbills and broadsides advertising the cultural and political activities and perspectives of the hippie movement in and around Haight-Ashbury in the latter 1960s. (Mss 42).
[San Francisco]. Hooker, Joseph [1814-1879; Civil War Union General]. One letter (ALS) to James W. Denver (California Congressman), seeking aid for appointment in the Paymaster General’s Department, at a time after he had resigned from the army and failed at farming. San Francisco, 2 May 1857. (Wyles SC 517).
[San Francisco]. Huse [Charles E.] Diary, 1850-1857. Typescript draft of the diary, edited by William Henry Ellison and translated (from the Spanish) by Francis Price. The original two-volume manuscript diary is housed in the Santa Barbara Historical Society Library. Huse was a Harvard graduate who came to California shortly after the Gold Rush, first to San Francisco, then Santa Barbara. Much of the diary describes the transition of Santa Barbara from the Spanish to the American way of life. (Wyles Mss 5).
[San Francisco]. Johnson, Thomas P. Cancelled check from Sheriff Thomas P. Johnson to R. B Turner & Co., for $26.11. San Francisco: Palmer, Cook & Co., Bankers, Sept. 19, 1853. (Wyles SC 1073).
[San Francisco]. Kearny Street Workshop Archives, 1972-2002 [bulk dates 1980-2002]. Materials relating to the oldest multidisciplinary Asian American arts organization in the United States, which was established in 1972 as a collective of artists in San Francisco’s Chinatown/ Manila town neighborhood. (CEMA 33).
[San Francisco]. Kiewit (John S.) Photography Collection, ca. 1968-2000. More than 10,000 color and black/white prints, color slides, and black/white negatives. Color slides constitute the bulk of the collection. The images reflect what Kiewit saw on his travels throughout California and the West, as well as trips to other parts of the U.S. and the world. Prominent places and themes include Baja, barns and farms, Big Sur, buildings and building elements (doors and windows), Carmel [CA], Central Coast [CA], Channel Islands, Death Valley, fences, ghost towns, Hawaii, Hollister Ranch [CA], landscapes, Malibu [CA], Marin County [CA], New England, New Mexico, ocean views, Oregon, Oxnard [CA], rock formations, signs, surfing, trees, Utah, wildflowers, Wyoming, and Yosemite. Other countries represented in the collection include Cook Island, Costa Rica, El Salvador, England, France, Guatemala, Marques and Tahiti Islands, Mexico, Micronesia, and New Zealand. Most of the images were taken from the 1970s to the 1990s. (Mss 228).
[San Francisco]. Knowles (Joseph) Collection, 1920s-1930s. Correspondence, lists, and samples, mostly relating to Western Builder’s Supply Co. of San Francisco, ca. 1920s-1930s, and two letters (TLS) to George Washington Smith, Santa Barbara architect, re architectural and design catalogs and brochures being sent, 1922 and 1928. Related trade catalogs, also collected by Knowles, have been cataloged separately. (SC 717).
[San Francisco]. [Mexican Americans / California / Civil War]. 1 broadside, “A los Mexicanos – e Hispano-Americanos…,” San Francisco, 1863. (Wyles SC 930).
[San Francisco]. Myrick (David) Collection, 1965-1995. Several maps prepared for publications of David Myrick, on western railroad history, ghost towns, and San Francisco. (Wyles Mss 79).
[San Francisco]. Nash [John Henry] Collection, ca. 1918-1970 [bulk dates 1920s-1930s]. Edited copy of the catalog of books printed by Nash in San Francisco, printing specimens, prospectuses, offprints, correspondence, and related ephemera. (Printers Mss 27).
[San Francisco]. Paul Elder and Company Collection, ca. 1898-1936. Catalogs and lists, mainly issued by the Fine and Rare Book Department of Paul Elder & Co., San Francisco, as well as photocopies of title pages of Paul Elder imprints (copies of which are in the UCSB Libraries). (Printers Mss 30).
[San Francisco]. Posters of the 1960s, [bulk dates latter 1960s]. 27 original printed posters, many in vivid color, most advertising concerts and readings in Detroit, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara / Isla Vista, CA. Includes appearances by Big Brother & the Holding Company; Blood, Sweat & Tears; Richard Brautigan; Basil Bunting; Cream; Doors; Fugs; and John Mayall. Poster artists include Jim Blashfield, Gary Grimshaw, John Lodge, Carl Lundgren, and Chuck Miller. (Mss 265).
[San Francisco]. Roxburghe Club Collection, ca. 1928-1980. Printed announcements, invitations, keepsakes, membership lists, notices, and other printed items, ca. 1928-1980, produced by various members of the Roxburghe Club of San Francisco, including Lewis and Dorothy Allen, Arion Press (Andrew Hoyem), Grabhorn Press (Edwin and Robert Grabhorn), Grabhorn-Hoyem, Grace Hoper Press (Sherwood Grover), Lawton and Alfred Kennedy, John Henry Nash, Tamalpais Press (Roger Levenson), and Adrian Wilson Press. (Printers Mss 17).
[San Francisco]. Selver [Charlotte] Papers, 1957-1995. Personal and professional correspondence, writings, and sound records of Charlotte Selver, student of Elsa Gindler in Europe, and the person who introduced sensory awareness to the U.S. Closely connected to the Esalen Institute and San Francisco Zen Center. Her work is continued by the Sensory Awareness Foundation. (HPA Mss 33).
[San Francisco]. Sherman, William Tecumseh. One letter (ALS) to Dona [?], re sending funds with Sully [?]. The steamer Winfield Scott, in which Sully had embarked for home, was wrecked on an island [presumably one of the Channel Islands] not far from Santa Barbara. “This morning two steamers started to their relief. Fortunately the weather has been mild…” San Francisco, 7 Dec. 1853. (Wyles SC 16).
[San Francisco]. Sherman, William Tecumseh. One letter (ALS). San Francisco, 13 Sept. 1880. (Wyles SC 210).
[San Francisco]. Tebbetts (George P. and Mary) Memorial Collection, ca 1830s-1950s. Manuscripts, including three diaries, 1856, 1863, 1866, correspondence, photographs, ledgers/account books, scrapbooks, newspapers (incl. 1883-1885 Santa Barbara Daily Independent), papers and documents from the San Francisco Examiner. Also, tape and partial transcript of recording by Nathan A. Tebbetts. Artifacts, including three Colt revolvers, one framed oil painting and two wooden chests, apparently made at the Anna Blake School, in Santa Barbara. Also numerous books, mostly 19th century, cataloged separately. Also nine b/w photos of dirigibles, mostly above San Francisco, including one of Graf Zeppelin. (Wyles Mss 15).
[San Francisco]. Thompson, William C. [Commander, steamer Sarah Sands]. One letter (ALS), in Spanish, to the pastor of Mission San Antonio, re running out of coal and other supplies, and sending representatives to Monterey and San Francisco to obtain them. San Simeon Bay [California], 20 May 1850. Wyles SC 247).
[San Francisco]. Type Specimens Collection, 1785-1984. Advertisements, catalogs, flyers, leaflets, and lists, mainly by U.S. companies, but also a number from Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and the Netherlands. Includes some material from California firms such as the A. Carlisle & Co. (San Francisco), Border Printing Co. (San Francisco), California Electrotype and Stereotype Co. (Los Angeles), California Electrotyping Co. (San Francisco), University of California Press (Berkeley and Los Angeles). (Printers Mss 42).
[San Francisco]. Tyson [Seth H.] Correspondence, 1853, 1855. Six letters (ALS) from Tyson, a young man from Philadelphia, mostly to his mother, re the California Gold Rush in Calaveras County. Also includes typescript transcriptions of the letters. Early letters talk about working in San Francisco and on farms, but later ones mainly concern his prospecting ups and downs, the hard work, problems with lack of water in the rivers, difficult financial dealings, and general uncertainty of life in the gold fields. (Wyles SC 253).
[San Francisco]. “View of San Francisco, formerly Yerba Buena, in 1846-7, before the Discovery of Gold….” Color [lithograph?], print on paper, by Bosqui Eng. & Print Co. [active ca. 1863-1906]. (SC 1028).
[San Francisco]. Wilke [William Hancock] Collection, arly 1900s. Examples of illuminations and book plates Wilke did for the press of John Henry Nash, as well as numerous drawings and water colors of San Francisco scenes, and two original posters for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, 1915. (Printers Mss 23).
[San Francisco]. World Tour Photograph Album, 1907-1908. 458 b/w snapshots of a world tour by an unknown American woman with images from Gibraltar, Spain, France, Egypt, Ceylon, India, Burma, Java, Singapore, Philippines, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Hawaii, and San Francisco Bay. (Bernath Mss 79).
San Francisco Songs, ca. 1860s-1870s. 15 items. (Wyles SC 981).
Sanchez (Gil) Collection, 1974-2008 . Personal and biographical information, correspondence, Thousands of drawings, research materials, photographs, and other materials of the Mexican American architect whose restoration projects have included the Santa Barbara Presidio, Mission San Juan Bautista, San Juan Capistrano, Mission Santa Clara, the Peralta Adobe, Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park Adobe, and Juana Briones Adobe. (CEMA 15).
[Sanchez, Thomas]. Bason (Robert E.) / Capra Press Records, ca. 1969-2004. Includes production and financial files from years Bason owned Santa Barbara-based Capra Press, as well as some earlier material from the Noel Young years. Correspondents include: Edward Abbey, Raymond Carver, Gretel Ehrlich, Tess Gallagher, Ursula LeGuin, Ken Millar, Margaret Millar, Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Lawrence Clark Powell, Thomas Sanchez, and John Sanford. (Printers Mss 59).
Sand, George (1804-1876) [pseudonym of Armandine Aurore Lucile Dudevant]. French novelist and playwright. Holdings include Consuelo (1846) in English [Spec PQ2400.A3 S53 846b], Légendes Rustiques (1858) [Printers Z257.S263 1858], Fanchon the Cricket (1891) [Spec PQ2411.P4 E5 1891], Little Fadette (1928) [Spec PQ2411.P4 E5 1928], and The Devil’s Pool (1929) [Spec PQ2408.A46 1929].
Sanders [James] China and Philippines Photograph Album, ca. 1920s. (Bernath Mss 264).
Sandstone Center (Topanga, CA). Calendars, 1975-1976. (HPA SC 107).
[Sanford, John]. Bason (Robert E.) / Capra Press Records, ca. 1969-2004. Includes production and financial files from years Bason owned Santa Barbara-based Capra Press, as well as some earlier material from the Noel Young years. Correspondents include: Edward Abbey, Raymond Carver, Gretel Ehrlich, Tess Gallagher, Ursula LeGuin, Ken Millar, Margaret Millar, Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Lawrence Clark Powell, Thomas Sanchez, and John Sanford. (Printers Mss 59).
[Sanford, John]. Bason (Robert E.) Collection of the Writings of John Sanford (1904-2003). (Mss 266)./li>
Sanford, John. One letter (ALS) from author Sanford to Harden Goldstein, responding to request for information about his earlier publications. Encino, California, 12 May 1947. (SC 266).
Sanford, John B. / Smith [Robert W.] Collection, ca. 1982-1991. Mainly correspondence from Sanford to Smith. Also includes typescript drafts of articles by Sanford, and other material about Sanford and his work. (Mss 34).
Sanford, Junius [Ohio Infantry, 128th Regiment]. One Civil War document (ADS): Mustering Out, 13 July 1865. (Wyles SC 385).
Sanger, Margaret. One letter (TLS) to Robert B. Sweet re his article concerning birth control technique. New York, 1 Nov. 1932. (SC 267).
Sanger [Margaret] Birth Control Collection, ca. 1921-1966 [bulk dates 1930-1936]. 26 booklets, pamphlets, programs, and other printed ephemera relating to birth control advocate Margaret Sanger and organizations such as the American Birth Control League, Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau (Margaret Sanger, Director), Birth Control Federation of America, Inc. (Margaret Sanger, honorary chairman of the board), Margaret Sanger Research Bureau, National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control (Margaret Sanger, Chairman/President), and the Western States Conference on Birth Control and Population Problems. (Mss 220).
[Santa Barbara]. ACCESS Collection, 1965-1988. Files pertaining to the Alternative Comprehensive Environmental Study System (ACCESS) project in Santa Barbara county. (SBHC Mss 29).
[Santa Barbara]. Adams (Perry) – Murder from Within Papers, ca. 1967-1980. Files relating to Isla Vista organizations and issues; correspondence (1980) and typescript draft of Adams’ unpublished study Murder from Within, co-authored with Fred T. Newcomb, alleging the JFK assassination was engineered by the U.S. Secret Service; and scattered issues of newspapers, mainly of Isla Vista, Santa Barbara, and California alternative press. (Mss 1).
[Santa Barbara]. Artists’ Collection. Primarily correspondence, clippings, and photographs collected by Margaret [?], re Robert Henri, William Merrit Chase, and Santa Barbara artists William Louis Otte and Della Shull, ca. 1907-1957. (SC 481)
[Santa Barbara]. Bason (Robert E.) / Capra Press Records, ca. 1969-2004. Includes production and financial files from years Bason owned Santa Barbara-based Capra Press, as well as some earlier material from the Noel Young years. Correspondents include: Edward Abbey, Raymond Carver, Gretel Ehrlich, Tess Gallagher, Ursula LeGuin, Ken Millar, Margaret Millar, Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Lawrence Clark Powell, Thomas Sanchez, and John Sanford. (Printers Mss 59).
[Santa Barbara]. Benet [Linda] – Graham Mackintosh Collection. (Printers Mss 60).
[Santa Barbara]. Bittmann (Miss M. C.) Photograph Album, ca. 1905-1906. 96 black and white snapshots, captions in English, with images of Italy (Florence, Venice, Milan), England (London), New York City, Panama Canal, Nicaragua (Corinto), Mexico (Mazatlan), California (Nordhoff – Ojai Valley many on horseback, Santa Barbara), and Alaska (Inland Passage, Kenai Peninsula, Seward, Fort Gibbon). (SC 1048).
[Santa Barbara]. Borein, Edward. One black and white inscribed, mounted photograph of western artist Borein. Santa Barbara, California, 16 Sept. 1930. (Wyles SC 683).
[Santa Barbara]. Borein, Edward. Poster advertising The Pinto Horse, by Charles Elliott Perkins; illustrated by Edward Borein. First edition was published in 1927. (SC 985).
[Santa Barbara]. Broadside Collection, ca. 1939-1991 [bulk dates 1960s-1980s]. More than 200 printed items, most American, English language, mainly poetry, many in limited editions, some signed. Authors include Robert Bly, Ray Bradbury, Richard Brautigan, Joseph Brodsky, Charles Bukowski, Tom Clark, Andrei Codrescu, Robert Creeley, Fielding Dawson, Clayton Eshleman, William Everson, William Faulkner, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, M. F. K. Fisher, Robert Frost, Allen Ginsberg, Michael Hannon, Seamus Heaney, Robinson Jeffers, LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Denise Levertov, Oscar Lewis, Larry McMurtry, Henry Miller, Judyl Mudfoot, Pablo Neruda, Joyce Carol Oates, Octavio Paz, Lawrence Clark Powell, Kenneth Rexroth, Jerome Rothenberg, Thomas Sanchez, John Sayles, Timothy Sheehan, Gary Snyder, Henry David Thoreau, John Updike, Diane Wakoski, and Peter Whigham. Presses and printers, many Santa Barbara, include Aetheric Press (Santa Barbara), Arundel Press (Los Angeles), Cadmus Editions (Santa Barbara), Capra Press (Santa Barbara), Cranium Press (San Francisco), Crepuscular Press (Madison, WI), Doggeral Press (Santa Barbara), Gehenna Press (Northampton, MA), Janus Press (West Burke, VT), Grabhorn Hoyem (San Francisco), Kairos Editions (Santa Barbara), Graham Mackintosh (Santa Barbara), Meadow Press (San Francisco), Moving Parts Press (Santa Cruz, CA), Mudborn Press (Santa Barbara), Ninja Press (Sherman Oaks, CA), Old Hand Press (Santa Barbara), Painted Cave Press (Santa Barbara), Harry and Sandra Reese (Isla Vista, CA), Sand Dollar Press (Berkeley, CA), Sand River Press (Los Osos, CA), Sun Moon Bear Press (Healdsburg, CA), Table-Talk Press (Santa Barbara), Unicorn Bookshop (Goleta, CA), Noel Young (Santa Barbara). (Mss 212).
[Santa Barbara]. Brown, Pat [Governor of California]. Mimeograph script for KEYT [Santa Barbara television station] for program "Campaign Special #1," showcasing local developments during his tenure, Sept. 25, 1962. (SC 381).
[Santa Barbara]. Burns [Vincent Godfrey] Collection, ca. 1930s-1969. Drafts of writings, as well as correspondence, clippings, and other ephemera of poet and journalist Burns, who wrote in a populist style on patriotic and homespun American subjects and who lived in Santa Barbara for a time. (Mss 13).
[Santa Barbara]. California Missions and Santa Barbara Area Glass Slides, ca. early 1900s. 39 color and black /white glass slides of California missions, including Santa Barbara mission; also Summerland Oil Wells, Los Banos, beach,olive trees, and Arlington Hotel in Santa Barbara. Firms include: A. D. Handy (Boston) and Putnam & Valentine (Los Angeles). (Mss 271).
[Santa Barbara]. California Picture Postcard Album, ca. 1900. Album, ca. 1900, containing 45 black/white and color picture postcards. Mostly California, including several images of Santa Barbara (Potter Hotel, ocean front, mission, Santa Cruz Island), Los Angeles (court house, street scenes, parks), Santa Monica (Soldiers’ home, pier), Catalina Island, San Diego (La Jolla, Coronado Hotel, Ramona’s Marriage Place), and Pasadena (valley view, Hotel Raymond). Also a few postcards from New Mexico (mainly train stations) and Kingman, Arizona (city and countryside). (SC 823).
[Santa Barbara]. Calkins (James A.) Collection. Family and local history collection of b/w photos and clippings relating to the Calkins family and Santa Barbara area, including Zaca Lake Ranch. (SBHC Mss 24).
[Santa Barbara]. Chase [Harold S.] Oral History, 1975. Interviews with others about Santa Barbara realtor, developer, and civic leader Chase, re his coming to Santa Barbara, Hope Ranch development, role in public affairs, including earthquake and depression relief, fundraising for Cottage Hospital, wildlife conservation, and family life. (OH 26).
[Santa Barbara]. Chase, Pearl. Carbon copy of a letter (TLS) from Pearl Chase to John A. Hussey, Historian, National Park Service, San Francisco, re birth of Isabel Larkin, believed to be first child born in California of American parents. Santa Barbara, September 1962. (SC 388).
[Santa Barbara]. Chroma Litho Collection, [ca. 1980s]. 10 color examples of work by Santa Barbara-based Chroma Litho printers. (SC 1037).
[Santa Barbara]. Church [Donald R.] / Santa Barbara Old Mission Postcard Collection, ca. early 1900s. Picture postcards, b/w and color, many mailed, with messages. (SBHC Mss 62).
[Santa Barbara]. City Club of Santa Barbara. Constitution and By-Laws, incorporated Nov. 2, 1936, and revised Feb. 8, 1960. (SC 747).
[Santa Barbara]. Climatological Data, ca. 1957-1973 [bulk dates 1959-1961]. Climatological data sheets from Point Mugu, Santa Barbara, Santa Maria; also shorter runs of data, in folders, from areas such as Coal Oil Point, Ellwood, Punta Gorda, Rincon Point, Goleta, Carpinteria, Summerland, and Montecito. Includes hourly data on wind, sky cover, waves, and visibility. (SBHC Mss 65).
[Santa Barbara]. Clyde [George] Scrapbooks, 1965-1976. Six large scrapbooks with clippings of oil stories, many relating to the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill, but also earlier and later articles, from 1965 to 1976. The clippings are from the Santa Barbara News-Press, as well as other papers from Santa Barbara to Ventura, and the Los Angeles Times. Clyde worked for the Santa Barbara News-Press for a number of years and was a member of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors from 1964 to 1973, which included the period of the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill and its aftermath. During his time on the Board, he is best remembered for leading the fight against offshore oil leasing. (SBHC Mss 53).
[Santa Barbara]. Cobb, George H. One disbound photo album containing 115 black/white images, various sizes, of family and friends, Santa Barbara and Montecito scenes including Santa Barbara Mission and Riven Rock, President McKinley’s visit to Santa Barbara, San Francisco, ca 1900-1905. (Wyles SC 613).
[Santa Barbara]. Cole [David L.] Collection, early 1900s. California and Santa Barbara area ephemera. (Mss 168).
[Santa Barbara]. Community Development and Conservation Collection (CDCC), ca. 1895-1980s. Also known as the Pearl Chase Collection, focusing on Santa Barbara history in the 20th century. Included are papers relating to several hundred local organizations (especially pertaining to architecture, gardens, housing, land use, and planning), as well events such as Fiesta, Chase family papers, and numerous photographs of local scenes. (SBHC Mss 1).
[Santa Barbara]. Conway (Joel) / Early California Aviation Photograph Collection, ca. 1909-1950s [bulk dates 1910s]. About 400 separate images (many copy negatives and copy prints) compiled by Santa Barbara photographer Joel Conway, the bulk relating to the aviation activities of the Christofferson brothers and the Loughead (Lockheed) Aviation Company (headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA for a time in the 1910s), most depicting early California aviation history, many related to Santa Barbara. Also, images of Bauhaus Brothers, biplanes, Glenn Curtiss, dirigibles, Amelia Earhart, Graf Zeppelin, George Fiske Hammond, “Wild” Bill Kohler, Charles Lindbergh, John K. Northrop, Bert Saxby, Katherine and Marjorie Sinson, and Al Wilson. (SBHC Mss 79).
[Santa Barbara]. Conway (Joel) / Flying A Studio Photograph Collection, ca. 1910s-1997 [bulk dates 1910s]. The collection mainly contains black and white prints and negatives relating to the Flying A Studios (aka American Film Manufacturing Company), a film company that operated in Santa Barbara (1912-1920), as well as supporting documentation. The collection materials were acquired by Joel Conway from various sources, including the abandoned studio. Conway was a photographer who had come from Chicago and who collected a large number of photographs over the years, including many with a Santa Barbara focus. (SBHC Mss 78).
[Santa Barbara]. Conway [Joel] Oral History, 1973. Interviews with the Santa Barbara photographer and collector of historical photographs, re development of his collection, early motion picture and television history and stars, including Flying A Studio in Santa Barbara and 1950s House on Un-American Activities. Central Coast Regional Projects. (OH 30).
[Santa Barbara]. Covarrubias, Maria. One letter (ALS), in Spanish, written on her behalf by her daughter, to her brother, re death of family members including her husband, Jose Maria (a prominent judge and legislator). Santa Barbara, Oct. 1871. Includes translation. (SC 78).
[Santa Barbara]. Davis [George Wesley] Photograph Album, ca. 1895-1900. Album of George Wesley Davis, with images of the 1895 Santa Barbara Flower Show, other Santa Barbara locales, a newspaper clipping by Davis about a trip to Cuba around the time of the Spanish American War, and related commercial photographs of Cuba, some with captions. (SBHC Mss 80).
[Santa Barbara]. Dent, Rowley E. Diary, partly relating to Santa Barbara, 1870. (Wyles SC 76).
[Santa Barbara]. Dunlap (Margaret S.) Papers, ca. 1940s-1990s. Bio/personal files, sketch books, slides, photographs and other material of a local artist who created many public art works in Santa Barbara. (SBHC Mss 67).
[Santa Barbara]. E. Conway & Co. Ledgers, [1860s]. Two handwritten ledgers with manuscript documents and maps pertaining to the E. Conway & Company purchase of lands in Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, and Contra Costa counties, with early information about oil development in California. (Mss 184).
[Santa Barbara]. English (Robert A.) Collection, ca. 1967-1970. Mainly materials relating to the activities of the Community Council to End the War in Vietnam and other peace efforts in the Santa Barbara area. Included are correspondence, flyers, clippings, and scrapbooks. (SBHC Mss 5).
[Santa Barbara]. Ensemble Theatre Company of Santa Barbara Records, 1979-2002. Production files, administrative files, and videotapes of the Ensemble Theatre Company, founded in 1979. (PA Mss 47).
[Santa Barbara]. G.E. Tempo Collection, 1957-1969. Mainly unclassified speeches, papers, publications, research and technical memoranda and proposals of G. E. Tempo, a Santa Barbara-based think-tank working on long-range solutions to national defense and weapons systems issues. (Mss 139).
[Santa Barbara]. G. E. Tempo Collection, ca. 1972-1973. Pamphlets and ephemera from the UCSB Library’s Local History File, re the Santa Barbara-based long-range research and planning component of the General Electric Company, and protests against it. (SC 692).
[Santa Barbara]. Gault [William Campbell] Collection, ca. 1937-1996. Published material by Santa Barbara crime and young adult fiction writer William Campbell Gault. Also, awards, correspondence, a few black and white photographs of Gault and fellow mystery writers, and mystery and sport stories mainly appearing in pulp magazines from the latter 1930s to the early 1960s. (Mss 284).
[Santa Barbara]. Geiger, Maynard. Uncorrected page proofs for Father Maynard Geiger’s Indians of Mission Santa Barbara… [Spec F869.S45 G3848 1960]. (SC 713).
[Santa Barbara]. Geiger [Father Maynard] Oral History, 1975. Interviews with Father Geiger re his life, history of the Franciscan order and the Santa Barbara Mission, and Father Junipero Serra. Central Coast Regional Projects. (OH 40).
[Santa Barbara]. Genns [Whitney T.] Oral History, 1971. Interview with Santa Barbara rare book dealer Genns re childhood in New Jersey-New York in 1910s, World War I, Greenwich Village in the 1920s-1930s, prohibition, jazz greats, Washington, D.C. during the New Deal, and FDR. Central Coast Regional Projects. (OH 41).
[Santa Barbara]. Genns [Whitney T.] Photograph Collection, ca. 1941-1978. Photographs of the Genns family and Santa Barbara bookstore. (Mss 39).
[Santa Barbara]. Get Oil Out (GOO) Collection, ca. 1969-1990. Office files (bylaws, minutes, fundraising, publications, newsletters), governmental action, legal, and subject files, mainly pertaining to efforts to contain and monitor oil industry off coast of Santa Barbara, especially in the aftermath of the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill. (SBHC Mss 10).
[Santa Barbara]. Gilbar [Steven] Collection, ca. 1840s-1990s [bulk dates 1980s-1990s]. Research files, including correspondence, articles, clippings, and photographs pertaining to Steven Gilbar and Dean Stewart’s Tales of Santa Barbara (1994) and Literary Santa Barbara (1998). Also, related monographs and serials, which have been cataloged separately. (Mss 171).
[Santa Barbara]. Gonzales, R. P. F. Jose M. One document (ADS), in Spanish, re a marriage. Santa Barbara, 28 April 1852. (SC 127).
[Santa Barbara]. Gresham Family California Photograph Album, ca. 1900-1907. 189 mainly black and white photographs, assembled in a soft leather album by the Gresham family of San Francisco who travelled, in part, on their yacht “Gypsy.” Locations include Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, Santa Barbara (mission, alleged bullfight), Diamond Canõn, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz, San Mateo, Sausalito, Redwood, and Sacramento. Also a few images of Bagio, Philippines. (Mss 268).
[Santa Barbara]. Griggs and Hanford Families. Photographs, deeds and other legal documents re Griggs and Hanford families some pertaining to Santa Barbara, CA and residence at 905 E. Haley St., ca. 1870s-1921. Santa Barbara photographers include Hayward & Muzzall, M. A. Rees, and Sturtevant. (SC 469).
[Santa Barbara]. Hamilton [Donald] Papers, ca. 1980-1997. Correspondence, notes, flyers, clippings and other material, primarily relating to Hamilton’s work as a homeless advocate in Santa Barbara. (SBHC Mss 45).
[Santa Barbara]. Hansen [Alfred J.] Collection, 1969-1988. Records of the Veterans of World War I, District 7, which included Santa Barbara and surrounding areas. Hansen was a district commander at one point, and also was active in the local unit. (Bernath Mss 21).
[Santa Barbara]. Harmer (A. Bertrand) Photograph Collection, ca. 1925. Ca. 156 b/w prints of Spanish Colonial Architecture, taken by Harmer in 1925, the year of the Santa Barbara earthquake. Harmer was an architect who designed many of the Spanish-style buildings in Santa Barbara. (SBHC Mss 72).
[Santa Barbara]. Heath (Richard A.) / Early Lockheed History Collection, ca. 1880s-2005. Early history of the Loughead (later Lockheed) family and aircraft company, located in Santa Barbara, ca. 1916-1921. Assembled by Richard A. Heath. Includes numerous photographs. (SBHC Mss 76).
[Santa Barbara]. Hollister Family Photographs, ca. late 1800s. 11 cabinet card portraits, nine cartes de visite portraits, and one landscape cabinet photo of William Hollister in a grove, in front of his house. (SC 899).
[Santa Barbara]. [Hollywood]. Seven printed programs of movies shown at the California Theatre, “The Family Theatre” at 20 Canon Perdido St., Santa Barbara, CA, 1936-1937. (SC 743).
[Santa Barbara]. Humphries (Marie) Oil Scrapbook, ca. 1934-1938. Small scrapbook with clippings, many from a column in the Santa Barbara Daily News entitled “In the Oilfields,” with latest news on drilling on the Santa Barbara Mesa and Elwood fields, as well as Ventura (incl. [Robert] Moran’s Oil Ridge Oil Co.), and Palos Verdes Hills area, many describing Humphries’ Rolling Hills Petroleum Co. ventures. Also, several black and white snapshots of Humphries, Mesa drilling, and other unidentified oil fields. (SC 1113).
[Santa Barbara]. Kelley, Berta Lee Winniford. Bound typescript of poems and diary extracts, entitled Moods - Ever Changing and To Each His Gift, along with related correspondence and photo. Oral History 53 also relates to Kelley. (SC 829).
[Santa Barbara]. Kelley [Lloyd Amos and Berta Lee Winniford] Oral History, 1981. Discussion of the problems faced in running a family business during the Depression and how Lloyd Kelley built Kelley’s Corner, a Santa Barbara landmark, into a thriving establishment after World War II. Central Coast Regional Projects. (OH 53).
[Santa Barbara]. Kellogg, Spencer, Jr. One letter (ALS) to Mrs. [?] Hatch thanking her for the gift of her book of poems. October 10, n.y. Found in Kellogg’s Out of the Deep (Santa Barbara: Schauer Printing Studio, 1944). (SC 438).
[Santa Barbara]. Knowles (Joseph) Collection, 1920s-1930s. Correspondence, lists, and samples, mostly relating to Western Builder’s Supply Co. of San Francisco, ca. 1920s-1930s, and two letters (TLS) to George Washington Smith, Santa Barbara architect, re architectural and design catalogs and brochures being sent, 1922 and 1928. Related trade catalogs, also collected by Knowles, have been cataloged separately. (SC 717).
[Santa Barbara]. League of Women Voters Collection, ca. 1970s-1990s. Primarily research files of the organization, relating to issues such as the oil industry, LAFCO and Goleta annexation. (SBHC Mss 2).
[Santa Barbara]. Levy (Rachel) Santa Barbara Autograph Album, 1880s. Autographs and messages from friends, relatives, teachers, many of whom were members of the Santa Barbara Jewish community of the latter nineteenth century. (SC 1114).
[Santa Barbara]. Lyon, Ray B. (Judge). Correspondence, clipping and three typescript essays re deer in California, one entitled "Deer of Santa Barbara," ca. 1953. (SC 409).
[Santa Barbara]. Mackey Expedition to Santa Cruz Island. Log, 1 July 1912. (SC 186).
[Santa Barbara]. Mallory, Lee. Collection of correspondence, reviews and related materials, mostly photocopies, to and from various poets and editors, pertaining to Mallory’s Painted Cave Books of Goleta, CA, and elsewhere, ca. 1973-1975. (SC 499).
[Santa Barbara]. Moldaver [Lee] Collection, ca. 1977-1993. Primarily relating to the Santa Barbara Mass Transit District (SBMTD) and related transportation-related issues. Also includes files relating to the Citizens Planning Association of Santa Barbara County, Inc. (CPA) and the Environmental Defense Center (EDC). (SBHC Mss 30).
[Santa Barbara]. Ovington, Earle. One letter (TLS) to [Curtis] Freschel, re successful investments. Santa Barbara, CA, 25 July 1922. (SC 231).
[Santa Barbara]. Packing Labels, early-mid 1900s. Five printed color packing labels for lemons packed by companies in Santa Barbara County, California. (SC 1105).
[Santa Barbara] Pettee Family History, ca. 1960s. Ten page history of the Salisbury, CT Pettee family and Santa Barbara descendant Frank Pettee. Found with Frank Pettee’s Retracing My Steps: An Autobiography (Santa Barbara: Schauer Pringtin Studio, 1959). (SC 615).
[Santa Barbara]. Posters of the 1960s, [bulk dates latter 1960s]. 27 original printed posters, many in vivid color, most advertising concerts and readings in Detroit, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara / Isla Vista, CA. Includes appearances by Big Brother & the Holding Company; Blood, Sweat & Tears; Richard Brautigan; Basil Bunting; Cream; Doors; Fugs; and John Mayall. Poster artists include Jim Blashfield, Gary Grimshaw, John Lodge, Carl Lundgren, and Chuck Miller. (Mss 265).
[Santa Barbara]. Ridland [John] Collection, ca. 1957-1999. Contains material relating to Santa Barbara area poets and presses, including ephemera and other items laid in printed works; Isla Vista items relating to the troubles of 1970 and including a piece by Ridland entitled "Eyes and Ears on Isla Vista: An Unpublished Review from 1970"; and his papers, which include his files as faculty advisor of the UCSB student publication, Spectrum. (SBHC Mss 47).
[Santa Barbara]. Robbins [Thomas S.] Collection, 1855. Five documents (ADS), relating claims on the estate of an early Santa Barbara resident. (SC 751).
[Santa Barbara]. Rojas (Arnold R.) Papers, ca. 1964. Corrected typescript, galley and page proofs for Rojas’ The Vaquero, published by McNally and Loftin, Charlotte and Santa Barbara, 1964. Rojas also wrote several other works on the California vaqueros. (SC 715).
[Santa Barbara]. Ruhge [Justin] Collection, ca. 1970s-2001. Primarily research files relating to Santa Barbara and Goleta history. (SBHC Mss 27).
[Santa Barbara]. Rypins [Alice B.] Papers, 1960, 1970-1980s [bulk dates 1970-1983]. Mainly local government publications, newsletters, pamphlets and other files relating to Santa Barbara area water projects. Alice Rypins (1910-1998) was a City of Santa Barbara, Board of Water Commissioner and a City Council member. (SBHC Mss 3).
[Santa Barbara]. Saadi (Ruth) Collection, ca. 1984-1993. Files relating to League of Women Voters – Santa Barbara concerns, including air pollution, energy, environment, growth and development, oil and gas, voting and elections. Ruth Saadi was an active member and Energy Director of the organization. (SBHC Mss 14).
[Santa Barbara]. “Scenes from California” Photograph Album, 1888. Four albumen prints, including one of Santa Barbara Mission, in a handmade soft leather album entitled “Scenes from California” and dated 1888. Also, images of Helmet Rock (California coast); Soda Spring, Shasta; and oak trees (with elderly man seated), El Monte. Scenes from Monterey and San Francisco are lacking from the album. (SC 832).
[Santa Barbara]. Scott-McIntosh Petroleum, Incorporated Collection, ca. 1928-1930. Correspondence, notes, reports and aerial photographs re Elwood Oil Field. (SC 532).
[Santa Barbara]. Sea Mosses of Santa Barbara Album, ca. 1874-1875. (SBHC Mss 77).
[Santa Barbara]. Sharp [Robert C.] Papers, ca. 1963-1974. Includes bids, contracts, leases, logs, reports, charts, and court records pertaining to oil drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel, mainly regarding lawsuits stemming from the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill. (SBHC Mss 7).
[Santa Barbara]. Simpkins [Herbert C.] Collection, ca. 1918-2000 [bulk dates 1970s-1980s]. Items collected by Herbert C. Simpkins on a variety of subjects, including the environment, Get Oil Out [GOO] and Santa Barbara oil spill, Ku Klux Klan, Santa Barbara and UCSB flyers on contemporary social issues, and World War II. (Mss 218).
[Santa Barbara]. Skofield, Ray L. Telegram to H. L. Hitchcock of Santa Barbara, the first plane-to-ground commercial radio message, June 27, 1929, together with a Santa Barbara News-Press article detailing the story, Feb. 2, 1958. (SC 279).
[Santa Barbara]. Spaulding, Edward Selden. One letter (ALS) from Santa Barbara author and first headmaster of Laguna Blanca School, Edward Selden Spaulding, to Alice (Mrs. Thomas) Driscoll, talking about stories he has written. [Santa Barbara, CA], 1968. Laid in Spaulding’s Venison and a Breath of Sage (1967). (SC 547).
[Santa Barbara]. Storke, Charles Albert. Collection of letters, photographic negatives, and clippings, mainly pertaining to Andersonville [Civil War] survivors, ca. 1911-1912. (SC 292).
[Santa Barbara]. Storke, Charles Albert. Two letters (ALS) from H. C. Chatfield-Taylor, in part about times at Cornell and one carte de visite of Storke as adolescent (Osh Kosh, WI photographer), n.d. (SC 293).
[Santa Barbara]. Storke [Charles Albert (C. A.)] Collection. (SBHC Mss 40).
[Santa Barbara]. Storke (Charles A., II) Collection, ca. 1911-1998. Papers of Charles A. Storke II, Montecito resident, newspaperman, businessman, son of Thomas M. Storke. (SBHC Mss 38).
[Santa Barbara]. Storke [Thomas M.] Collection. Includes scrapbook, speeches, photo, miscellaneous articles by Storke and copies of awards presented to him, and numerous condolences to his wife re his death. (SBHC Mss 37).
[Santa Barbara]. Story, Ala. Collection, compiled by Ala Story, American British Art Center board member and, later, Santa Barbara resident. Mainly correspondence from poet Marianne Moore, also a 1947 letter (ALS) from Robert Frost, and photographs of E. E. Cummings, ca. 1944-1966. (SC 295).
[Santa Barbara]. Suman (Alvaro) Papers. Materials of a longtime Santa Barbara Chicano resident, painter, sculptor, and ceramicist. (CEMA 90).
[Santa Barbara]. UCSB, Department of History, Public Historical Studies Program Records, 1955-1995 [bulk dates 1977-1994]. Contains research and publication files for projects such as the Painted Cave fire study, Santa Barbara County vintners project, and Santa Barbara district attorney history project, as well as correspondence, conference and lecture files, and other documents. (UArch 41).
[Santa Barbara]. UCSB History and Antecedents Collection, 1880-2004. Collection brings together materials from multiple sources on the growth of the university from a small normal school at the turn of the 19th century to the large state university it is today. The collection is arranged generally chronologically and by subjects such as predecessor institutions, important figures in UCSB history, previous campuses, events, etc. (UArch 100).
[Santa Barbara]. UCSB Public History Interviews, 1978. Mainly interviews with Santa Barbara area fire department, forest service, and government employees re fires and firefighting. Also some interviews re water issues and the 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake. (OH 76).
[Santa Barbara]. UCSB, Office of Public Information Subject Files, ca. 1941-1993. Includes files on academic planning, Academic Senate, Arts & Lectures events, Associated Students, Bakke case, buildings, Chancellor's events and activities, Charter Day, colleges, Commencement, convocations, departments, development, Drama Series, enrollment, faculty, financial aid, history (UCSB, Goleta, and Santa Barbara), honors and awards, issues, Lecture Series, Music Series, propositions, radio and television, Regents, residence halls, statewide issues, student affairs, University Day, University Edition, and university relations. (UArch 12).
[Santa Barbara]. Veblen [Paul] Papers, ca. 1960s-1970s. Notes and articles about the Santa Barbara News-Press and Paul Veblen’s involvement in the John Birch Society ‘skirmish’; letters and copies of letters to Veblen from Pearl Chase, along with her copy of Seven Hundred Chinese Proverbs, inscribed to him. (SBHC Mss 69).
[Santa Barbara]. Walnut Park Tract, Santa Barbara, California. Abstract of Title, 1905. (SC 801).
[Santa Barbara]. Walton Family Photographs, 1907. Four glass plate negatives of the 50th anniversary of the Waltons, said to have run the first drygoods store in Santa Barbara. (SBHC Mss 74).
[Santa Barbara]. Webb (Margaret Ely) Collection, ca. 1920s-1950s. Correspondence, Christmas greetings and watercolor sketches by Santa Barbara book artist, book plate designer, and printmaker Margaret Ely Webb (1877-1965), as well as essays by/about her. (SC 328).
[Santa Barbara]. Weingand et al, v. County et al (Channel Island Drilling) Collection. (SBHC Mss 31).
[Santa Barbara]. Whigham [Peter] Collection, ca. 1980-1987. Manuscript and typescript drafts of Santa Barbara author, scholar, and translator Peter Whigam’s verse translation of Dante [Alighieri’s] Cantos [Divine Comedy], photograph, three letters (ALS), resumé, memorial booklet by Ralph Sipper, and bibliography. (SC 754).
[Santa Barbara]. Whistler, James A. Two engraved maps of Anacapa Island, by artist Whistler, 1854. (SC 703).
[Santa Barbara]. White, Stewart Edward (1873-1947). One mimeograph copy of an untitled 156 page work by American author and one-time (1903) Santa Barbara resident, Stewart Edward White. Includes chapter headings such as “Creative Living,” “Discomfort and Unhappiness,” and “The Group Idea.” Burlingame, CA, Dec. 1, 1933. (SC 335).
[Santa Barbara]. White, William Allen. Four letters (TLS) from William Allen White, American author, politician, and editor and owner of the Emporia Gazette [Kansas] to/about Southwest artist, illustrator and Santa Barbara resident Fernand Lungren, re Lungren’s work and personal reminiscences of times with him, 1905-1935. (SC 336).
[Santa Barbara]. Whitehead [Richard S.] Papers, ca. 1909-1974. Alphabetical and geographical files pertaining to land use and planning, from the County of Santa Barbara Director of Planning at the time of the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill. (SBHC Mss 9).
[Santa Barbara]. Willson [Charles Devon] Collection, ca. 1918-1925. Mainly correspondence to Willson, manager of the El Mirasol Hotel in Santa Barbara, about hotel matters. Includes some correspondence relating to the 1925 earthquake. (SC 701).
[Santa Barbara]. Young (Noel) / Capra Press Collection, ca. 1930s-1970s. The collection contains biographical information about Noel Young (1922-2002), including typescripts from early diaries in the 1930s and through his college years, typescripts mainly of short stories, but also poetry and plays, by Young, memorabilia from trips, photographs, and some material relating to his Santa Barbara-based Capra Press. (Printers Mss 46).
[Santa Barbara]. Young [Noel] / Capra Press Oral History, 1983. Interviews with the Santa Barbara publisher. (OH 104).
Santa Barbara African American Local History Collection, 1994-1997 . Documents, photographs, and interviews collected as part of a Black Santa Barbara Historical Calendar, a collaborative research project in the Black Studies Department at UCSB. The aim of the calendar was to call attention to local personages and events important in Santa Barbara’s African American community. (CEMA 99).
Santa Barbara African American Oral History Project Collection. Documents, photographs and interviews pertaining to Santa Barbara African American local history. Included are 19 tapes of interviews with prominent members of the Black Santa Barbara community. (CEMA 42).
Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez Turnpike Road Co. Document dated Apr. 25, 1868. (SC 862).
Santa Barbara and Suburban Railway Photographs, 1913. Four b/w photos and copies (various sizes), showing Miss Ednah A. Rich, President of the State Normal School, being presented with a spike maul, which she used to drive the golden spike at the end of the Normal School Extension of the Santa Barbara & Suburban Railway, Nov. 6, 1913. (SC 844).
Santa Barbara Area Newpapers, ca. 1887-1992. Single issues or short broken runs of newspapers from the local area, including Carpinteria, Goleta, Isla Vista, Santa Ynez Valley, Montecito, and Santa Barbara. Newspapers with substantial runs have been cataloged separately. (SBHC Mss 50).
Santa Barbara Authors Collection. Articles, bibliographies, biographies, and other material collected on an ongoing basis about Santa Barbara authors. Papers of individual authors are kept as separate collections and are listed by surname. Also, cataloged separately, are signed and first editions of hundreds of past and present authors with local connections. See the Special Collections webpage Santa Barbara Authors and Publishers for more detailed information. (SBHC Mss 68).
Santa Barbara Citizens Commission on Civil Disorders Collection, 1970. List and audio recordings of a series of hearings held from June 17, 1970 to September 1, 1970. (SBHC Mss 57).
Santa Barbara City and Coast Map, 1928. Large, ca. 30” x 80” map, with hand-colored key and shadings of areas owne/operated by oil companies of the time. (SC 956).
Santa Barbara Civic Light Opera Records. (PA Mss 56).
Santa Barbara College. One document (AD) listing original pledges for the college, 1869. The college has no connection to the present University of California, Santa Barbara. (SC 268).
"Santa Barbara Community Resources." Mimeographed school project organized by Hanne Sonquist, with lists of local organizations and services provided, 1973. (SC 534).
Santa Barbara Concert Posters, ca. late 1960s. Six original color posters, mainly of Jim Salzer Presents events at the Santa Barbara Fairgrounds. Headliners include Eric Clapton, Cream, The Fugs, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, and Vanilla Fudge. (SC 1032).
Santa Barbara Contemporary Issues Collections. Papers of 20th century local officials, legislators, organizations, and individuals dealing with issues such as the airport, education, flood control, government, health, housing, land use and planning, natural resources, oil, political reform, taxes, transportation, water, and the wilderness. Collections are listed individually.
Santa Barbara Correspondence. One letter (ALS) from Thomas Irvine (Santa Barbara) to C. H. Peters (Carson City, Nevada), re a financial matter, 3 April 1897. Also one letter (TL) from State Bank & Trust Co. (Carson City) to Thomas P. Hawley (Santa Barbara), 11 Dec. 1906, and one letter (ALS) response from Hawley, 14 Dec. 1906, re stocks in Goldfield Consolidated Mining Co. (SC 567).
Santa Barbara County, California. Superintendent of Schools. Seven World War II era documents, including five War Emergency Bulletins and others about evacuation of Japanese children and air raid signals, 1941-1942. (SC 630).
Santa Barbara Earthquake Photographs, 1925. 50 b/w photographs, many relating to the 1925 earthquake. (SC 700).
Santa Barbara Girls School, 1917-1920s. Two illustrated brochures extolling the virtues of the school’s location and curriculum. Includes class lists. (SC 963).
Santa Barbara Jazz Society Records. Records of Santa Barbara organization dedicated to the appreciation of jazz music. (PA Mss 71).
Santa Barbara Libertarian Party. Eleven issues of the Santa Barbara Libertarian newsletter, 1975-1976. (SC 711).
Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Poster for the 25th anniversary of the Museum, 1941-1966. (SC 987).
Santa Barbara Oil Spill Poster, 1969. One black and white poster of oil rig and oil spill on water’s surface, with caption “January 28, 1969.” (SC 1034).
Santa Barbara Oil Spill Scrapbook, 1969. One scrapbook with clippings tracing the history of the Santa Barbara Oil Spill of January 1969. The clippings cover the period from January to May 1969, most from the Santa Barbara News Press, but also including California Oil World, El Gaucho [UCSB], Lompoc Record, Long Beach Press Telegram, Los Angeles Herald, Los Angeles Times, Oil and Gas Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, and Santa Maria Times. (SBHC Mss 52).
Santa Barbara Parapsychology Collection, ca. 1970s-1980s. Newsletters, magazines, catalogs, flyers, articles, records of experiments, correspondence, subject files, and other material, mainly printed, collected by Santa Barbara resident Dr. David T. Phillips and primarily pertaining to parapsychology-related groups, studies, and issues in Santa Barbara, southern California, and elsewhere in the U.S. (ARC Mss 48).
Santa Barbara Photograph, ca. late 1880s. One black and white panorama, showing harbor, city, mission, and electrical poles [Santa Barbara received electricity in 1887]. (SC 1035).
Santa Barbara Photographs, late 1800s-early 1900s. Single items and small groups of photographs, acquired from various sources. (SBHC Mss 61).
Santa Barbara Picture Postcards, ca. 1900s-1950s. About 90 b/w and color postcards of various Santa Barbara area scenes, acquired over the years from various sources. Includes Santa Barbara and Montecito residences and gardens, harbor and beaches, foothills, bird’s eye views, Santa Barbara Mission, and former Riviera campus of Santa Barbara College (now UC Santa Barbara). (SBHC Mss 36).
Santa Barbara Public School Art Fair. Invitation, 23 May 1912. (SC 269).
Santa Barbara Vintners Collection, ca. 1990s- . Newsletters, flyers, wine labels, articles/clippings, and other ephemera relating to vintners in the Santa Barbara County area (including Santa Ynez Valley, Lompoc, Santa Maria). (SBHC Mss 63).
Santa Barbara Water Resources Collection, ca. 1959-1984. Files relating to Santa Barbara area water districts, groundwater, and hourly precipitation records. (SBHC Mss 16).
Santa Barbara World War I Recruitment Poster. (SC 881).
[Santa Cruz Island]. Mackey Expedition to Santa Cruz Island. Log, 1 July 1912. (SC 186).
[Santa Cruz Island]. Kiewit (John S.) Photography Collection, ca. 1968-2000. More than 10,000 color and black/white prints, color slides, and black/white negatives. Color slides constitute the bulk of the collection. The images reflect what Kiewit saw on his travels throughout California and the West, as well as trips to other parts of the U.S. and the world. Prominent places and themes include Baja, barns and farms, Big Sur, buildings and building elements (doors and windows), Carmel [CA], Central Coast [CA], Channel Islands, Death Valley, fences, ghost towns, Hawaii, Hollister Ranch [CA], landscapes, Malibu [CA], Marin County [CA], New England, New Mexico, ocean views, Oregon, Oxnard [CA], rock formations, signs, surfing, trees, Utah, wildflowers, Wyoming, and Yosemite. Other countries represented in the collection include Cook Island, Costa Rica, El Salvador, England, France, Guatemala, Marques and Tahiti Islands, Mexico, Micronesia, and New Zealand. Most of the images were taken from the 1970s to the 1990s. (Mss 228).
[Santa Ynez Valley]. Lyons [Jeannette] Oral History, 1975. Family and local history, mainly Santa Ynez Valley, including experiences as a teacher and, later, curator of the Santa Ynez Historical Museum. Central Coast Regional Projects. (OH 60).
“Sarah Bernhardt in ‘Phedre’, Hearst’s Greek Theatre, May 17, 1906.” One black and white panoramic photograph. (SC 1029).
Saroyan, William. One note (ANS) to Lena and Joe Petracca, bon voyage wishes. Malibu, 15 Mar. 1958. (SC 270).
Satir [Virginia] Collection, 1916-1993. Extensive collection of personal and professional manuscript materials, organizational records, and audiovisual materials from the noted family therapist. (HPA Mss 45).
Satir [Virginia] Oral History. Interviews with family therapist Satir. (OH 82).
[Saudi Arabia]. Gildea [James G.] Middle East Railroad Collection, ca. 1940s-1970s [bulk dates early 1950s]. Bulk of collection is documents and photos re construction of Saudi Government Railway, ca. early 1950s. Gildea later lived in Santa Barbara. (Bernath Mss 219).
[Saudi Arabia]. Trans-Arabian Pipeline Photograph Collection, ca. 1947. 80 black and white snapshots of the early days of the Bechtel Company’s construction of the Saudi Arabia portion of the Trans-Arabian Pipeline (Tapline), carrying oil via a 30 inch line to tankers in the Mediterranean. Includes images of marine terminal construction on the eastern Saudi Arabian coast, Bechtel and local boats, trucks with pipe and other heavy machinery, American, Saudi Arabian, and Indian workmen, Arab in traditional dress with falcon, Arab men, women and children, and camels. (SC 1099).
Saudi Arabia Oil Photograph Collection, ca. 1936-1939. 199 black and white snapshots from a disbound album, captions in English on the back of many photographs, taken by an unidentified American involved in developing the early oil industry in Saudi Arabia at a time when U.S. interests, particularly Standard Oil of California [SOCAL], were supplanting British interests in the area. Most images relate to construction of oil camps in eastern Saudi Arabia, mainly at Abu Hadriya Camp (incl. prefab and other building construction, colleagues, Arab workers and living quarters, pipelines, oil wells and fire at one). Also local population and street scenes in village near Abu Hadriya, Al Khobar (Saudi coast – first oil barge; marine terminal), Jubail (Saudi coast – people and street scenes), local Bedouins and camels, Bahrain (pier and local scenes). (Bernath Mss 366).
Savage, Henry. One letter (ALS) to [Muriel Stuart?], n.d. Laid in Savage’s Richard Middleton, the Man and His Work (1922). (SC 259).
Savage Mining Company (Virginia, Nevada). Daily report and vouchers, 1876-1898. (Wyles SC 896).
Saxon [A. H.] Papers. Typescript of The Life and Art of Andrew Ducrow and the Romantic Age of the English Circus, and accompanying essay. (PA Mss 11).
Sawders [James] Photograph Collection, ca. 1930s-1950s. Approx. 890 b/w prints, most 8x10, many countries. Most taken by Charles Phelps Cushing, 51 E. 42nd St., NY (1884-1973; was a Kansas City reporter for a time, died in Bronx) and distributed by James Caleb Sawders. Sawders was an American photojournalist who travelled to China in the early 1930s, according to one website. A few photos with Sawders credit alone. A few others were taken by Jack Lewis and distributed by Sawders. (Bernath Mss 172).
Sawyer (A. T.) Cuba Letter, 1839. (SC 1116).
Sawyer [James H.] Papers, 1861-1865, 1879-1882 [bulk dates 1861-1865]. Primarily correspondence and diaries of a Civil War Union soldier in the Connecticut Infantry, 18th Regiment (Vol.), Company B. (Wyles Mss 33).
Saybrook Institute (San Francisco, CA). Catalog, 1985-1986. (HPA SC 108).
Schedel, Hartmann (1440-1514). German historian and humanist scholar. Holdings include early editions of his major work, Liber Cronicarum (1493), which has come to be known as The Nuremberg Chronicle [Spec D17.S34 1493 vault and Printers Z241.S31 S3 vault]. Individual leaves from the Chronicle are also in the collection [Printers Z241.S31 S3253 1493 vault and Printers Z241.S31 S3257 1493 vault]. Fine press edition of Sarmatia: The Early Polish Kingdom (1976) by Plantin Press [Spec DK4190.S313 and Printers Z239.P53 S333 1976]. See also The Nuremberg Chronicle (1950) by Ellen Shaffer [Printers Z241.S31 S48 1950], The Nuremberg Chronicle Designs (1969) by Adrian Wilson [Printers Z241.S31 W5], and Hartmann Schedels Weltchronik (1988) by Elisabeth Rücker [Printers Z241.S31 R83 1988].
Scheffer, Charles. One letter (ALS) from Minnesota State Treasurer to President Elect Abraham Lincoln, re recommendation for district attorney. St. Paul, Minnesota, 12 Nov. 1860. (Wyles SC 198).
Schlien [John] Oral History. Interviews re Carl Rogers. Humanistic psychology project. (OH 2).
Schmidt [Erich F.] Persepolis Excavation Slides. Glass slides taken by Schmidt at archaeological sites, including Persepolis, ca. early part of the 20th century. (Bernath Mss 19).
Schmidt (Oswin) Polar / Arctic Travel Album, 1912. 160 original photographs, some panorama shots, and chromolithographs, as well as route maps, postcards, and menus of a voyage on the S.S. Grosser Kurfürst of the Norddeutscher Lloyd Line, from Bremerhafen (Germany) to Scotland (Edinburgh), Iceland (Reykjavik and Tröllafos), Spitzbergen, King Jacob Land, and Norway (Lyngseidet, Tromsoe, Malde, Balholmen, and Bergen). Includes images of people, settlements, villages, and towns, surrounding countryside, coast, icebergs, glaciers, Laplanders and reindeer, and Norwegian whale fishery. Captions in German. (Bernath Mss 311).
Schmitz (Alfred and Carol) Collection, ca. 1967-2008. Mainly first editions, many signed, of Booker Prize winner and shortlist books, together with related correspondence (mainly Booker authors), publicity, and other ephemera. (Mss 267).
Schmook, Henry A. [Private, New York National Guard, 3rd Regiment, Company A]. One document (ADS): Discharge by Disbandment, 27 Apr. 1869. (Wyles SC 380).
Schott [Valerian] China Photograph Album, 1941. (Bernath Mss 329).
Scientific Notebook. Handwritten geometrical definitions, scientific and mathematical problems and equations, with drawings; also including notes on railroad curves and superstructures. Author unknown, possibly from Philadelphia area (notebook includes table of time differences, using Philadelphia as the baseline), ca. mid 19th century. (SC 806).
[Scotland]. Ash (Marinell) Collection, 1970s and 1980s. Correspondence and related printed ephemera, re Scottish history. Accompanies a book collection on the same topic. (SC 519).
[Scotland]. Panama Canal / Southwest U.S. / Europe Photograph Album, 1926. 250+ b/w snapshots, apparently of a family’s 1926 travels, including the Isle of Mull, Isle of Skye, west coast and lochs of Scotland. (Bernath Mss 71).
[Scotland]. Polish Army World War II Photograph Presentation Album, 1941. Album with 52 b/w snapshots, captions in English. The soldiers were part of a Polish, British, and Norwegian force that captured Ankenes and Narvik [Norway] from the German forces in May, 1940, and broke the chain of German victories in World War II. Includes images of Scotland, around St. Andrews, where the soldiers were based. (Bernath Mss 60).
[Scotland]. Schmidt (Oswin) Polar / Arctic Travel Album, 1912. 160 original photographs, some panorama shots, and chromolithographs, as well as route maps, postcards, and menus of a voyage on the S.S. Grosser Kurfürst of the Norddeutscher Lloyd Line, from Bremerhafen (Germany) to Scotland (Edinburgh), Iceland (Reykjavik and Tröllafos), Spitzbergen, King Jacob Land, and Norway (Lyngseidet, Tromsoe, Malde, Balholmen, and Bergen). Includes images of people, settlements, villages, and towns, surrounding countryside, coast, icebergs, glaciers, Laplanders and reindeer, and Norwegian whale fishery. Captions in German. (Bernath Mss 311).
Scott Antarctic [Terra Nova] Expedition Photographs, 1910-1913. Glass plate negatives. (Bernath Mss 111).
Scott, Clement (1841-1904). One letter (ALS) from English theatre critic, playwright, and travel writer Clement Scott, to J. L. Toole, asking him to forward [an article?] to the editors of the Dramatic College Annual. [London?], 18 June 1866. (SC 470).
Scott, David S. [Private, Indiana Infantry, 8th Regiment (Vol), Company H]. One Civil War letter (ALS) to Miss Kate Missimer. Camp near St. Genievieve, Missouri, 15 Mar. 1863. (Wyles SC 323).
Scott, Hugh Stowell (1863?-1903). One letter (ALS) from underwriter in Lloyd’s and novelist Scott, re changes to his book, Slave of the Lamp. Merstham, Surrey, [U.K.], 21 Aug. 1891. (SC 471).
[Scott, Robert]. South Pacific Photograph Album, ca. 1901-1902. 140+ b/w photographs of a voyage, probably by a British passenger embarking at London, on the New Zealand ship S.S. Rakaia. Includes images of Robert Scott’s ship Discovery in dry dock for repairs in Lyttleton Harbour, on the way to explore Antarctica, Nov. 1901. (Bernath Mss 283).
Scott, Thomas A. One Civil War letter (ALS) to Dr. John Swinburne re Medical Board to examine applications for brigade surgeons. 20 Sept. 1861. (Wyles SC 270).
Scott, Walter (1771-1831). Scottish novelist and poet. Holdings include Ballads and Lyrical Pieces (1806) [Spec PR5306.B3 1806], Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field (1810) [Spec PR5311.A1 1810], The Vision of Don Roderick (1811) [Spec PR5313.V5 1811], The Border Antiquities of England and Scotland (1814) [Spec DA880.B72 S3], Guy Mannering (1815) [Spec PR5317.G8 1815], Paul’s Letters to His Kinfolk (1816) [Spec PR5320.P36], Tales of My Landlord (1816) [Spec PR5322.T3 1816], Rob Roy (1818) [Spec PR5322.R6 1818], The Abbot (1820) [Spec PR5317.A2 1820], The Monastery (1820) [Spec PR5320.M6 1820], The Fortunes of Nigel (1822) [Spec PR5317.F6 1822], The Pirate (1822) [Spec PR5320.P5 1822], Peveril of the Peak (1822) [Spec PR5320.P4 1822], Quentin Durward (1823) [Spec PR5321.A1 1823], Redgauntlet (1824) [Spec PR5322.R4 1824], Woodstock (1826) [Spec PR5322.W6 1826], Anne of Geierstein (1829) [Spec PR5317.A6 1829], Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (1830) [Spec PR5320.L47 1830], Harold the Dauntless (1843) [Spec PR5313.H5 1843], and The Lady of the Lake (1847) [Spec PR5308.A1 1847]. Fine press editions of Wandering Willie’s Tale (1905) by T.N. Foulis [Printers Z239.2.F66 S3673 1905], Ivanhoe (1940) by the Limited Editions Club [Printers Z239.L5 S36 1940], and The Two Drovers (1971) by the Kindle Press [Printers Z239.K43 S3]. See also Scott on Himself: A Selection of the Autobiographical Writings of Sir Walter Scott (1981) [Spec PR5334.A2 1981]. Additionally, Scott’s poems have been recorded on phonograph cylinders, such as Bonnie Dundee [PA Cylinder 0082], and 78 rpm records, including They Bid Me Sleep [PA ARVM-14590].
Scott, Winfield [Lieutenant General]. One portrait [printed engraving], by H. B. Hall, “From a recent Photograph by Brady,” n.d. (Wyles SC 718).
Scott-McIntosh Petroleum, Incorporated Collection, ca. 1928-1930. Correspondence, notes, reports and aerial photographs re Elwood Oil Field [Santa Barbara, CA], including images of Coal Oil Point and Goleta Point (now USCB). (SC 532).
Scrapbook – Advertising Literature, ca. 1890-1903. Correspondence, flyers, clippings, catalogs, lists and other advertising items, most relating to East Coast firms, laid and glued in a worn copy of Mark Twain’s A Tramp Abroad, being used as a scrapbook. Assembled by S. Tillinghast of La Plume, PA. (SC 843).
Screen Guild Players Recordings, 1942-1948. Recordings of 32 Screen Guild Players radio programs used as a fundraising effort for the Motion Picture Relief Fund featuring many contemporary stars. (PA Mss 28).
Sea Fern Album, ca. latter 1800s. Album containing seven mounted sea fern specimens, together with a black and white photograph of the [southern California?] coast, bound from a section of backbone of a whale cast up on Long Beach, California, with a red silk tie at the spine of the album. (Printers Mss 75).
Sea Mosses of Santa Barbara Album, ca. 1874-1875. (SBHC Mss 77).
Seabury [Samuel] Naval Papers, ca. 1871-1882. (Wyles Mss 112).
Seabury, William Marston. One letter (TLS) to Judge Paul J. McCormick re the motion picture industry. Laid in Seabury’s Motion Picture Problems. New York, 1 June 1929. (SC 274).
Seago [Edward B.] Correspondence, 1934-1935. Six letters (ALS) by the circus writer to [Raymond Toole-] Stott, mainly about articles he is working on. (SC 275).
Searle, Alan (Secretary to Somerset Maugham). Two letters (TLS) to Laurence Brander, one praising Brander’s book on Maugham, 1963, and one about Maugham’s death, 1966. Villa Mauresque, 1963, 1966. (SC 276).
Sears, E[dmund] H[amilton] (1810-1876). Holograph poem, untitled and undated, by the Massachusetts Unitarian parish minister and author of the carol “It Came upon the Midnight Clear.” (SC 472).
Seaver, Benjamin F. One letter (ALS) to his father, Henry [?], and grandmother, re personal and family matters. New York, July 15, 1836. (SC 662).
Sedgwick [John] Papers. One carte de visite photo of John Sedgwick, Civil War Union General, 6th Army Corps, and a 13 page handwritten report by him, to Brig. Gen. S. Williams of the Army of the Potomac, concerning movements of the 6th Army Corps around Fredericksburg, Virginia, from April 28 to May 5, 1863. (Wyles SC 201).
Self Determination (Santa Clara, CA). Flyer, directory, and journal, ca. 1977-1979. (HPA SC 109).
Self-Help Graphics and Art Archives, ca. 1960-1992. Extensive collection of silk screen prints and slides, as well as organizational records, photographs, and ephemera of the Los Angeles cultural arts center and studio. Founded in the early 1970s, during the height of the Chicano Civil Rights movement, by Mexican artists, Carlos Bueno and Antonio Ibañez, and several Chicano artists, including Frank Hernandez and Sister Karen Boccalero. (CEMA 3).
Selfridge / China Photograph Albums, ca. 1890s-1900. Two photograph albums of scenes in China, including Shanghai, Peking, and Tientsin [Tianjin], apparently from the period preceding and during the Boxer Rebellion. Includes snapshots and picture postcards. (Wyles Mss 56).
Selver [Charlotte] Papers, 1957-1995. Personal and professional correspondence, writings, and sound records of Charlotte Selver, student of Elsa Gindler in Europe, and the person who introduced sensory awareness to the U.S. Closely connected to the Esalen Institute and San Francisco Zen Center. Her work is continued by the Sensory Awareness Foundation. (HPA Mss 33).
[de Sena, Jorge]. Huerta [Alberto] Collection, 1977, 1982. Six framed color photographs, 1977, of Jorge de Sena and José Luis López Arangueren and others; and 27 slides of Jorge de Sena, youth to time in Santa Barbara, copies of photographs, courtesy of Mecia de Sena, July 1982. Huerto is in several of the color prints. (Mss 233).
Seneca (c.4 BC-65 AD) [full name Lucius Annæus Seneca]. Roman philosopher and playwright. Holdings include Senecae, Clarissimi Stoici Philosophi, Nec Non Poetae Accutissimi (1522) [Spec PA6664.A2 1522], Tragoediae (1631) [Spec PA6664.A2 1631], Opera Omnia (1649) [Spec PA6661.A2 1649], and Seneca’s Morals by Way of Abstract (1693) [Spec BJ214.S4 M6 1693]; fine press editions of Seneca, His Tenne Tragedies Translated into English (1927) from Thomas Newton’s 1581 translation [Spec PS3509.L76 Z3 S4], and On Friendship: Extracts from Epistulæ Morales (1938) by Ward Ritchie Press [Printers Z239.W35 S4].
[Senegal]. de Chetelat (Enzo) Papers, ca. 1901-1980s [bulk dates 1920s-1960s]. Autobiography, correspondence, documents, maps, reports, black/white photographs and photograph albums, several thousand color slides, and artifacts of a Swiss-born mining geologist who visited or worked in many countries from the 1920s to the 1970s, including Albania, Algeria, Bali, Belgian Congo, Brazil, British Honduras, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Ceylon, Czechoslovakia, Dahomey, France, French Guinea, French Guyana, French Polynesia, Ghana, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Macau, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mali, Martinique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria, Paracel Islands, Peru, Samoa, Senegal, Singapore, Somalia, Sumatra, Syria, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Upper Volta, Vietnam, and Yugoslavia. (Bernath Mss 316).
[Senegal]. Mendell [Edward] Travel Slide Collection, 1980s-1990s. More than 2000 large-format color slides containing images of Edward Mendell’s post-retirement travels around the world, photographing endangered species for the World Wildlife Fund, and also of people in far-flung places such as Bhutan, Burma, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Iceland, Mali, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Orissa (India), Philippines, Senegal, and Thailand. (Mss 247).
Senegal Photograph Collection, ca. late 1920s-early 1930s. 60 black/white photos, captions in French. (Bernath Mss 242).
74th Regiment Indiana Veteran Association. Cards and flyer re Civil War reunions, 1908-1915, along with calling cards of Henry G. Potter and Major A. P. Bass. (Wyles SC 1067).
Severin, Francis T. Vita and articles, ca, 1953-1974. (HPA SC 110).
Severy [Hazel W.] Oral History, 1972. Interview with the UCSB professor and former head of the Department of Natural Resources. Subjects include Stanford University, David Starr Jordan, Pacific College of Osteopathy, and UCSB. History of Science Project. (OH 83).
Severy [Hazel W.] Papers, 1914-1955. Scrapbook, with clippings, photographs, programs, and related materials, documenting UCSB in its early pre-university years. (UArch FacP 37).
[Severy, Hazel W.]. UCSB History and Antecedents Collection, 1880-2004. Includes series on Hazel Severy – teacher of science, home economics, and chemistry, and Chair of the Science and Mathematics Department at the Santa Barbara State Normal School – containing scrapbooks, school registers, account books, and clippings dating from the Sloyd School to the Santa Barbara State College era. (UArch 100).
Seward, William [H.] [U.S. Secretary of State], and Horatio Seymour [Governor of New York]. Certification of Power of Attorney and related Civil War documents, 30 July 1864. (Wyles SC 203).
Seward, William H. [U.S. Secretary of State]. One Civil War letter (ALS) to Judge Charles A. Peabody of New Orleans. Department of State, Washington, [D.C.], 11 Feb. 1863. (Wyles SC 204).
Seymour, Horatio (1810-1886). One ALS to J.R. Simms. Utica, [New York], 13 Feb. 1869. (Wyles SC 205).
Shakespeare, William (1564-1616). English playwright and poet. Holdings include the fourth folio edition of 1685 [Spec PR2751.A4 vault]; Alexander Pope’s edition of The Works of Shakespear (1728) [Spec PR2752.P7 1728]; Samuel Johnson’s edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare in Eight Volumes (1765) [Spec PR2752.J7 1765]; George Steevens’ nine-volume set The Dramatic Works of Shakespeare (1802) [Spec PR2753.S8 1802]; The Shakesperian Diary and Almanack (1869) [Spec PR2771.S5]; Roméo et Juliette: Tragédie en Cinq Actes (1875) in French [Spec PQ1983.F743 R58 1782]; the 40-volume Edinburgh Folio of The Works of Shakespeare (1901) [Spec PR2753.H46 1901]; the 38-volume Limited Editions Club set of The Comedies, Histories & Tragedies of William Shakespeare (1939) [Printers Z239.L5 S47]; and Shakespeare Psychiatry (1944) [Printers Z239.S5 S5]. Facsimile editions of a 1602 printing of The Merry Wives of Windsor [Spec PR2750.B26], The First Folio of Shakespeare from 1623 (1968) [Spec PR2751.A15 1968], The Second Folio of 1632 (1987) [Spec PR2751.A25 1987], and The Complete King Lear, 1608-1623 (1989) featuring parallel text from multiple early sources. Fine press editions include Romeo and Juliet by Duprat & Co. (1892) [Spec PR2831.A2 S7], the Heritage Club (1937) [Printers Z239.W37 S53 1937], and the Allen Press (1988) [Printers Z239.A46 S53 1988]; A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Aldine House Press (1895) [Spec PR2827.A2 G6 1895b and Printers Z276.5.S494 1895] and by the Grabhorn Press (1955) [Printers Z239.G7 S49 1955]; the tercentenary edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1909) by Doves Press [Printers Z239.2.D65 S52 vault]; The Sonnets of William Shakespeare by Riccardi Press (1913) [Printers Z239.2.R45 S534 1913], the Peter Pauper Press (1936) [Printers Z239.P4 S4], and by Plantin Press (1974) [Printers Z239.P53 S488]; Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1922) [Printers Z257.S429 1922] and As You Like It (1930) [Spec PR2803.A2 H3 1930 vault], both with Art Nouveau illustrations by John Austen; The Phoenix and the Turtle (1938) by Pear Tree Press [Printers Z239.2.P37 S52]; The Poems of Shakespeare (1939) by the Overbrook Press [Printers Z239.O8 S53 1939 vault]; The Master Mistris (1946) by the Golden Eagle Press [Spec PR2848.A2 M37 1946 and Printers Z239.G648 S55 1946]; An Exhortation to Marriage (1946) also by the Golden Eagle Press [Printers Z239.G648 S53]; several proof sheets for the Peter Pauper Press edition of The Tragedy of Hamlet (c.1950) with illustrations by Valenti Angelo [Printers Z239.P4 S434 1950 vault]; Shake-Speares Sonnets (1956) by the Anvil Press [Spec PR2848.A1 1956 vault]; The Poems of William Shakespeare (1958) by the Heritage Press [Printers Z239.H46 S53]; The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra by the Grabhorn Press (1960) [Printers Z239.G7 S437 1960 vault] and by the Circle Press (1979) [Printers Z239.2.C372 S53 1979]; The Taming of the Shrew (1967) by Grabhorn-Hoyem [Spec PR2832.A2 W77 1967]; Of Imagination All Compact (1971) by Grabhorn-Hoyem [Printers Z239.G71 S53 1971]; King Lear by the Circle Press (1973) [Spec PR2819.A2 K45] and Theodore Press (1986) [Printers Z239.J35 S535 1986 vault]; Songs from Shakespeare’s Plays (1974) by Officina Bodoni [Spec PR2768.D415 vault]; Venus & Adonis (1975) by the Arion Press [Spec PR2845.A1 1975]; and Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1997) by the Arion Press [Printers Z239.A726 S534 1997]. Several of Shakespeare’s poems, as well as scenes from his plays, have served as the basis for 78 RPM records, such as Hamlet: Six Excerpts (1940) performed by Maurice Evans [PA Columbia M651].
[Shakespeare, William]. Ogden [C. K.] Collection. Purchase in 1957 by the University of California of a library of 100,000 books from the estate of Ogden, creator of Basic English. The collection subsequently was distributed among the UC campuses. The highlight of the UCSB component is a Shakespeare Fourth Folio (1685).
Shakespeare – Timon of Athens Leaf. Pages 1-2 of early printing of The Life of Timon of Athens. (SC 914).
"Shall the Extension of Slavery Be Prohibited?" Broadside, supporting the John C. Fremont/William L. Dayton ticket, 1856. (Wyles SC 803).
Shanghai, China Photograph Collection, ca. 1948-1949. 182 b/w snapshots, mainly Shanghai, taken by an American serving in the U.S. Navy. (SC 896).
Shanghai Photograph Album, ca. 1920s. (Bernath Mss 113).
Shanghai Steam Navigation Co. Photograph Album, ca. 1860s-1875. Leatherbound photograph album with 125 cartes-de-visite (cdv) and 6 cabinet size cards, including a signed and dated cdv of Rutherford B. Hayes. Mainly images of employees, their wives and children, and people associated with the Shanghai Steam Navigation Co., which became the leader in the American China trade and major importer of opium into China. (Bernath Mss 47).
Shapiro, Norman. One copy of a typed essay signed by Norman Shapiro re his method of producing drawings. Brightwaters, New York, Nov. 1985. Laid in Shapiro’s, Daring Durea [Printers Z257.S439 1985]. (SC 589).
Shapiro [S. R.] Bookplate Collection. Personal collection of bookplates. Also, printed book arts, small and fine press items, donated in memory of his parents, Herman and Gertrude Nathan Shapiro. (Printers Mss 32).
Shapiro [Stewart] Oral History, 1990. Life history of the UCSB professor of confluent education and clinical psychologist. (OH 84).
Shapiro [Stewart B.] Papers, 1966-1987. Materials from a UCSB professor of confluent education, relating to the humanistic psychology movement. (HPA Mss 34).
Sharp [Robert C.] Papers, ca. 1963-1974. Includes bids, contracts, leases, logs, reports, charts, and court records pertaining to oil drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel, mainly regarding lawsuits stemming from the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill. (SBHC Mss 7).
[Shaw, George Bernard]. Steinhauer [Harry] Papers, ca. 1928-1959. Correspondence and related materials of Steinhauer, Professor of German in the UCSB Department of Foreign Languages, with Max Barthel, Hermann Hesse, H. L. Mencken, Erich Maria Remarque, George Bernard Shaw, and Fritz von Unruh. (UArch FacP 19).
Shaw, George Bernard. One letter (ALS) to [Augustine?] Birrell re political strategies. London, 12 Mar. 1930. Also an undated invoice to Shaw and a b&w print of Shaw. (SC 277).
Shaw, George Bernard. One note (ANS), re advice on successfully establishing new magazines, to J. S. Vader, Leisure Magazine (Australia), 26 Jan. 1947. (SC 605).
Shaw (W. B.) South Africa Photograph Album, 1918. Album commemorating a visit of Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Shaw to the C. J. Lappan family, at Shenfield house, in South Africa. 32 black/white photos, including Lappan and Shaw family members on the porch of Shenfield house, surrounding countryside, a shot of the family by a wagon with the caption "The Voortrekkers," as well as several images of local South African women, children, and their compounds. (Bernath Mss 54).
Shea, John Dawson Gilmary. One letter (ALS) from customer John Bap[?] re Shea’s book History of the Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States, 1529-1854. Bangor, Dec. 19, 1854. (SC 561).
Shead [F.] India Northwest Frontier Photograph Album, 1929-1930. (Bernath Mss 196).
[Sheinbaum, Stanley K.]. Correspondence, presentations, publications, and audiovisual materials relating to Sheinbaum’s involvement with the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions (CSDI) may be found in the CSDI Collection (Mss 18).
Sheinbaum (Stanley K.) Collection, ca. 1970s-2001. Articles about Sheinbaum, copy of oral history transcript with Joan Didion, and copy of oral history transcript by UCLA. Includes material about his association with CSDI and later New Perspectives magazine. Includes files, ca. latter 1970s-mid 1980s, kept by Stanley K. Sheinbaum mainly during his tenure as University of California Regent [1977-1989], at a time when UC was involved in divestment of South African investments, due to the political situation there. (Mss 217).
Sheldon [Gar] – Mining Engineer’s Correspondence, 1880s. Mainly letters from Sheldon, with the Corralitos Company in Chihuahua State, Mexico, to family, about personal affairs and local news such as an earthquake in 1887. (Wyles SC 1009).
Shell, Fred B. One Civil War sketch map of Vicksburg and one carte de visite photograph of Shell, a war correspondent for Harpers Weekly, with Grant’s army during the siege of Vicksburg, 1863. (Wyles SC 199).
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft (1797-1851). English novelist. Holdings include The Last Man (1833) [Spec PR5397.L37 1833] and a fine press edition of Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus (1934) by the Limited Editions Club [Spec PR5397.F7 1934]. See also Helen Moore’s Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1886) [Spec PR5398.M6].
Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822). English poet. Holdings include Alastor, or, The Spirit of Solitude (1816) [Spec PR5407.A1 1816 vault], Prometheus Unbound (1820) [Spec PR5416.A1 1820 vault], Queen Mab (1821) [Spec PR5417 1821 vault], Hellas (1822) [Spec PR5410.A1 1822b], Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1824) edited by his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley [Spec PR5402 1824], The Masque of Anarchy (1832) [Spec PR5412.A1 1832 vault], The Shelley Papers (1833) [Spec PR5403.M4], and The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1886) [Spec PR5402 1886]. Fine press editions of Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats printed by John Henry Nash (1922) [Printers Z239.N3 S49] and the Chiswick Press (1935) [Printers Z239.2.C36 S5], Poems and Lyrics (1943) by Peter Pauper Press [Printers Z239.P4 S49], Italian Idylls (1968) by the Offcut Press [Spec PR5422.I8 1968], and The Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1974) by the Heritage Press [Spec PR5402 1974].
Shelton Watters & Co. One document (ADS), agreeing to pay $160 for "hire of two negroes Anderson and Walker…" [Virginia], 1849. (Wyles SC 129).
Shepard (Isaac F.) Collection, ca. 1830s-1880s. Commander of the 52nd U.S. Infantry, Colored, from 1863 onwards, making him ranking regimental officer (initially as Colonel, later as Brigadier General) of all colored troops in the Union. Includes an 1863 diary, Court of Inquiry Papers, and related correspondence, which document a seminal incident in which Shepard defended his troops against hostile treatment by white Union troops, was arrested, but subsequently had all charges dismissed by Gen. Grant and was restored to his command. (Wyles Mss 74).
Shepherd [Alfred James] Papers, ca. 1930s-1950s. Includes material relating to Taiwan, Japan, and Guam. (Bernath Mss 251).
Sheridan, Phillip. One engraving, carte de visite size, of Sheridan in uniform, with stamp of Joseph Ward, Boston, on reverse. (Wyles SC 642).
Sheridan, Phillip [Henry] [Civil War Union General]. One letter (ALS), copy, to Colonel Robert Breckenridge. San Francisco, 5 Oct. 1875. (Wyles SC 206).
Sherman Table. One printed Civil War document: Clothing allowance, authorized by L. T. Thustin, Acting Chief Paymaster, Department of the Cumberland. Louisville, KY, July 7, 1865. (Wyles SC 510).
Sherman, Thomas W. [Civil War Union General; 1813-1879]. One document (ADS): Report of persons (mainly teamsters, also wagonmasters, clerks, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and saddlers) and articles hired for Nov. 1861. Quartermaster, U.S. Army, Hiltonhead, South Carolina. (Wyles SC 511).
Sherman, William Tecumseh. One engraving, carte de visite size, of Sherman in uniform, with stamp of Joseph Ward, Boston, on reverse. (Wyles SC 633).
Sherman, William Tecumseh. One b/w cabinet card size photograph of Sherman in uniform, later in life. (Wyles SC 634).
Sherman, William Tecumseh. One letter (ALS) to Dona [?], re sending funds with Sully [?]. The steamer Winfield Scott, in which Sully had embarked for home, was wrecked on an island [presumably one of the Channel Islands] not far from Santa Barbara. “This morning two steamers started to their relief. Fortunately the weather has been mild…” San Francisco, 7 Dec. 1853. (Wyles SC 16).
Sherman, William Tecumseh. One letter (ALS) to General M. G. Vallejo. Washington, D.C., 11 Aug. 1879. From: Pearl Chase Collection. (Wyles SC 209).
Sherman, William Tecumseh. One letter (ALS). San Francisco, 13 Sept. 1880. (Wyles SC 210).
Sherman, William Tecumseh. Printed | ||||
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] | null | [] | null | null | A SUMMARY OF ARMENIAN HISTORY
UP TO AND INCLUDING
THE YEAR 1915.
I. THE EUROPEAN WAR AND ARMENIA.
The War has brought us into a new relation with Armenia and the Armenian people. We knew them before as the name of an ancient civilisation, a stubborn rearguard of Christendom in the East, a scene of mission work and massacres and international rivalry ; but only a few of us---missionaries, geographers, travellers and an occasional newspaper correspondent---were personally acquainted with the country and its inhabitants. To most people they remained a name, and when we read of their sufferings or traditions or achievements they made little more impression than the doings of the Hittites and Assyrians, who moved across the same Near Eastern amphitheatre several millenniums ago. We had no living contact, no natural relation, with Armenia in our personal or even in our political life.
Such a relation has suddenly been created between us by the War, and it is one of the strangest ironies of war that it fuses together and illuminates the very fabric it destroys. The civilisation in which we lived was like a labyrinth, so huge and intricate that none of the dwellers in it could altogether grasp its structure, while most of them were barely conscious that it had any structural design at all. But now that the War has caught it and it is all aflame, the unity and symmetry of the building are revealed to the common eye. As the glare lights it up from end to end, it stands out in its glory, in matchless outline and perspective ; for the first time (and possibly for the last) we see its parts simultaneously and in proper relation, and realise for one moment the marvel and mystery of this civilisation that is perishing---the subtle, immemorial, unrelaxing effort that raised it up and maintained it, and the impossibility of improvising any equivalent structure in its place. Then the fire masters its prey ; the various parts of the labyrinth fall in one by one, the light goes out of them, and nothing is left but smoke and ashes. This is the catastrophe that we are witnessing now, and we do not yet know whether it will be possible to repair it. But if the future is not so dark as it appears, and what has perished can in some measure be restored, our best guide and inspiration in the task will be that momentary, tragic, unique vision snatched out of the catastrophe itself.
The Armenians are not protagonists in the War ; they bear none of the guilt for its outbreak and can have little share in the responsibility of building up a better future. But they have been seared more cruelly than any of us by the flames, and, under this fiery ordeal, their individual character as a nation and their part in the community of the civilised world have been thrown into their true relief.
For the first time, England and the Armenians are genuinely in touch with one another. In this desperate struggle between freedom and reaction we are fighting on the same side, striving for the same end. Our lot in the struggle has not, indeed, been the same, for while England is able to act as well as to suffer, the Armenians have suffered with hardly the power to strike a blow. But this difference of external fortune only strengthens the inward moral bond; for we, who are strong, are fighting not merely for this or that political advantage, this or that territorial change, but for a principle. The Powers of the Entente have undertaken the championship of small nationalities that cannot champion themselves. We have solemnly acknowledged our obligation to fulfil our vow in the case of Belgium and Serbia, and now that the Armenians have been overtaken by a still worse fate than the Serbians and the Belgians, their cause, too, has been taken up into the general cause of the Allies. We cannot limit our field in doing battle for our ideal.
It is easier, of course, for the people of France, Great Britain and America to sympathise with Belgium than with a more unfamiliar nation in a distant zone of the War. It needs little imagination to realise acutely that the Belgians are "people like ourselves," suffering all that we should suffer if the same atrocities were committed upon us; and this realisation was made doubly easy by the speedy publication of minute, abundant, first-hand testimony. The Armenians have no such immediate access to our sympathies, and the initial unfamiliarity can only be overcome by a personal effort on the part of those who give ear to their case; but the evidence on which that case rests has been steadily accumulating, until now it is scarcely less complete or less authoritative than the evidence relating to Belgium. The object of the present volume has been to present the documents to English and American readers in as accurate and orderly a form as possible.
Armenia has not been without witness in her agony. Intense suffering means intense emotional experience, and this emotion has found relief in written records of the intolerable events which obsessed the witnesses' memories. Some of the writers are Armenians, a larger number are Americans and Europeans who were on the spot, and who were as poignantly affected as the victims themselves. There are a hundred and forty-nine of these documents, and many of them are of considerable length; but in their total effect they are something more than an exhaustive catalogue of the horrors they set out to describe. The flames of war illuminate the structure of the building as well as the destruction of it, and the testimony extorted under this fiery ordeal gives an extraordinarily vivid impression of Armenian life---the life of plain and mountain, town and village, intelligenzia and bourgeoisie and peasantry---at the moment when it was overwhelmed by the European catastrophe.
In Armenia, though not in Europe, the flames have almost burnt themselves out, and, for the moment, we can see nothing beyond smoke and ashes. Life will assuredly spring up again when the ashes are cleared away, for attempts to exterminate nations by atrocity, though certain of producing almost infinite human suffering, have seldom succeeded in their ulterior aim. But in whatever shape the new Armenia arises, it will be something utterly different from the old. The Armenians have been a very typical element in that group of humanity which Europeans call the "Near East," but which might equally well be called the "Near West" from the Indian or the Chinese point of view(189). There has been something pathological about the history of this Near Eastern World. It has had an undue share of political misfortunes, and had lain for centuries in a kind of spiritual paralysis between East and West-belonging to neither, partaking paradoxically of both, and wholly unable to rally itself decidedly to one or the other, when it was involved with Europe in the European War. The shock of that crowning catastrophe seems to have brought the spiritual neutrality of the Near East to a violent end, and however dubious the future of Europe may be, it is almost certain that it will be shared henceforth by all that lies between the walls of Vienna and the walls of Aleppo and Tabriz(190). This final gravitation towards Europe may be a benefit to the Near East or another chapter in its misfortunes---that depends on the condition in which Europe emerges from the War; but, in either case, it will be a new departure in its history. It has been drawn at last into a stronger orbit, and will travel on its own paralytic, paradoxical course no more. This gives a historical interest to any record of Near Eastern life in the last moments of the Ancient Régime, and these Armenian documents supply a record of a very intimate and characteristic kind. The Near East has never been more true to itself than in its lurid dissolution; past and present are fused together in the flare.
.
II. AN OUTLINE OF ARMENIAN HISTORY.
The documents in this volume tell their own story, and a reader might be ignorant of the places with which they deal and the points of history to which they refer, and yet learn from them more about human life in the Near East than from any study of text-books and atlases. At the same time a general acquaintance with the geographical setting and historical antecedents is clearly an assistance in understanding the full significance of the events recorded here. and as this information is not widely spread or very easily accessible, it has seemed well to publish an outline of it, for the reader's convenience, in the same volume as the documents themselves. As many as possible of the places referred to are marked on the map at the end of the book, while here, in this historical summary, a brief account may be given of who the Armenians are and where they live.
Like the English, the French and most other nations, the Armenians have developed a specific type of countenance, and yet it would not always be easy to tell them by sight, for they are as hybrid in their physical stock as every other European or Near Eastern people. There are marked differences of pigmentation, feature and build between the Armenians of the East, West and South, and between the mountaineers, plain-dwellers and people of the towns, and it would be rash to speculate when these various strains came in, or to lay it down that they were not all present already at the date at which we first begin to know something about the inhabitants of the country(191).
We hear of them first in the annals of Assyria, where the Armenian plateau appears as the land of Nairi---a no-man's-land, raided constantly but ineffectually by Assyrian armies from the lowlands of Mosul. But in the ninth century B.C. the petty cantons of Nairi coalesced into the Kingdom of Urartu(192), which fought Assyria on equal terms for more than two hundred years and has left a native record of its own. The Kings of Urartu made their dwelling on the citadel of Van(193). The face of the rock is covered with their inscriptions, which are also found as far afield as the neighbourhood of Malatia, Erzeroum and Alexandropol. They borrowed from Assyria the cuneiform script, and the earliest inscriptions at Van are written in the Assyrian language; but they quickly adapted the foreign script to their native tongue, which has been deciphered by English and German scholars, and is considered by them to be neither Semitic nor Indo-European, nor yet to have any discernible affinity with the still obscurer language of the Hittites further west. We can only assume that the people who spoke it were indigenous in the land. Probably they were of one blood with their neighbours in the direction of the Caucasus and the Black Sea, Saspeires(194) and Chalybes and others ; and if, as ethnology seems to show, an indigenous stock is practically ineradicable, these primitive peoples of the plateau are probably the chief ancestors, in the physical sense, of the present Armenian race(195).
The modern Armenian language, on the other hand, is not descended from the language of Urartu, but is an Indo-European tongue. There is a large non-Indo-European element in it---larger than in most known branches of the Indo-European family---and this has modified its syntax as well as its vocabulary. It has also borrowed freely and intimately from the Persian language in all its phases---a natural consequence of the political supremacy which Iran asserted over Armenia again and again, from the sixth century B.C. to the nineteenth century A.D. But when all these accretions have been analysed and discarded, the philologists pronounce the basis of modern Armenian to be a genuine Indo-European idiom---either a dialect of the Iranian branch or an independent variant, holding an intermediate, position between Iranian and Slavonic.
This language is a much more important factor in the national consciousness of the modern Armenians than their ultimate physical ancestry, but its origin is also more difficult to trace. Its Indo-European character proves that, at some date or other, it must have been introduced into the country from without(196), and the fact that a non-Indo-European language held the field under the Kings of Urartu suggests that it only established itself after the Kingdom of Urartu fell. But the earliest literary monuments of the modern tongue only date from the fifth century A.D., a thousand years later than the last inscription in the Urartian language, so that, as far as the linguistic evidence is concerned, the change may have occurred at any time within this period. One language, however, does not usually supplant another without considerable displacements of population, and the only historical event of this kind sufficient in scale to produce such a result seems to be the migration of the Cimmerians and Scythians in the seventh century B.C. These were nomadic tribes from the Russian steppes, who made their way round the eastern end of the Caucasus, burst through into the Moghan plains and the basin of Lake Urmia, and terrorised Western Asia for several generations, till they were broken by the power of the Medes and absorbed in the native population. It was they who made an end of the Kingdom of Urartu, and the language they brought with them was probably an Indo-European dialect answering to the basic element in modern Armenian. Probability thus points to these seventh century invaders as being the source of the present language, and perhaps also of the equally mysterious names of "Hai(k)" and "Haiasdan," by which the speakers of this language seem always to have called themselves and their country. But this is a conjecture, and nothing more(197), and we are left with the bare fact that Armenian(198) was the established language of the land by the fifth century A.D.
The Armenian language might easily have perished and left less record of its existence than the Urartian. It is a vigorous language enough, yet it would never have survived in virtue of its mere vitality. The native Anatolian dialects of Lydia and Cilicia, and the speech of the Cappadocians(199), the Armenians' immediate neighbours on the west, were extinguished one by one by the irresistible advance of Greek, and Armenian would assuredly have shared their fate if it had not become the canonical language of a national church before Greek had time to penetrate so far eastward. Armenia lay within the radius of Antioch and Edessa (Ourfa), two of the earliest and strongest centres of Christian propaganda. King Tiridates (Drdat) of Armenia was converted to Christianity some time during the latter half of the third century A.D.(200) and was the first ruler in the world to establish the Christian Faith as his State religion. Christianity in Armenia adopted a national garb from the first. In 410 A.D. the Bible was translated into the Armenian language, in a new native script specially invented for the purpose, and this achievement was followed by a great outburst of national literature during the course of the fifth century. These fifth century works are, as has been said, the earliest monuments of the Armenian language. Most of them, it is true, are simply rather painstaking translations of Greek and Syriac theology, and the bulk of the creative literature was theological too. But there was also a notable school of historical writers (Moses of Khorene is its most famous representative), and the really important result of the stimulus that Christianity brought was the permanent preservation of the language's existence and its development into a medium for a national literature of a varied kind.
Thus the conversion of Armenia to Christianity, which took place at a more or less ascertainable date, was an even more important factor in the evolution of Armenian nationality than the original introduction of the national language, and the Armenians have done well to make St. Gregory the Illuminator, the Cappadocian Missionary to whom the conversion was due, their supreme national hero(201). Henceforth, church and language mutually sustained each other, to the great enhancement of the vital power of both. They were, in fact, merely complementary aspects of the same national consciousness, and the national character of the church was further emphasised when it diverged in doctrine from the main body of Christendom---not by the formulation of any new or heretical dogma, but by omission to ratify the modifications of the primitive creed which were introduced by the (Ecumenical Councils of the fifth century A.D.(202)
This nationalisation of the church was the decisive process by which the Armenians became a nation, and it was also this that made them an integral part of the Near Eastern world. Christianity linked the country with the West as intimately as the cuneiform script of Urartu had linked it with the civilisation of Mesopotamia ; and the Near Eastern phenomenon consists essentially in the paradox that a series of populations on the borderland of Europe and Asia developed a national life that was thoroughly European in its religion and culture, without ever succeeding in extricating themselves politically from that continual round of despotism and anarchy which seems to be the political dispensation of genuinely Oriental countries.
No communities in the world have had a more troubled political history than these Near Eastern nationalities, and none have known how to preserve their church and their language so doggedly through the most appalling vicissitudes of conquest and oppression. In this regard the history of Armenia is profoundly characteristic of the Near East as a whole.
The strong, compact Kingdom of Urartu lies at the dawn of Armenian history like a golden age. It had only existed two centuries when it was shattered by the invaders from the Russian steppes, and the anarchy into which they plunged the country had to be cured by the imposition of a foreign rule. In 585 B.C. the nomads were cowed and the plateau annexed by Cyaxares, the Mede, and, after the Persians had taken over the Medes' inheritance, the great organiser Darius divided this portion of it into two governments or satrapies. One of these seems to have included the basins of Urmia and Van, and part of the valley of the Aras(203); the other corresponded approximately to the modern Vilayets of Bitlis, Mamouret-ul-Aziz and Diyarbekir, and covered the upper valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates(204). They were called respectively the satrapies of Eastern and Western Armenia, and this is the origin of the name by which the Haik and their Haiasdan are now almost universally known to their neighbours. The word "Armenia" (Armina) (205) first appears in Darius' inscriptions ; the Greeks adopted it from the Persian official usage, and from the Greeks it has spread to the rest of the world, including the Osmanli Turks(206)
Under the Persian Dynasty of the Achæmenids and their Macedonian successors, the two Armenian satrapies remained mere administrative divisions. Subject to the payment of tribute the satraps were practically independent and probably hereditary, but the rulers' autonomy did not enable their subjects to develop any distinctive national life. In religion and culture the country took on a strong Persian veneer ; and the situation was not essentially changed when, early in the second century B.C., the two reigning satraps revolted simultaneously from their overlord, the Seleucid King of Western Asia(207), and each founded a royal dynasty of their own. The decisive change was accomplished by Tigranes (Dikran) the Great (94 to 56 B.C.), a scion of the Eastern Dynasty, who welded the two principalities into one kingdom, and so created the first strong native sovereignty that the country had known since the fall of Urartu five centuries before.
If Gregory the Illuminator is the ecclesiastical hero of Armenia, King Tigranes is his political forerunner and counterpart. He was connected by marriage with Mithradates, the still more famous King of Pontic Cappadocia, who may be taken as the first exponent of the Near Eastern idea. Mithradates attempted to build an empire that should be at once cosmopolitan and national, Hellenic and Iranian, of the West and of the East, and Tigranes was profoundly influenced by his brilliant neighbour and ally. He set himself the parallel ambition of reconstructing round his own person the kingdom of the Seleucids, which had been shaken a century before by a rude encounter with Rome, weakened still further by the defection of Tigranes' own predecessors, and was now in the actual throes of dissolution. He laid himself out a new capital on the northern rim of the Mesopotamian steppe, somewhere near the site of Ibrahim Pasha's Viran Shehr, and peopled it with masses of exiles deported from the Greek cities he devastated in Syria and Cilicia. It was to be the Hellenistic world-centre for an Oriental King of Kings ; but all his dreams, like Mithradates', were shattered by the methodical progress of the Roman power. A Roman army ignominiously turned Tigranes out of Tigranokerta, and sent back his Greek exiles rejoicing to their homes. The new Armenian kingdom failed to establish its position as a great power, and had to accept the position of a buffer state between Rome on the west and the Parthian rulers of Iran. Nevertheless, Tigranes' work is of supreme political importance in Armenian history. He had consolidated the two satrapies of Darius into a united kingdom, powerful enough to preserve its unity and independence for nearly five hundred years. It was within this chrysalis that the interaction of religion and language produced the new germ of modern Armenian nationality; and when the chrysalis was rent at last, the nation emerged so strongly grown that it could brave the buffets of the outer world.
Before Tigranes, Armenia had belonged wholly to the East. Tigranes loosened these links and knit certain new links with the West. The period that followed was marked by a perpetual struggle between the Roman and Parthian Governments for political influence over the kingdom, which was really a battle over Armenia's soul. Was Armenia to be wrested away altogether from Oriental influences and rallied to the European world, or was it to sink back into being a spiritual and political appanage of Iran ? It seemed a clear issue, but it was not destined to be decided in either sense. Armenia was to be caught for two millenniums in the uncertain eddy of the Nearer East.
In this opposition of forces, the political balance inclined from the first in favour of the Oriental Power. The Parthians succeeded in replacing the descendants of Tigranes by a junior branch of their own Arsacid Dynasty; and when, in 387 A.D., the rivals agreed to settle the Armenian question by the drastic expedient of partition, the Sassanid kings of Persia (who had superseded the Parthians in the Empire of Iran) secured the lion's share of the spoils, while the Romans only received a strip of country on the western border which gave them Erzeroum and Diyarbekir for their frontier fortresses. In the cultural sphere, on the other hand, the West was constantly increasing its ascendancy. King Tiridates was an Arsacid, but he accepted Christianity as the religion of the State he ruled ; and when, less than a century after his death, his kingdom fell and the greater part of the country and the people came directly under Persian rule, the Persian propaganda failed to make any impression. No amount of preaching or persecution could persuade the Armenians to accept Zoroastrianism, which was the established religion of the Sassanian State. They clung to their national church in despite of their political annihilation, and showed thereby that their spiritual allegiance was given irrevocably to the West.
The partition of 387 A.D. produced as long a political interregnum in Armenian history as the fall of Urartu in the seventh century B.C. In the second quarter of the seventh century A.D., the mastery of Western Asia passed from the Persians to the Arabs, and the Armenian provinces changed masters with the rest. Persian governors appointed by the Sassanid King of Kings were superseded by Arab governors appointed by the Omayyad and Abbasid Caliphs, and the intolerance of Zoroastrianism was replaced by the far stronger and hardly less intolerant force of Islam. Then, in the ninth century, the political power of the Abbasid Caliphate at Baghdad began to decline, the outlying provinces were able to detach themselves, and three independent dynasties emerged on Armenian soil:
(a) The Bagratids founded a Christian principality in the north. Their capital was at Ani, in the upper basin of the Aras, and their rule in this district lasted nearly two centuries, from 885 to 1079 A.D.
(b) The Ardzrounids founded a similar Christian principality in the basin of Van. They reigned here from 908 to 1021 A.D.
(c) The Merwanids, a Kurdish dynasty, founded a Moslem principality in the upper basin of the Tigris. Their capital was at Diyarbekir, but their power extended northward over the mountains into the valley of the Mourad Su (Eastern Euphrates), which they controlled as far upwards as Melazkerd. They maintained themselves for a century, from 984 to 1085 A.D.
The imposing remains of churches and palaces at Ani and elsewhere have cast an undue glamour over the Bagratid House, which has been extended, again, to all the independent principalities of early medieval Armenia. In reality, this phase of Armenian history was hardly more happy than that which preceded it, and only appeared a Golden Age by comparison with the cataclysms that followed. From the national point of view it was almost as barren as the century of satrapial independence which preceded the reign of Tigranes, and in the politics of this period parochialism was never transcended. Bagratids and Ardzrounids were bitter rivals for the leadership of the nation, and did not scruple to call in Moslem allies against one another in their constant wars. The south-western part of the country remained under the rule of an alien Moslem dynasty, without any attempt being made to cast them out. Armenia had no second Tigranes in the Middle Ages, and the local renewals of political independence came and went without profit to the nation as a whole, which still depended for its unity upon the ecclesiastical tradition of the national Gregorian Church.
In the eleventh century A.D., a new power appeared in the East. The Arab Empire of the Caliphs had long been receiving an influx of Turks from Central Asia as slaves and professional soldiers, and the Turkish bodyguard had assumed control of politics at Baghdad. But this individual infiltration was now succeeded by the migration of whole tribes, and the tribes were organised into a political power by the clan of Seljuk. The new Turkish dynasty constituted itself the temporal representative of the Abbasid Caliphate, and the dominion of Mohammedan Asia was suddenly transferred from the devitalised Arabs to a vigorous barbaric horde of nomadic Turks.
These Turkish reinforcements brutalised and at the same time stimulated the Islamic world, and the result was a new impetus of conquest towards the borderlands. The brunt of this movement fell upon the unprepared and disunited Armenian principalities. In the first quarter of the eleventh century the Seljuks began their incursions on to the Armenian Plateau. The Armenian princes turned for protection to the East Roman Empire, accepted its suzerainty, or even surrendered their territory directly into its hands. But the Imperial Government brought little comfort to the Armenian people. Centred at Constantinople and cut off from the Latin West, it had lost its Roman universality and become transformed into a Greek national state, while the established Orthodox Church had developed the specifically Near Eastern character of a nationalist ecclesiastical organisation. The Armenians found that incorporation in the Empire exposed them to temporal and spiritual Hellenisation, without protecting them against the common enemy on the east. The Seljuk invasions increased in intensity, and culminated, in 1071 A.D., in the decisive battle of Melazkerd, in which the Imperial Army was destroyed and the Emperor Romanos II. taken prisoner on the field. Melazkerd placed the whole of Armenia at the Seljuk's mercy---and not only Armenia, but the Anatolian provinces of the Empire that lay between Armenia and Europe. The Seljuks carried Islam into the heart of the Near East.
The next four-and-a-half centuries were the most disastrous period in the whole political history of Armenia. It is true that a vestige of independence was preserved, for Roupen the Bagratid conducted a portion of his people south-westward into the mountains of Cilicia, where they were out of the main current of Turkish invasion, and founded a new principality which survived nearly three hundred years (1080-1375). There is a certain romance about this Kingdom of Lesser Armenia. It threw in its lot with the Crusaders, and gave the Armenian nation its first direct contact with modern Western Europe. But the mass of the race remained in Armenia proper, and during these centuries the Armenian tableland suffered almost ceaseless devastation.
The Seljuk migration was only the first wave in a prolonged outbreak of Central Asiatic disturbance, and the Seljuks were civilised in comparison with the tribes that followed on their heels. Early in the thirteenth century came Karluks and Kharizmians, fleeing across Western Asia before the advance of the Mongols ; and in 1235 came the first great raid of the Mongols themselves---savages who destroyed civilisation wherever they found it, and were impartial enemies of Christendom and Islam. All these waves of invasion took the same channel. They swept across the broad plateau of Persia, poured up the valleys of the Aras and the Tigris, burst in their full force upon the Armenian highlands and broke over them into Anatolia beyond. Armenia bore the brunt of them all, and the country was ravaged and the population reduced quite out of proportion to the sufferings of the neighbouring regions. The division of the Mongol conquests among the family of Djengis Khan established a Mongol dynasty in Western Asia which seated itself in Azerbaijan, accepted Islam and took over the tradition of the Seljuks, the Abbasids and the Sassanids. It was the old Asiatic Empire under a new name, but it had now incorporated Armenia and extended north-westwards to the Kizil Irmak (Halys). For the first time since Tigranes, the whole of Armenia was reabsorbed again in the East, and the situation grew still worse when the Empire of these "Ilkhans" fell to pieces and was succeeded in the fifteenth century by the petty lordship of Ak Koyunli, Kara Koyanli and other nomadic Turkish clans.
The progressive anarchy of four centuries was finally stilled by the rise of the Osmanli power. The seed of the Osmanlis was one of those Turkish clans which fled across Western Asia before the Mongols. They settled in the dominions of the Seljuk Sultans, who had established themselves at Konia, in Central Anatolia, and who allowed the refugees to carve out an obscure appanage on the marches of the Greek Empire, in the Asiatic hinterland of Constantinople. The son and successor of the founder was here converted from Paganism to Islam(208), towards the end of the thirteenth century A.D., and the name of Osman, which he adopted at his conversion, has been borne ever since by the subjects of his House.
The Osmanli State is the greatest and most characteristic Near Eastern Empire there has ever been. In its present decline it has become nothing but a blight to all the countries and peoples that remain under its sway ; but at the outset it manifested a faculty for strong government which satisfied the supreme need of the distracted Near Eastern world. This was the secret of its amazing power of assimilation, and this quality in turn increased its power of organisation, for it enabled the Osmanlis to monopolise all the vestiges of political genius that survived in the Near East. The original Turkish germ was quickly absorbed in the mass of Osmanlicised native Greeks(209). The first expansion of the State was westward, across the Dardanelles, and before the close of the fourteenth century the whole of South-Eastern Europe had become Osmanli territory, as far as the Danube and the Hungarian frontier. The seal was set on these European conquests when Sultan Mohammed II. entered Constantinople in 1453, and then the current of expansion veered towards the east. Mohammed himself absorbed the rival Turkish principalities in Anatolia, and annexed the Greek "Empire" of Trebizond. In the second decade of the sixteenth century, Sultan Selim I. followed this up with a sweeping series of campaigns, which carried him with hardly a pause from the Taurus barrier to the citadel of Cairo. Armenia was overrun in 1514 ; the petty Turkish chieftains were overthrown, the new Persian Empire was hurled back to the Caspian, and a frontier established between the Osmanli Sultans and the Shahs of Iran, which has endured, with a few fluctuations, until the present day.
In the sixteenth century the whole Near Eastern world, from the gates of Vienna(210) to the gates of Aleppo and Tabriz, found itself united under a single masterful Government, and once more Armenia was linked securely with the West. From 1514 onwards the great majority of the Armenian nation was subject to the Osmanli State. It is true that the province of Erivan (on the middle course of the Aras) was recovered by the Persians in the seventeenth century, and held by them till its cession to Russia in 1834. But, with this exception, the whole of Armenia remained under Osmanli rule until the Russians took Kars, in the war of 1878. These intervening centuries of union and pacification were, on the whole, beneficial to Armenia ; but with the year 1878 there began a new and sinister epoch in the relations between the Osmanli State and the Armenian nation.
III. DISPERSION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE ARMENIAN NATION.
We have now traced the political vicissitudes of Armenia down to its incorporation in the Ottoman Empire, and are in a position to survey the effects of this troubled political history on the social life and the geographical extension of the Armenian people.
At the present day the Armenians are, next to the Jews, the most scattered nation in the world, but this phenomenon does not begin to appear until a comparatively late stage in their history. At the time of the Partition of 387 A.D. they were still confined to a compact territory between the Euphrates, Lake Urmia and the River Kur. It was the annexation of the western marches to the Roman Empire that gave the first impetus to Armenian migration towards the west. After 387 A.D. the Roman frontier garrisons were moved forward into the new Armenian provinces, and these troops were probably recruited in the main, according to the general Roman custom, from the local population. But in the middle of the seventh century the Roman frontiers were shorn away by the advance of the new Arab power; the garrisons beyond the Euphrates were withdrawn towards the north-west, and, after a century of darkness and turmoil, during which all the old landmarks were effaced, we find that the "Armeniac Army Corps District" has shifted from the banks of the Euphrates to the banks of the Halys (Kizil Irmak) and become approximately coincident with the modern Vilayet of Sivas. This transference of the troops must have meant in itself a considerable transference of Armenians, and it can be taken for granted that the retiring armies were accompanied by a certain portion of the civilian population. We can thus date back to the seventh century the beginning of those flourishing Armenian colonies in the towns of north-eastern Anatolia which suffered so terribly in the ordeal of 1915.
The mountain zone between the Roman fortress of Sivas (Sebasteia) on the Halys and the Arab posts along the Euphrates, from Malatia to Erzeroum, was now debatable territory between the Moslem and the Christian Empires, and in the eighth century it was held by an independent community of Armenian heretics called Paulikians. These Paulikians led an untamed, Ishmaelitish existence. They were excommunicated for their tenets by the Gregorian Armenian Church, as well as by the Orthodox Patriarch at Constantinople, and they raided impartially in the territories of the Roman Empire and the Arab Caliphate. The Emperors waged against them a war of extermination, and anticipated the present Ottoman policy by deporting them from their mountain fastnesses to the opposite ends of the Imperial territory. In 752 A.D. a number of them were settled in Thrace, to exercise their military prowess in holding the frontier against the Bulgars ; and, in 969 A.D., the Emperor John Tzimiskes (himself an Armenian) transplanted a further body of them to Philippopolis. It may be doubted whether there is any direct connexion between them and the present (Gregorian) Armenian colony in the latter city, but their numbers and influence must have been considerable, if one may judge by the vigorous spread of their tenets among the Bulgars and the Southern Slavs, and they are noteworthy as the forerunners of the Armenian Dispersion in Europe, as well as of the Protestant Reformation.(211)
Migrations on a larger scale were produced by the Turkish invasions of the eleventh century. In 1021 A.D., for instance, the Ardzrounian Dynasty of Van surrendered its home territory to the Roman Empire in exchange for a more sheltered principality at Sivas. It only reigned sixty years in exile before it was overwhelmed there also by the advance of the Turkish tide; but the present Armenian villages in the Sivas Vilayet are doubtless derived from these Ardzrounian refugees. In the very year, again, in which the sovereignty of the Ardzrounids was extinguished at Sivas, the Bagratids of Ani founded themselves a second kingdom in Cilicia. We have spoken of this kingdom already: it is represented to-day by a chain of Armenian mountain towns and villages which stretches all the way from the headwaters of the Silioun (Saros) and Djihoun (Pyramos) to the shores of the Gulf of Alexandretta.
The still more terrible invasions of the thirteenth century scattered the Armenians even further afield. The relations of Lesser Armenia with the Crusader Principalities opened for the Armenians a door into Western Europe. When the Roupenian Dynasty became extinct, it was succeeded by a branch of the French House of Lusignan summoned from Cyprus, and in 1335 there was the first secession from the national Gregorian Church to the Communion of Rome. These new adherents to the Papal allegiance spread far and wide over Latin Christendom. A strong colony of Armenian Catholics established itself at Lemberg, recently won by Polish conquest for the Catholic Church; and others settled at Venice, the European focus of the Levantine trade. In this Venetian settlement the tradition of Armenian culture was kept alive by the famous brotherhood of Mekhitarist Monks. They founded the first Armenian printing press here, in 1565, and maintained a constant issue of Armenian publications. Their greatest work was a magnificent thesaurus of the Armenian .language, which appeared in 1836.
This Roman Catholic connexion has been of very great importance in preserving the link between Armenia and the west, and since the beginning of the nineteenth century the bonds have been strengthened by a Protestant strand. The American Missions in Turkey were founded in 1831. Debarred by the Ottoman Government from entering into relations with the Moslem population, they devoted themselves to the Christian elements, and the Armenians availed themselves more eagerly than any other Near Eastern nationality(212) of the gifts which the Americans offered. Four generations of mission work have produced a strong Protestant Armenian community, but proselytism has not been the deliberate object of the missionaries. They have set themselves to revive and not to convert the national Armenian Church, and their schools and hospitals have been open to. all who would attend them, without distinction of creed. Their wide and well-planned educational activity has always been the distinctive feature of these American Missions in the Ottoman Empire. Besides the famous Robert College and the College for Women on the Bosphorus, they have established schools and other institutions in many of the chief provincial towns, with fine buildings and full staffs of well-trained American and Armenian teachers. Due acknowledgment must also be given to the educational work of the Swiss Protestants and of the Jesuits; but it can hardly compare with the work of the Americans in scale, and will scarcely play the same part in Armenian history. There is little need here to speak in praise of the American missionaries ; their character will shine out to anyone who reads the documents in this volume. Their religion inspires their life and their work, and their utter sincerity has given them an extraordinary influence over all with whom they come in contact.
The Ottoman Government has trusted and respected them, because they are the only foreign residents in Turkey who are entirely disinterested on political questions ; the Gregorian Church cooperates with them and feels no jealousy, and all sections of the Armenian nation love them, because they come to give and not to get, and their gifts are without guile (213). America is exercising an unobtrusive but incalculable influence over the Near East. In the nineteenth century the missionaries came to its rescue from America ; in the twentieth century the return movement has set in, and the Near Eastern people are migrating in thousands across the Atlantic. The Armenians are participating in this movement at least as actively as the Greeks, the Roumans, the Serbs, the Montenegrins and the Slovaks, and one can already prophesy with assurance that their two-fold contact with America is the beginning of a new chapter in Armenian history.
Meanwhile the subjection of Armenia proper to the Mongol Ilkhans for nearly two centuries, and subsequently to the Shahs of modern Persia for certain transitory periods, produced a lesser, but not unimportant, dispersion towards the east. In the seventeenth century the skilled and cultured Armenian population of Djoulfa, on the River Aras, was carried away captive to the Persian capital of Ispahan, where the exiles started a printing press and established a centre of Armenian civilisation. Ever since then the Armenian element has been a factor in the politics and the social development of Iran, and from this new centre they have spread over the Indian Peninsula hand in hand with the extension of British rule.
Thus the Armenian nation has been scattered, in the course of the centuries, from Calcutta to New York, and has shown remarkable vitality in adapting itself to every kind of alien environment(214). The reverse side of the picture is the uprooting of the nation from its native soil. The immigrant tribes from Central Asia did not make a permanent lodgment in the Armenian homelands. Some of them drifted back into Azerbaijan and the steppe country along the coast of the Caspian and the lower courses of the Aras and the Kur; others were carried on towards the north-west, along the ancient Royal Road, and imposed the Moslem faith and the Turkish language upon the population of Central Anatolia. The Armenian plateau, entrenched between Tigris, Euphrates and Aras, stood out like a rock, dividing these two Turkish eddies. Nevertheless, the perpetual shock of the Seljuk and the Mongol raids relaxed the hold of the Armenians on the plateau. The people of the land were decimated by these invasions, and when the invaders had passed on beyond or vanished away, the terrible gaps in the ranks of the sedentary population of Armenia proper were filled by nomadic Kurdish shepherds from the south-east, who drifted into Old Armenia from the mountain girdle of Iran, just as the Albanians drifted into the Kossovo Plain from their own less desirable highlands, after the population of Old Serbia had been similarly decimated by the constant passage of the Ottoman armies.
This Kurdish penetration of Armenia had begun already by the tenth century A.D. ; it was far advanced when the Osmanlis annexed the country in 1514, and it was confirmed by the policy of the Ottoman Government, which sought to secure its new territories by granting privileges to the Kurdish intruders and inviting their influx in greater numbers from their homelands in the sphere of influence of the rival Persian Empire. The juxtaposition of nomad and cultivator, dominant Moslem and subject Giaour, was henceforth an ever-present irritant in the social and political conditions of the land ; but it did not assume a fatal and sinister importance until after the year 1878, when it was fiendishly exploited by the Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid.
But before we examine the relations between the Armenian nation and the Ottoman Government, it will be well to survey the distribution of the Armenian element in the Ottoman Empire, as it had developed during the four centuries of Ottoman rule that elapsed between the campaign of Selim I. and the intervention of Turkey in the present European War. The survey shall be brief, for it has been anticipated, sometimes in greater detail, in the separate notes prefixed to the different groups of documents in the volume.
A traveller entering Turkey by the Oriental Railway from Central Europe would have begun to encounter Armenians at Philippopolis in Bulgaria, and then at Adrianople, the first Ottoman city across the frontier. Had he visited any of the lesser towns of Thrace, he would have found much of the local trade and business in Armenian hands, and when he arrived at Constantinople he would have become aware that the Armenians were one of the most important elements in the Ottoman Empire. He would have seen them as financiers, as export and import merchants, as organisers of wholesale stores ; and when he crossed the Bosphorus and explored the suburban districts on the Asiatic side, he might even have fancied that the Armenian population in the Empire was numerically equal to the Turkish. The coast of the Sea of Marmora was overlooked by flourishing Armenian villages; at Armasha, above Ismid, there was a large Theological Seminary of the Gregorian Church, and there were important Swiss and American institutions at Bardizag (Baghtehedjik) and Adapazar. At Adapazar alone the Armenian population numbered 25,000.
Beyond Adapazar, however, the Armenian element dwindled, and anyone who followed the Anatolian Railway across Asia Minor to the rail-head in the northern spurs of Taurus, would have felt that he was travelling through an essentially Turkish land.
There were colonies of Armenian artisans and shopkeepers and business men in important places on the line, like Afiun Kara Hissar or Konia : but there were an equal number of Greeks, and both in town and country the Turks outnumbered them all. But once Taurus was crossed, the Armenians came again to the fore. They were as much at, home in the Cilician plain and coastland as on the littoral of the Sea of Marmora and the Bosphorus. Adana, Tarsus and Mersina, with their Armenian churches and schools, had the same appearance of being Armenian cities as Adapazar or Ismid ; and if at this point the traveller had left the beaten track and worked his way up north-eastward into the Cilician highlands, he would have found himself for the first time in an almost exclusively Armenian country, and would have remarked a higher percentage of Armenians in the population than in any other district of Turkey till he came to Van. But this belt of Armenian villages, though thickly set, was quickly passed, and when you emerged on the south-eastern side of it and stepped out on to the rim of the Mesopotamian amphitheatre, you had reached one of the boundaries of the Armenian Dispersion There were Armenian outposts in the cities of the fringe---Marash, Aintab, Ourfa, Aleppo---but as soon as you plunged into the Mesopotamian steppe or the Syrian desert You were in the Arabic world, and had left Armenia behind(215).
The traveller would have seen more of the Armenians if he had turned off from the Anatolian Railway at Eski Shehr, a few hours' journey south of Adapazar, and taken the branch line eastward to Angora. At Angora the Armenians were again a conspicuous element, and the further east you went from Angora the more they increased in social and numerical importance. Beyond the Kizil Irmak (Halys), in the Sandjak of Kaisaria and the Vilayet of Sivas, they constituted the great majority of the urban middle class. The strongest centres of Armenian national life in Turkey were towns like Marsovan, Amasia, Zila, Tokat, Shabin Kara-Hissar or the City of Sivas itself, or such smaller places as Talas and Everek in the neighbourhood of Kaisaria. In all this region Turks and Armenians were about equally balanced, Turks in the country and Armenians in the town, and the proportions were the same in the riviera zone along the Black Sea coast---Samsoun and Kerasond and Trebizond---though here other racial elements were intermingled---Lazes and Greeks, and the advance guards of the Kurds.
Trebizond in ancient times was the last Greek colony towards the east, and it is always a place that beckons travellers forward, for it is the terminus of that ancient caravan route which stretches away across Persia into the far interior of the Asiatic continent. Anyone who started to follow this highway across the mountains, through Gumushkhané and Baibourt to Erzeroum, would have noticed little change in these first stages of his journey from what he had seen in the Vilayet of Sivas. There were the same Turkish countryside and the same Armenian towns, with, perhaps, an increasing Armenian element in the rural population, culminating in an actual preponderance of Armenian villages when you reached the plain of Erzeroum. With Erzeroum the second section of the caravan road begins ; it crosses from valley to valley among the headwaters of the Aras and the Eastern Euphrates (Mourad Su), and winds away eastward at the foot of Ararat in the direction of Bayazid and Tabriz. But here the explorer of Armenia must turn his face to the south, and, as he does so, his eyes are met by a rampart of mountains more forbidding than those he has traversed on his journey from the coast, which stretch across the horizon both east and west.
This mountain barrier bears many names. It is called the Bingöl Dagh where it faces Erzeroum; further westward it merges into the ill-famed Dersim; but the whole range has a common character. Its steeper slope is towards the north, and this slope is washed by the waters of the Aras and the Kara Su (Western Euphrates), which flow east and west in diametrically opposite directions, flanking the foot of the mountain wall with a deep and continuous moat.
Whoever crosses this moat and penetrates the mountains passes at once into a different world. The western part of Turkey, which we have been describing so far, is a more or less orderly, settled country---as orderly and settled, on the whole,. as any of the other Near Eastern countries that lie between the Euphrates and Vienna. The population is sedentary; it lives in agricultural villages and open country towns. But when you cross the Euphrates, you enter a land of insecurity and fear. The peasant and townsman live on sufferance; the mastery is with the nomad ; you are setting foot on the domain of the Kurd.
This insecurity was the chronic condition of Armenia proper, and it was not merely due to the unfortunate political experiences of the land. In its geographical configuration, as well as in its history, the Armenian plateau is a country of more accentuated characteristics and violent contrasts than the Anatolian Peninsula which adjoins it on the west. It contains vast stretches of rolling, treeless down, where the climate is too bleak and the soil too thin for cultivation ; and, again, there are sudden depressions where the soil is as rich and the climate as favourable as anywhere in the world. There are the deep ravines of rivers, like the Mourad Su, which carve their course haphazard across tableland and plain. There are volcanic cones, like the Sipan and the Nimroud Dagh, and lacustrine areas, like the basin of Lake Van. The geography of the country has partitioned it eternally between the shepherd and the cultivator---the comparatively dense and sedentary population of the plains and the scattered and wandering inhabitants of the highlands---between civilisation and development on the one hand and an arrested state of barbarism on the other. The Kurd and the Armenian are not merely different nationalities ; they are also antagonistic economic classes, and this antagonism existed in the country before ever the Kurdish encroachments began. Most of the nomadic tribes that frequent the Armenian plateau now pass for Kurds, but many of them are only nominally so. In the Dersim country, for instance, which coincides roughly with the peninsula formed by the Western and Eastern branches of the Euphrates (Kara. Su and Mourad Su), the Kurds are strongly diluted with the Zazas, whose language, as far as it has been investigated, bears at least as much resemblance to Armenian as to Kurdish, and whose primitive paganism, though it may have taken some colour from Christianity, is free to this day from the slightest veneer of Islam.(216) These Zazas represent an element which must have existed in the land from the beginning and have harassed the national rulers of Medieval and Ancient Armenia as much as it harasses the modern Armenian townsman and peasant or the local Ottoman authorities.
On the eve of the catastrophe of 1915, this region beyond the Euphrates was a treasure-house of mingled populations and diversified forms of social life. Its north-western bastion is the Dersim, a no-man's-land of winding valleys and tiny upland plains, backing northwards on to the great mountain retaining-wall, with its sheer fall to the Euphratean moat. In the Dersim innumerable little clans of Zazas and Kurds lived, and continue to live, their pastoral, brigand life, secluded from the arm of Ottoman authority. A traveller proceeding south from Erzeroum would give the Dersim a wide berth on his right and cross the peninsula at its neck, by the headwaters of the Aras and the plain of Khnyss . He would strike the course of the Mourad Su where it cuts successively through the fertile, level plains of Melazkerd, Boulanik and Moush, and here he would find himself again for a moment (or would have done so two years ago) in peaceful, almost civilised surroundings---populous country towns, with a girdle of agricultural villages and a peasantry even more uniformly Armenian than the population of the plain of Erzeroum. The plain of Moush is the meeting-place of all the routes that traverse the plateau. If you ascend from its south-eastern corner and mount the southern spurs of the Nimroud volcano, you suddenly find yourself on the edge of the extensive basin of Lake Van, and can follow a mountain road along its precipitous southern shore ; then you descend into the open valley of Hayotz-Tzor, cross a final ridge with the pleasant village of Artamid on its slopes, and arrive a few hours later in the city of Van itself.
Van, again, before April, 1915, was the populous, civilised capital of a province, with a picturesque citadel-rock overlooking the lake and open garden suburbs spreading east of it across the plain. The City of Van, with the surrounding lowlands that fringe the eastern and north-eastern shores of the lake, was more thoroughly Armenian than any part of the Ottoman Empire. In the Van Vilayet(217) alone the Armenians not merely outnumbered each other racial element singly, but were an absolute majority of the total population. These Armenians of Van played a leading and a valiant part in the events of 1915.
Yet Van, though a stronghold of Armenian nationality, was also the extremity, in this direction, of Armenian territory; south-east of Van the upper valley of the Zab and the basin of Lake Urmia were jointly inhabited by Christian Syrians and Moslem Kurds, until the Syrians, too, were involved in the Armenians' fate. To complete our survey, we have to retrace our steps round the northern shores of Lake Van till we arrive once more in the plain of Moush.
The plain of Moush is closed in on the south and south-west by another rampart of mountains, which forms the southern wall of the plateau and repeats with remarkable exactness the structure of that northern wall which the traveller encounters when he turns south from the plain of Erzeroum. This southern range, also, falls precipitously towards the north, first into the plain of Moush, and, further westward, into the waters of the Mourad Su, which wash it like a moat all the way to their junction with the Kara Su, below Harpout. And, like the northern range, again, the southern rampart unfolds itself to the south in a maze of high hills and tangled valleys, which only sink by degrees into the plains of Diyarbekir---a detached bay of the great Mesopotamian steppe. These southern highlands are known as the Sassoun ; they are a physiographical counterpart to the highlands of Dersim, and are likewise the harbour of semi-independent mountaineers. But whereas the Dersimlis are pagan Zazas or Moslem Kurds, and were at constant feud with their Armenian neighbours, the Sassounlis were themselves Armenians, and were in the closest intercourse with their kinsmen in the valley of the Mourad Su and in the plains of Moush and Boulanik.
Sassoun was one of the most interesting Armenian communities in the Ottoman Empire. It was a federation of about forty mountain villages, which lived their own life in virtual independence of the Ottoman authorities at Bitlis or Diyarbekir, and held their own against the equally independent Kurdish tribes that ringed them round. They were prosperous shepherds and laborious cultivators of their mountain slopes---a perfect example of the cantonal phase of economic development, requiring nothing from outside and even manufacturing their own gunpowder. The Sassounli Armenians were in the same social stage as the Scottish Highlanders before 1745 ; the Armenians of Van, Sivas and Constantinople were people of the twentieth century, engaged in the same activities and living much the same life as the shopkeepers and business men of Vienna or London or New York.
Only an enterprising traveller would have struck up into Sassoun if he wished to make his way from Moush to Diyarbekir. The beaten track takes a longer course to the south-eastern corner of the plain, and then breasts the mountain wall to the south (where the branch-road turns eastward to Lake. Van). From Norshen, the last village of the plain, an easy pass leads over a saddle and brings the traveller unexpectedly to the important city of Bitlis, which lies under the shadow of the ridge, immediately south of the watershed. Bitlis is the capital of a vilayet, and before Djevdet Bey retreated upon it in June, 1915, there was a numerous Armenian element in its population. But Bitlis, again, was one of the limits of the Armenian dispersion. The waters which rise round the city flow southward to the Tigris, and the highroad winds down with them towards the plains, which are inhabited by a confused population of Jacobites(218) and Arabs, Turks and Kurds. If you had followed the Tigris upstream across the levels to Diyarbekir, you would have passed few Armenian villages on the road, even before June, 1915 ; and at Diyarbekir itself, a considerable city, there was only a weak Armenian colony---a feeble link in the chain of Armenian outposts on the fringe of the Mesopotamian steppe. But Diyarbekir is on the line of that Royal Road by which men have gone up from time immemorial from Baghdad and beyond to the coasts of the Bosphorus and the Egean. The highway runs on north-west across the flats, passes Arghana and Arghana Mines, climbs the southern escarpment of the Armenian plateau up the valley of the Arghana Su, skirts the Göldjik Lake on the watershed, and slopes down, still north-westwards, to Harpout, near the course of the Mourad Su. Many convoys of Armenian exiles traversed this road in the opposite direction during the summer months of 1915, on their way from their native plateau to the alien climate of the Arabian deserts. But our survey of the Armenians in Turkey is complete, and we can travel back in imagination from Harpout to Malatia, from Malatia to Sivas, and so on continually north-westward, till we return again to the point from which we started out.
This somewhat elaborate itinerary will have served its purpose if it has made clear the extraordinary vitality and versatility of the Armenian nation in the Ottoman Empire at the moment when its extermination was planned and attempted by the established Government of the country. The Government had been of little service to any of its subjects ; it had never initiated any social or economic developments on its own part, and had invariably made itself a clog upon the private enterprises of native or foreign individuals. Yet, under this pall of stagnation and repression, there were manifold stirrings of a new life. Wherever an opportunity presented itself, wherever the Government omitted to intervene, the Armenians were making indefatigable progress towards a better civilization. They were raising the pastoral and agricultural prosperity of their barren highlands and harassed plains; they were deepening and extending their education at the American schools ; they were laying the foundation of local industries in the Vilayet of Sivas ; they were building up Ottoman banking and shipping and finance at Trebizond and Adana and Constantinople. They were kindling the essential spark of energy in the Ottoman Empire, and anyone acquainted with Near Eastern history will inevitably compare their promise with the promise of the Greeks a century before. The apologists of the Ottoman Government will seize with eagerness upon this comparison. "The Greeks," they will say, "revolted as soon as they had fallen into this state of fermentation. The Young Turks did more prudently than Sultan Mahmoud in forestalling future trouble." But if we examine the relations between the Ottoman Government and the Armenian people we shall find that this argument recoils upon its authors' heads.
.
IV. THE ARMENIAN PEOPLE AND THE OTTOMAN GOVERNMENT.
When the Ottoman Government entered the European War in 1914 it had ruled Armenia for just four hundred years, and still had for its subjects a majority of the Armenian people. Anyone who inquires into the relations between the Government and the governed during this period of Near Eastern history will find the most contradictory opinions expressed. On the one hand he will be told that the Armenians, like the rest of the Christians in Turkey, were classed as "Rayah " (cattle[219]) by the dominant race, and that this one word sums up their irremediable position ; that they were not treated as citizens because they were not even treated as men. On the other hand, he will hear that the Ottoman Empire has been more liberal to its subject nationalities than many states in Western Europe ; that the Armenians have been perfectly free to live their own life under a paternal government, and that the friction between the Government and its subjects has been due to the native perversity and instability of the Armenian character, or, worse still, to a revolutionary poison instilled by some common enemy from without. Both these extreme views are out of perspective, but each of them represents a part of the truth.
It is undoubtedly true (to take the Turkish case first) that the Armenians have derived certain benefits from the Ottoman dispensation. The caste division between Moslem and Rayah, for instance, may stamp the Ottoman "State Idea" as mediaeval and incapable of progress ; but this has injured the state as a whole more appreciably than the penalised section of it, for extreme penalisation works both ways. The Government ruled out the Christians so completely from the dominant Moslem commonwealth that it suffered and even encouraged them to form communities of their own. The "Rayah" became "Millets"---not yoke-oxen, but unshackled herds.
These Christian Millets were instituted by Sultan Mohammed II, after he had conquered Constantinople in 1453 and set himself to reorganise the Ottoman State as the conscious heir of the East Roman Empire. They are national corporations with written charters, often of an elaborate kind. Each of them is presided over by a Patriarch, who holds office at the discretion of the Government, but is elected by the community and is the recognised intermediary between the two, combining in his own person the headship of a voluntary "Rayah" association and the status of an Ottoman official. The special function thus assigned to the Patriarchates gives the Millets, as an institution, an ecclesiastical character(220) ; but in the Near East a church is merely the foremost aspect of a nationality, and the authority of the Patriarchates extends to the control of schools, and even to the administration of certain branches of civil law. The Millets, in fact, are practically autonomous bodies in all that concerns religion, culture and social life ; but it is a maimed autonomy, for it is jealously debarred from any political expression. The establishment of the Millets is a recognition, and a palliation, of the pathological anomaly of the Near East---the political disintegration of Near Eastern peoples and the tenacity with which they have clung, in spite of it, to their corporate spiritual life.
The organisation of the Millets was not a gain to all the Christian nations that had been subjected by the Ottoman power. Certain orthodox populations, like the Bulgars and the Serbs, actually lost an ecclesiastical autonomy which they had enjoyed before, and were merged in the Millet of the Greeks, under the Orthodox Patriarch at Constantinople. The Armenians, on the other hand, improved their position. As so-called schismatics, they had hitherto existed on sufferance under Orthodox and Catholic governments, but the Osmanlis viewed all varieties of Christian with an impartial eye. Mohammed II. summoned the Gregorian Bishop of the Armenian colony at Broussa, and raised him to the rank of an Armenian Patriarch at Constantinople. The Ottoman conquest thus left the Gregorian Armenians their religious individuality and put them on a legal equality with their neighbours of the Orthodox Faith, and the same privileges were extended in time to the Armenians in communion with other churches. The Gregorian Millet was chartered in 1462, the Millet of Armenian Catholics in 1830, and the Millet of Armenian Protestants in the 'forties of the nineteenth century, as a result of the foundation of the American Missions.
The Armenians of the Dispersion, therefore, profited, in that respect, by Ottoman rule, and even in the Armenian homeland the account stood, on the whole, in the Ottoman Government's favour. The Osmanlis are often blamed for having given the Kurds a footing in this region, as a political move in their struggle with Persia; but the Kurds were not, originally, such a scourge to the Armenians as the Seljuks, Mongols, or Kara Koyunli, who had harried the land before, or as the Persians themselves, whom the Osmanlis and the Kurds ejected from the country. The three centuries of Kurdish feudalism under Ottoman suzerainty that followed Sultan Selim's campaign of 1514 were a less unhappy period for the Armenians than the three centuries and more of anarchy that had preceded them. They were a time of torpor before recuperation, and it was the Ottoman Government again that, by a change in its Kurdish policy, enabled this recuperation to set in. In the early part of the nineteenth century a vigorous anti-feudal, centralising movement was initiated by Sultan Mahmoud, a reformer who has become notorious for his unsuccessful handling of the Greek and Serbian problems without receiving the proper credit for his successes further east. He turned his attention to the Kurdish chieftains in 1834, and by the middle of the century his efforts had practically broken their power. Petty feudalism was replaced by a bureaucracy centred in Constantinople. The new officialdom was not ideal; it had new vices of its own ; but it was impartial, by comparison, towards the two races whom it had to govern, for the class prejudice of the Moslem against the well-behaved Rayah was balanced by the exasperation of the professional administrator with the unconscionable Kurd. In any case, this remodelling of the Ottoman State in the early decades of the nineteenth century introduced a new epoch in the history of the Armenian people. Coinciding, as it did, with the establishment of the American Missions and the chartering of the Catholic and Protestant Millets, it opened to the Armenians opportunities of which they availed themselves to the full. An intellectual and economic renaissance of Armenian life began, parallel in many respects to the Greek renaissance a century before.
This comparison brings us back to the question: Was the Armenian revival of the nineteenth century an inevitable menace to the sovereignty and integrity of the Ottoman State ? Is the disastrous breach between Armenian and Turk, which has actually occurred, simply the fruit of wrong-headed Armenian ambitions ? That is the Turkish contention; but here the Turkish case breaks down, and we shall find the truth on the Armenian side.
The parallel with the Greek renaissance is misleading, if it implies a parallel with the Greek revolution. The Greek movement towards political separatism was, in a sense, the outcome of the general spiritual movement that preceded it; but it was hardly an essential consequence, and certainly not a fortunate one. The Greek War of Independence liberated one fraction of the Greek race at the price of exterminating most of the others and sacrificing the favoured position which the Greek element had previously enjoyed throughout the Ottoman Empire. It was not an encouraging precedent for the Armenians, and the objections to following it in their own case were more formidable still. As we have seen, no portion of Ottoman territory was exclusively inhabited by them, and they were nowhere even in an absolute majority, except in certain parts of the Province of Van, so that they had no natural rallying point for a national revolt, such as the Greeks had in the Islands and the Morea. They were scattered from one end to another of the Ottoman Empire; the whole Empire was their heritage, and it was a heritage that they must necessarily share with the Turks, who were in a numerical majority and held the reins of political power. The alternative to an Ottoman State was not an Armenian State, but a partition among the Powers, which would have ended the ambitions of Turk and Armenian alike. The Powers concerned were quite ready for a partition, if only they could agree upon a division of the spoils. This common inheritance of the Armenians and the Turks was potentially one of the richest countries in the Old World, and one of the few that had not yet been economically developed. Its native inhabitants, still scanty, backward and divided against themselves, were not yet capable of defending their title against spoilers from without ; they only maintained it at present by a fortuitous combination in the balance of power, which might change at any moment. The problem for the Armenians was not how to overthrow the Ottoman Empire but how to preserve it, and their interest in its preservation was even greater than that of their Turkish neighbours and co-heirs. Our geographical survey has shown that talent and temperament had brought most of the industry, commerce, finance and skilled intellectual work of Turkey into the Armenians' hands. The Greeks may still have competed with them on the Ægean fringe, and the Sephardi Jews in the Balkans, but they had the whole interior of the Empire to themselves, with no competition to fear from the agricultural Turks or the pastoral Kurds. And if the Empire were preserved by timely reforms from within, the position of the Armenians would become still more favourable, for they were the only native element capable of raising the Empire economically, intellectually and morally to a European standard, by which alone its existence could permanently be secured. The main effort must be theirs, and they would reap the richest reward.
Thus, from the Armenian point of view, a national entente with the Turks was an object of vital importance, to be pursued for its ultimate results in spite of present difficulties and drawbacks. About the middle of the nineteenth century there seemed every likelihood of its being attained. The labours of Sultan Mahmoud and the influence of Great Britain and France had begun to inoculate the Turkish ruling class with liberal ideas. An admirable "Law of Nationalities" was promulgated, and there was a project for a parliamentary constitution. It looked, to an optimist, as if the old mediaeval caste-division of Moslem and Rayah might die away and allow Armenian, Turk and Kurd to find their true relation to one another---not as irreconcilable sects or races, but as different social elements in the same community, whose mutual interest was to co-operate for a common end.
This was the logical policy for the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire to pursue, and the logic of it was so clear that they have clung to it through difficulties and drawbacks sufficient to banish logic altogether ---" difficulties" which amounted to a bankruptcy of political sense in the Imperial Government, and "drawbacks" which culminated in official massacres of the Armenian population. There were two causes of this sinister turn of events: the external crisis through which the Empire passed in the years 1875-8, and the impression this crisis made upon Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid, who came to the throne in 1876, when it was entering upon its gravest phase.
In these years the Empire had been brought to the verge of ruin by the revolt of a subject Christian population, the Bosniak Serbs, which spread to the other subject races in the Balkan provinces, and by a momentary breakdown in the diplomatic mechanism of the European balance of power, which enabled Russia to throw her military force into the scales on the Balkan rebels' behalf. The ruin was arrested and partially repaired, when Turkey lay prostrate under Russia's heel, by a reassertion of the balance of power, which deprived Russia of most of her gains and half the Balkan Christians of their new-won liberties. Abd-ul-Hamid was clever enough to learn from these experiences, but not, unfortunately, to learn aright, and he devoted all his astuteness to carrying out a policy far more injurious to the Empire than the troubles it was meant to avert. He seems to have inferred from the war with Russia that Turkey was not and never would be strong enough to hold its own against a first-class power ; it was not her internal strength that had saved her, but the external readjustment of forces. Therefore, any attempt to strengthen the Empire from within, by reconciling its racial elements and developing its natural resources, was Utopian and irrelevant to the problem. The only object of importance was to insure against an attack by any single Power by keeping all the Great Powers in a state of jealous equilibrium. Now the breakdown of this equilibrium, in 1877, which had been so disastrous for Turkey, had been directly caused by an antecedent disturbance of equilibrium within the Empire itself. A subject Christian nationality had tried to break away violently from the Ottoman body-politic. Here was the root of the whole trouble, to Abd-ul-Hamid's mind, and the primary object of his policy must be to prevent such a thing from happening again. The subject nationalities of the Empire were not for him unrealised assets; they were potential destroyers of the State, more formidable even than the foreign Powers. Their potentialities must be neutralised, and the surest course, with them as with the Powers, was to play them off against one another. In fine, the policy of Abd-ul-Hamid was the exact antithesis of the instinctive Armenian policy which we have indicated above; it was not to strengthen the Empire by bringing the nationalities into harmony, but to weaken the nationalities, at whatever cost to the Empire, by setting them to cut each other's throats. Abd-ul-Hamid applied this policy for forty years. The Macedonians and the Armenians were his special victims, but only the Armenians concern us here.
It was inevitable that the Armenians should be singled out by Abd-ul-Hamid for repression. When Turkey sued for peace in 1878, the Russian troops were in occupation of the greater part of the Armenian plateau, and the Russian plenipotentiaries inserted an Article (No. 16) in the Treaty of San Stefano making the evacuation of these provinces conditional upon the previous introduction of reforms in their administration by the Ottoman Government. A concrete scheme for the reorganisation of the six vilayets in question(221) had already been drawn up by a delegation of their Armenian inhabitants. It provided for the creation of an Armenian Governor-General, empowered to appoint and remove the officials subordinate to him; a mixed gendarmerie of Armenians and the sedentary elements in the Moslem population, to the exclusion of the nomadic Kurds; a general assembly, consisting of Moslem and Christian deputies in equal numbers; and equal rights for every creed. The Ottoman Government had approved and even encouraged this project of provincial autonomy when it feared that the alternative was the cession of the provinces to Russia. As soon as it had made certain of the Russian evacuation, its approval turned to indifference; and when the European Congress met at Berlin to revise the San Stefano Treaty, the Ottoman emissaries exerted themselves to quash the project altogether. In this they were practically successful, for the Treaty drawn up at Berlin by the Congress merely engaged the Ottoman Government, in general terms(222), to introduce "ameliorations" in the " provinces inhabited by Armenians," without demanding any guarantee at all(223). The Russian troops were withdrawn and the ameliorations were a dead letter. The Ottoman Government was reminded of them, in 1880, by a collective Note from the six Powers. But it left the Note unanswered, and after the diplomatic démarches had dragged on for two years the question was shelved, on Bismarck's suggestion, because no Power except Great Britain would press it.
The seed of the "Armenian Reforms" had thus fallen upon stony ground, except in the mind of Abd-ul-Hamid, where it lodged and rankled till it bore the fruit of the "Armenian Massacres." The project had not really been a menace to Ottoman sovereignty and integrity. It was merely a proposal to apply in, six vilayets that elementary measure of "amelioration" which was urgently needed by the Empire as a whole, and without, which it could never begin to develop its internal strength. But, to Abd-ul-Hamid it was unforgivable, for to him every concession to a subject Christian nationality was suspect. He had seen the Bulgars given ecclesiastical autonomy by the Ottoman Government in 1870 and then raised by Russia, within eight years, into a semi-independent political principality. Armenian autonomy had been averted for the moment, but the parallel might still hold good, for Russia's influence over the Armenians had been increasing.
Russia had conquered the Armenian provinces of Persia in 1828(224), and this had brought within her frontier the Monastery of Etchmiadzin, in the Khanate of Erivan, which was the seat of the Katholikos of All the Armenians. The power of this Katholikos was at that time very much in abeyance. He was an ecclesiastical relic of, the ancient united Armenian Kingdom of Tigranes and Tiridates, which had been out of existence for fourteen hundred years. There was another Katholikos at Sis, a relic of the mediaeval kingdom of Cilicia, who did not acknowledge his supremacy, and he was thrown into the shade altogether by the Armenian Patriarch at Constantinople, who was the official head of the Armenian Millet in the Ottoman Empire---at that time an overwhelming majority of the Armenian people.
But Russian diplomacy succeeded in reviving the Katholikos of Etchmiadzin's authority. In the 'forties of the nineteenth century, when Russian influence at Constantinople was at its height and Russian protection seemed the only recourse for Turkey against the ambition of Mehemet Ali, the ecclesiastical supremacy of Etchmiadzin over Constantinople and Sis was definitely established, and the Katholikos of Etchmiadzin, a resident in Russian territory, became once more the actual as well as the titular head of the whole Gregorian Church. Russia had thus acquired an influence over the Armenians as a nation, and individual Armenians were acquiring a reciprocal influence in Russia. They had risen to eminence, not only in commerce, but in the public service and in the army. They had distinguished themselves particularly in the war of 1877. Loris Melikov, Lazarev and Tergoukasev, three of, the most successful generals on the Russian side, were of Armenian nationality. Melikov had taken the fortress of Kars, and the Treaty of Berlin left his conquest in Russia's possession with a zone of territory that rounded off the districts ceded by Persia fifty years before. The Russian frontier was thus pushed forward on to the Armenian plateau, and now included an important Armenian population---important enough to make its mark on the general life of the Russian Empire(225) and to serve as a national rallying-point for the Armenians who still remained on the Ottoman side of the line.
Such considerations outweighed all others in Abd-ul-Hamid's mind. His Armenian subjects must be deprived of their formidable vitality, and he decided to crush them by resuscitating the Kurds. From 1878 onwards he encouraged their lawlessness, and in 1891 he deliberately undid the work of his predecessor, Mahmoud. The Kurdish chieftains were taken again into favour and decorated with Ottoman military rank; their tribes were enrolled as squadrons of territorial cavalry ; regimental badges and modern rifles were served out to them from the Government stores, and their retaining fee was a free hand to use their official status and their official weapons as they pleased against their Armenian neighbours. At the same time the latter were systematically disarmed ; the only retaliation open to them was the formation of secret revolutionary societies, and this fitted in entirely with Abd-ul-Hamid's plans, for it made a racial conflict inevitable. The disturbances began in 1893 with the posting up of revolutionary placards in Yozgad and Marsovan. This was soon followed by an open breach between Moslem and Christian in the. districts of Moush and Sassoun, and there was a rapid concentration of troops---some of them Turkish regulars, but most of them Hamidié Kurds. Sassoun was besieged for several months, and fell in 1894. The Sassounlis---men, women and children---were savagely massacred by the Turks and Kurds, and the attention of Great Britain was aroused. In the winter of 1894-5 Great Britain persuaded France and Russia to join her in reminding the Ottoman Government of its pledge to introduce provincial reforms, and in the spring they presented a concrete programme for the administration of the Six Vilayets. In its final form it was a perfunctory project, and the counter-project which the Ottoman Government announced its intention of applying in its stead was more illusory still. It was promulgated in 1895, but the first of a new series of organised massacres had already taken place a few days earlier, at Trebizond, and in the following months the slaughter was extended to one after another of the principal towns of the Empire. These atrocities were nearly all committed against peaceful, unarmed urban populations. The only place that resisted was Zeitoun, which held out. for six months against a Turkish army, and was finally amnestied by the mediation of the Powers. The anti-Armenian outbreaks were instigated and controlled by the Central Government, and were crowned, in August, 1896, by the great massacre at Constantinople, where for two days the Armenians, at the Government's bidding, were killed indiscriminately in the streets, until the death-roll amounted to many thousands. Then Abd-ul-Hamid held his hand. He had been feeling the pulse of public opinion, both abroad and at home, and he saw that he had gone far enough(226). In all more than 100,000 men, women and children had perished, and for the moment he had sufficiently crippled the Armenian element in his Empire.
Yet this Macchiavellian policy was ultimately as futile as it was wicked. In the period after the massacres the Armenian population in Turkey was certainly reduced, partly by the actual slaughter and partly by emigration abroad. But this only weakened the Empire without permanently paralysing the Armenian race. The emigrants struck new roots in the United States and in the Russian Caucasus, acquired new resources, enlisted new sympathies ; and Russia was the greatest gainer of all. The Armenians had little reason, at the time, to look towards Russia with special sympathy or hope. In Russia, as in Turkey, the war of 1877-8 had been followed by a political reaction, which was aggravated by the assassination of the Tsar, Alexander II., in 1881 ; and the Armenians, as an energetic, intellectual, progressive element in the Russian Empire, were classed by the police with the revolutionaries, and came under their heavy hand. Yet once an Armenian was on the Russian side of the frontier his life and property at least were safe. He could be sure of reaping the fruits of his labour, and had not to fear sudden death in the streets. During the quarter of a century that followed the Treaty of Berlin, the Armenian population of the Russian provinces increased remarkably in prosperity and numbers, and now, after the massacres, they were reinforced by a constant stream of Ottoman refugees. The centre of gravity of the Armenian race was shifting more and more from Ottoman to Russian territory. Russia has profited by the crimes of her neighbours. The Hamidian régime lasted from 1878 to 1908, and did all that any policy could do to widen the breach between the Ottoman State and the Armenian people. Yet the natural community of interest was so strong that even thirty years of repression did not make the Armenians despair of Ottoman regeneration.
Nothing is more significant than the conduct of the Armenians in 1908, when Abd-ul-Hamid was overthrown by the Young Turkish Revolution, and there was a momentary possibility that the Empire might be reformed and preserved by the initiative of the Turks themselves. At this crisis the real attitude of the different nationalities in the Empire was revealed. The Kurds put up a fight for Abd-ul-Hamid, because they rejoiced in the old dispensation. The Macedonians---Greek, Bulgar and Serb---who had been the Armenians' principal fellow-victims in the days of oppression, paid the Constitution lip-homage and secretly prepared to strike. They were irreconcilable irredentists, and saw in the reform of the Empire simply an obstacle to their secession from it. They took counsel with their kinsmen in the independent national States of Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece, and, four years later, the Balkan League attacked Turkey and tore away her Macedonian provinces by force.
The Armenians, on the other hand, threw themselves wholeheartedly into the service of the new régime. As soon as the Ottoman Constitution was restored, the Armenian political parties abandoned their revolutionary programme in favour of parliamentary action, and co-operated in Parliament with the Young Turkish bloc so long as Young Turkish policy remained in any degree liberal or democratic. The terrible Adana massacres, which occurred less than a year after the Constitution had been proclaimed, might have damped the Armenians' enthusiasm (though at first the proof that the Young Turks were implicated in them was not so clear as it has since become). Yet they showed their loyalty in 1912, when the Turks were fighting for their existence. It was only under the new laws that the privilege and duty of military service had been extended to the Christian as well as the Moslem citizens of the Empire, and the disastrous Balkan Campaign was the first opportunity that Armenian soldiers were given of doing battle for their common heritage. But they bore themselves so well in this ordeal that they were publicly commended by their Turkish commanders. Thus, in war and peace, in the Army and in Parliament, the Armenians worked for the salvation of the Ottoman Commonwealth, from the accession of the Young Turks in 1908 till their intervention in the European War in 1914. It is impossible to reconcile with this fact the Turkish contention that in 1914 they suddenly reversed their policy and began treacherously to plot for the Ottoman Empire's destruction. | ||||||||
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The Ottoman Empire’s Escalation from Reforms to the Armenian Genocide, 1908–1915
In the first decade and a half of the twentieth century, Ottoman treatment of its Armenian community changed in step with changing threats to the polity. The Armenian nation had no pivotal secessionist “moments” as such during this period. Rather, the state of Armenian demands and nationalism was a near constant phenomenon: significantly greater autonomy, up to and including statehood. As we shall see, the Ottoman response to these Armenian demands ebbed and flowed. Upon deposing the sultan and assuming power in 1908, the Young Turk movement dealt with the Armenians peacefully, with the promise of administrative reforms. However, once World War I broke out, and Turkey joined the Central Powers, the Armenians faced genocide. Seven years apart, the same regime, facing the same ethnic group, used strategies as vastly different as “negotiations and concessions” and “collective repression.” Why?
The increased external vulnerability brought about by Turkey’s involvement in the war was crucial in the escalation the Armenians faced, particularly given relations between Russia, the Ottoman state, and the Armenian community. When the Young Turks first rose to power, they had a relatively optimistic outlook on the state’s future in Europe. More important, they conceived of Ottoman identity as including the presence and participation of Armenians. These beliefs supplied the confidence necessary for a strategy of negotiations and concessions. However, by 1914–15, their treatment of Armenians changed dramatically, with two factors relating to external security especially relevant. First, the changing shape and form of the Ottoman Empire between 1908 and 1914—it lost essentially all of its European territory—meant that the state’s identity became based more on a narrow Turkism than an accommodating Ottomanism. Shifts in Ottoman identity ensured that Armenian nationalism was no longer considered indifferent to the national core but actively opposed to it and caused the regime to view Armenian demands in a more existentially threatening light. Second, the fact that the Ottomans and Russians were on opposite sides in the war meant that when the latter’s support for Armenians shot up, it did so at a time when the very survival of the Ottoman Empire was in peril. Strong support by Russia for the Armenians had both material and emotional consequences, whereby the Ottoman Empire faced a significantly tougher fight in World War I thanks to Armenian collaboration and acted angrily in the face of perceived betrayal. In conjunction, these factors—the adoption of a more exclusivist and paranoid nationalism by the Young Turk regime, which shifted the identity distance between the two groups from “indifferent” to “opposed,” and “high” Russian support for the Armenians during the Great War—translated into genocide.
Map 2. The Armenian provinces
I believe this case is worthy of investigation for a number of reasons. First, “extreme” cases, or those where either or both of the independent and dependent variable lie far from the median, can prove instructive.1 The Ottoman-Armenian case certainly fits this description, with state strategy spanning from “negotiations and concessions,” wide-ranging and substantive reforms to the Armenians, to “collective repression.” Insofar as the independent variable is concerned, it is difficult to imagine a more externally threatening environment than the one the Ottoman Empire faced during World War I.
Second, because the Ottoman case was not one of a modern nation-state, but an empire in the midst of dissolution, its inclusion increases the breadth of the sample tested thus far. Unlike most other European empires—the British, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish—the Ottoman Empire was geographically contiguous, with no body of water between the metropole and the periphery. This meant that it “looked” like a state more so than the Western European empires (see chapter 1).
Third, scholars suggest dividing a single case into two subcases, a technique known as “before-after research design,” in order to gauge the effects of changes in one significant variable.2 Leveraging the variation in Young Turk strategy with respect to the Armenians in 1908 and 1915, when little about the case changed other than the appreciably different external environment the state faced, allows for a fruitful examination of the effect of external security conditions on state strategy with respect to separatist minorities.
Before proceeding, it is important to note that the historical origins of the Armenian genocide are strongly contested. As the title of one book suggests, the Armenian genocide is a “disputed genocide.”3 There are essentially two interpretations on what transpired between the Ottoman state and its Armenian nation. First, there is the belief that, absent World War I, the Armenian genocide could not and would not have happened. This view is generally forwarded by Western historians, who argue that the Ottoman position and performance in the war was intimately tied to its decision to organize the deportations of hundreds of thousands of people in bad weather and through rough terrain, without protection against marauders or disease, resulting in the murder of a million Armenians. The oppositional view, generally forwarded by Armenian historians, is that the genocide was a premeditated act, planned well before World War I.4 There is a third view, proffered primarily by “official” Turkish historians,5 who argue that there was no deliberate mass-targeting of the Armenian community in the first place,6 and to the extent that there was violence committed against Armenians, it was part and parcel of the fog of war. Such “scholars” under-state levels of violence against the Armenians;7 overstate Armenian responsibility for the violence; claim that rather than ordering massacres, the Young Turk regime wanted to provide both food and security to the deportees;8 argue that the Armenians suffered no more or less than other communities in the state during the Great War; and practice frankly bizarre forms of false equivalence, where small-scale incidents such as murders and seizures of banks occupy the same moral space as the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.9 This third view has been thoroughly discredited, and as such, I will not engage with it at length here, except to merely note its existence.
I side primarily with the first camp. Although the leadership in the Ottoman state may well have harbored considerable ill-will toward their Armenian citizens before the war and was uneager to ensure their safety once deported, it was only the security exigencies of the Great War that caused the genocide. In particular, the real and perceived partnership between Russia and the restive Armenian population made the senior Ottoman leadership believe that their prospects of survival in the war were nonexistent if they did not first tackle the Armenian “problem.”
The main factors to consider in favor of this argument are: the perilous situation the Ottomans found themselves in the spring of 1915; the location of major Armenian population centers, occupying important territory along Ottoman lines of communication and supply as well as possible lines of Russian invasion; and the timing and escalation of the major deportation orders by Talaat and Enver Pasha. As we shall see, Armenian population centers were concentrated in the Ottoman rear, especially with respect to two of their three major fronts in World War I—the Caucasus campaign against Russia and the Palestine and Mesopotamian campaigns against Britain. During the spring and summer of 1915, when the Ottoman Empire was considered to be on its last legs, and faced Allied and Russian incursions in three theaters as well as internal insurrections, its leaders ordered deportations both when and where it faced the greatest security threat. In conjunction with corroborating public and private testimony from the main Ottoman decision makers, the implication is that the Ottoman state was concerned with the prospect of the Armenian fifth column attacking its vulnerable supply and communication lines, or alternatively, joining advancing Russian or Western forces, both fears that were realized in a number of cases. On a wider temporal scale, the onset of the war, and considerable territorial losses in the years running up to it, at once solidified the existence of threats emanating from abroad, and hardened Ottoman resolve to deal with them.
For the purposes of the general argument forwarded in this book, then, external security considerations for the Ottoman state were the crucial driving variable for the escalation from its accommodationist policy to widespread slaughter. In 1908, the revolutionary Young Turk government attempted “negotiations and concessions” to solve the Armenian issue because they had an optimistic view of the state, both internally and externally. By the time the war began, however, and the external threat that the Ottoman state faced ramped up due to changes in national identity and the wider geopolitical context, its policy of “collective repression” was put in place. Figure 4 summarizes the argument I forward in this chapter.
The main theoretical alternatives to mine outlined in the introduction cannot explain the observed variation in this case. The reputation argument would predict that the earlier movement would face greater violence, but the opposite took place. Meanwhile, Young Turk leaders’ concentration of power between 1908 and 1915 would have been relevant for the veto points argument—as long as they preferred a policy of concessions, only to be stymied by a lack of credibility with the minority. However, in the spring of 1915, the Young Turk leaders were flatly uninterested in concessions to the Armenians, rendering theories centering on domestic institutions less than useful in explaining the Ottoman escalation to genocide. The main alternative, context-specific argument would be that external security considerations were merely correlated, rather than causally related, with Ottoman decision-making, and that the leadership had decided on genocide well before the Great War. Such a view does not withstand empirical scrutiny, as we shall see.
Figure 4. Variation in the Ottoman Empire’s treatment of Armenians, 1908–15
Antecedent Conditions of a Tripartite Rivalry
In the early 1800s, historic Armenia was scythed up between the Russian and Ottoman empires, and the Russians supplemented those gains in the coming years by snapping up territory through wars, conquests, and treaties.10 By the middle of the century, the Ottoman state was left with just over 2 million Armenians under its control, more than half of which lived in six vilayets, or provinces: Van, Bitlis, Erzurum, Diyarbakir, Kharput, and Sivas, where they outnumbered both ethnic Turks and Kurds. Armenians were also concentrated on the Mediterranean coast at Cilicia.11 The geo graphic distribution of Armenians mattered greatly because the Ottoman authorities, in trying to dampen calls for reform, would attempt to minimize the number of Armenians in particular areas.12
Armenian demands in the latter half of the nineteenth century had not yet escalated to full independence. Rather, they sought guarantees of life and property. Armenians often fell victim to marauding Kurds, who would attack entire villages and extort local merchants. This practice forced a system of double taxation on Armenian communities, who paid high taxes to the state on account of being non-Muslim, even before they were subjected to violence and intimidation from Kurds. Moreover, the laws and regulations of the Ottoman system imposed additional hardships on the Armenian community: Christians were not equal before the law and judicial system, and they were barred from serving in the higher levels of the government and military. Worse still was that the perpetrators of attacks against them were never punished, which in turn encouraged yet more attacks. In fact, the Turkish-Armenian conflict actually began as a Kurd-Armenian conflict; the latter were generally defenseless against Kurdish violence and extortion, and it was the refusal of Ottoman authorities to do anything about it that greatly angered the Armenians.13
The Armenian community was generally more economically advanced than most ethnic blocs under the Ottomans. In this, they were aided by the fact that Muslims in the state were discouraged from merchant or trade-reliant careers. Moreover, the Armenians’ geographic clustering and religious identity led to a stronger sense of nationhood and common identity than among most other groups. As a consequence, it was easier for them to forward demands as a unified community in the face of discrimination. Reform on security, administrative matters, taxes, and property were the central Armenian demands in the latter half of the nineteenth century, with independence or autonomy not a major concern as yet.14 From the state’s point of view, the Armenians were not considered the most pressing internal problem either, to the point that they were famously considered the “most loyal community” among Ottoman Christian citizens in the nineteenth century.15
In 1877, war broke out between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans allied with Britain, which itself was wary about Russian ambitions in and around Asia Minor, Persia, and India. However, Britain’s support did not extend to lending a military hand to the sultan, and Russia won the war relatively easily. In fact, they entered Constantinople and were six miles from the Porte before French and British forces compelled the Russians to stop their advance. The war resulted in Russia annexing the border regions in the Caucasus. The 1878 Treaty of Berlin marked the end of the war, and with it ensured independence for Serbia, Montenegro, and Romania—that is, the Ottomans lost most of their Christian citizens. In addition, Bulgaria won greater autonomy and reforms were promised to Macedonia, eastern Roumelia, Salonika, and Kosovo.16
These developments reaffirmed Ottoman perceptions of Russia seeking to weaken it from within by supporting the independence efforts of ethnic groups in their midst, particularly if they were Christian.17 More generally, they fueled resentment at Western intervention in the state’s domestic affairs.18 Russia’s actions did not allay these concerns. It put its cards on the table when it pledged to withdraw from annexed Ottoman territory only when reforms targeting Armenian grievances were put in place.19 Per versely but unsurprisingly, international intervention in Armenian efforts toward reform provided mixed results at best—while the recognition of their strife led to a greater sense of national consciousness among the Armenians, European interference tended to give the Ottoman leadership more reason to clamp down on them.20
Russia’s ambitions for Ottoman Armenians were not very grand or wide ranging. Contrary to Ottoman perceptions, Russia did not prefer Turkey’s empire to dissolve or be partitioned out of existence; rather, Russia preferred a weak but still viable Ottoman state. With regard to Armenian aspirations, Russia wished for the sultan to enact relatively moderate reforms—concessions too weighty would be problematic for the Russians too, since they had their own politically active Armenian minority.21 Although Russia’s geostrategic focus turned partly from the Balkans and Near East to Persia and the Far East, it still considered its “historic” tasks in the Near East important. These objectives were that no third state should control the Straits, which were key for Russian commerce, and a natural launching point for control of the Balkans and the Black Sea; statehood for Balkan Christian peoples; and a general, non-negotiable sphere of influence in the Near East.22
Regardless of Russian interference and provocation, when the Young Turks rose to power, their first interactions with Armenians were hardly marked by antipathy, or anything close to it. To the contrary, their relationship was, at least at the outset, marked by cooperation and mutual optimism.
Young Turks Ascension to Power and Accommodation of Armenians
The Young Turks assumed control of the state in a revolution in 1908 that featured “astonishingly little bloodshed.”23 The revolutionaries were an eclectic group: modern thinkers, intelligentsia, liberals, and naval and military officers, organized under various political groups, most prominent of which was the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). The CUP was inspired by the French Revolution and Japan’s Meiji Restoration, which imparted to the Young Turks the lesson that constitutionalism was the key to state strength. In this simplistic view, constitutionalism was considered a panacea, “a recipe for alleviating ethnic strife, ending nationalist separatist movements, propelling economic growth, and instituting legal rationality in the military and the civil administration.”24 The organizational antecedent for the Young Turks was the Ottoman Union, a secret group formed in 1889 by medical students in Istanbul, which operated underground and worked to establish contacts with liberal-minded members of the sultan’s regime as well as oppositional figures abroad, particularly in Western Europe. Ahmed Riza was the main leader in charge of the organization that was to develop into the CUP.25 Riza was based in Paris—many of the Young Turk movement’s leaders resided abroad—and led calls for constitutionalist government. He also decried foreign interference in Turkey’s internal affairs.26 Additionally, dissatisfied military officers were an important component of the Young Turks and the CUP. One scholar has characterized the entire transition to constitutionalism as “overwhelmingly military in character” and the revolution as “the corroboration of the ideas and activities of a handful of idealists who leaned upon the military for its prompt and smooth execution.”27
The Young Turk movement had been the subject of persecution from the sultan’s regime throughout the 1870s and 1880s but its organizational strength and activism grew in the 1890s to the point where it was a latent revolutionary threat to the regime.28 The elements behind the Young Turks even attempted a coup in August 1896 but were thwarted at the last moment, throwing their entire secret organizational structure into chaos and forcing a temporary retreat.29 The Young Turks finally staged their revolution in 1908, with July 24 signifying the end of autocratic rule and the beginning of the era of the Second Constitution.30 Ideologically, what united the movement was their common goal of a comprehensive modernization program and a fervent belief in Ottoman nationalism and identity, building on ideas first carried forward by the Young Ottomans.31 Their principal aim was to restore the constitution and depose the sultan’s government, which was too theocratic and regressive for their modernist world view.32
Even before their revolution, the Young Turks had foreshadowed a spirit of cooperation that was to mark their relationship with Armenian nationalists in 1908. Despite differences of opinion, representatives from nationalist parties such as the Hanchaks, including Stepan Sapah-Gulian, M. Boyadjian, and Arpiar Arpiarian, met with Young Turk leaders Nazim and Behaeddin Shakir. As Kirakossian writes, the two sides found a mutually beneficial framework: the Young Turks “agreed with the idea of establishing autonomous Armenia: she was not to be separated from Turkey but could have a European governor. . . . Ahmed Riza and others expressed readiness to meet Armenian requirements on the condition that Huntchaks assist in resolving general state problems.”33 Consistent with these expectations, when they finally rose to power, the Young Turks dealt with the Armenian community peacefully. Their strategy was rooted in both a reasonably secure regional environment and, more importantly, a belief that Armenians were an important component of Ottoman national identity.
The Young Turks assumed power with the wholehearted support of the two main Armenian revolutionary parties, the Hanchaks and the Dash-naks.34 In terms of their goals, the Hanchak Party was more radical than the Dashnaks, who unlike the former group, did not advocate for full-blown independence, but rather reform within the empire.35 Though there was much to unite the elements that made up the nascent state, there was one important division, which was to matter a great deal a few years down the road. Specifically, how would the state be organized administratively? Ahmed Riza called for greater centralization, while the decentralist group, which was led by Prince Sabahaddin, the sultan’s nephew, called for political and economic liberalization along the Anglo-Saxon model.36 The Armenian community, naturally, supported the Sabahaddin camp.37
At the time, however, Armenian nationalists and the Young Turks put their differences aside. It was not just a common foe that united them—though it remains trivially true that neither had any love lost for the sultan. Rather, the promise of a constitution and a more modern Ottoman Empire held appeal for each set of ideologues, the Armenian nationalists as well as the Ottoman state builders. This was why “Armenians took great satisfaction in the victory of the army and its CUP commanders. . . . The downfall of the sultan and the restoration of the constitution of 1876 was everything and more that they and their parties such as the Dashnaks had hoped for.”38
In the aftermath of the July Revolution, the CUP reached out to all non-Turkish communities, including the Armenians, Greeks, and Macedonians, to institutionalize cooperation on the question of candidates for the upcoming elections, bringing them into the CUP fold.39 From the perspective of the CUP, it was imperative, right from the beginning, to portray a friendly and tolerant image toward the Christian communities within the empire and to do away with internal divisions. Their message was clear: the aim was a constitutional regime, and all communities organized against the sultan’s regime were not just welcome but necessary.40 To that end, the Young Turk regime’s initial months were marked by greater liberalization in the entire state, including lifting censorship of the press, disbanding the sultan’s internal intelligence network, amnesty for political prisoners, and the dismissal of corrupt government and palace officials.41 Citizens of “all denominations marched in the streets under banners bearing the slogan ‘Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité’ in various languages, and welcomed the age of freedom and democracy.”42
Aside from this general trend of liberalization, the Young Turks made several substantial concessions to the Armenian community. Armenians contested seats in parliament, as full Ottoman citizens of the state, rather than as part of a separate millet, or nation. The Armenian national assembly was convened after being banned under the sultan. Schools and libraries were opened, and newspapers were allowed to circulate. Kurdish raids and violence were scaled down. Exiled notables, such as the deposed patriarch of Constantinople, Madteos III Izmiriliyan and the writer Grigor Zohrap, were welcomed back home. Enver Pasha, Talaat, and other Young Turk leaders went to Armenian churches, schools, and graveyards, where they paid respects to fallen Armenians who had died in the antisultan struggle, and made powerful speeches pointing to cooperation between Turks and Armenians. Enver told “children that the old days of Moslem-Christian strife had passed forever and that the two peoples were now to live together as brothers and sisters.” The changes that took place were slow moving, but they were substantive, and recognized as such—even by revolutionary Armenian parties.43 The Hanchaks went so far as to claim that the Ottoman parliament was a “genuine spokesman of the yearnings and will of the subjugated element, staunch supporters of its human rights and the champion of the fatherland’s freedom.”44 Sapah-Gulian, one of their leaders, wrote that “when the constitution was proclaimed, the majority of Armenians and myself among them, became Ittihadists. Our common belief was that the party that proclaims the constitution is heart and soul for the progress and development of the entire country and all her people.”45 Parties such as the Dashnaks would participate fully in Ottoman politics, cooperating with the CUP, playing an active role in the first parliamentary elections, and mobilizing Armenian support in favor of the constitution.46 As Suny summarizes, “The 1908 revolution proclaimed a new era for the empire, a progressive step into a European-style modernity based on constitutionalism, equality, fraternity, and personal freedom,” and therefore “Ottoman Armenians and other minorities joyfully greeted the restoration of the liberal Constitution, hopeful that the new government would provide a political mechanism for peaceful development within the framework of a representative parliamentary system.”47
CUP’s rhetoric and actions spoke to the accommodationist stance they held toward the Armenian community in the early days of their regime. To use my theoretical framework, the state used “negotiations and concessions” when dealing with Armenian demands for autonomy. This strategy was undergirded by confidence in their future security; Young Turk leaders were not preoccupied with foreign relations but sharply focused on internal reform. They could maintain such a focus first because they had a base optimism about the future of the Ottoman Empire. Specifically, in 1908 “the Young Turks believed in the possibility of their empire’s becoming a full member of European international society, convinced that it could represent the harmony of Eastern and Western civilization,” and went about cultivating diplomatic contacts in various European capitals, seeking to cement friendships with major powers such as Britain, France, and Germany.48
More important than this optimism about their regional environment, the Young Turks’ conceptualization of Ottoman identity was consistent with, and welcoming of, the presence of Armenians, and called for their greater political participation. The Armenian and central leaderships shared ideological goals, and Armenian demands for autonomy were not seen as unreasonable or problematic. The basic belief upholding their reforms was that if the Ottoman Empire could unite its various nationalities from within, its relations with Europe and the world would, in essence, take care of itself. For the Young Turks, unlike previous Ottoman regimes, Armenian identity was not “opposed” to that of the central state, but “indifferent.”
Ottoman nationalism, particularly in the early period of the Young Turk regime, implied the privileging of Ottoman identity over and above communities’ parochial identities. As Kayali notes, “In the euphoria of July 1908 the Unionists believed that the non-Muslims would be won over to the CUP’s Ottomanist platform in the new parliamentary regime. They hoped that religious and ethnic differences would be superseded by a broader Ottoman identity.”49 In other words, Ottoman concessions to Christian communities generally and the Armenians specifically grew out of a belief that all Ottoman citizens owed their allegiance to the state, and as such, their primary identity should be tied to it. The antecedent arrangement of separate millets, or nations, starkly recognized, and contributed to, the ethnic differences between different groups of Ottoman subjects,50 distinctions which the Young Turks aimed to extinguish. This shift in world-view mirrors the so-called soup versus salad debate on immigration in contemporary politics, where some advocates argue that all communities must subjugate themselves to a larger identity, as ingredients mix in a melting pot of soup, while others argue for the maintenance of (respectful) boundaries between different ethnic or religious groups, akin to vegetables in a salad bowl, such that each maintains their unique character in a larger ensemble.51
The Young Turks initially opted for a soup model. As Enver Pasha memorably claimed, “We are all Ottomans.” The general philosophy they espoused was one of unity “without distinctions of race” and the “peace and safety of the common homeland” alongside the abandonment of “particular purposes.” The state would be organized along the “secular and universalist principle of the equality of all subjects, who all owed equal loyalty to the empire.”52 As the CUP wrote to one Bulgarian politician, “This country belongs neither to the Turk, nor to the Bulgarian or Arab. It is the asset and domain of every individual carrying the name Ottoman. . . . Those who think the opposite of this, namely those who try to sever the country into parts and nations, even if they are Turks, are our adversaries, our enemies.”53
This fervent belief in Ottomanism is referred to by detractors of the regime as “fascist,” but in reality, the Young Turks were simply behaving as other European powers, where the creation, imposition, and sustenance of national and uniform identities became state projects.54 Nationalism, as it existed in contemporary Europe, swept into the Ottoman state around the middle of the nineteenth century, and came hand in hand with a more general belief in transporting the dominant ideas about politics at the time, from reforms aimed at strengthening the bureaucratic nature of the state, to the liberalism of Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Smith.55 It was the very lateness of this arrival of nationalism that forced on the Young Turks such decisions about the “official” state identity.56
Terms such as centralism and decentralization, therefore, should be treated with caution, as they are often taken to mean things that they do not. For instance, it would be easy to fall into the analytical trap of conflating “decentralization” with positive reforms toward the Armenian community. In fact, centralist ideas lay behind the concessions: the notion that all citizens were Ottomans first and foremost meant that the CUP was eager to ensure equality in treatment. For the Young Turks, Armenian nationalism was not opposed to Ottoman identity, it was to be seamlessly subsumed under it.
The Young Turks’ view of their national identity, which had a welcome place for the Ottoman Armenian community, when combined with the relatively relaxed external environment the state faced in 1908, opened the possibility of significant concessions. Soon, however, both the Ottoman Empire’s regional security, as well as its conception of Armenian nationalism, would undergo drastic changes—with severely deleterious consequences for Armenians.
Radicalized Identity, Deteriorating Neighborhood
The spirit of bonhomie and mutual cooperation between the Young Turks and the Armenian community lasted less than a year. The 1909 Adana massacre, where roughly twenty thousand to thirty thousand Armenians died following a temporary countercoup by the sultan, and the general slow pace of reform notwithstanding promises to the contrary, put paid to Armenian hopes. For their part, the Young Turks’ view of the Armenian community would also change drastically over the next half-decade, with two episodes particularly responsible.
First, the Ottomans’ defeats in the Balkan wars of 1912 would irrevocably change both the physical and ideological nature of the state. Losing its European and Christian territories meant that the Ottoman Empire pursued an increasingly Turkified nationalism, as a result of which Armenian identity assumed a much more sinister and threatening shape. These developments caused the shift in Ottoman perceptions of Armenian identity from “indifferent” to “opposed.” Second, the 1914 Mandelstam Plan, named after a Russian diplomatic official, which called for Armenians’ autonomy being guaranteed by foreign powers, mainly Russia, cemented in the leadership’s collective mind that Armenian nationalists were a fifth column not to be trusted. Together, these developments ensured that the Ottoman leadership began to see Armenian nationalism as a significant security threat, one whose dangers escalated drastically once World War I broke out and Russian support for Armenians rose to “high” levels.
THE BALKAN WARS’ TERRITORIAL AND IDEOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES
The first major episode that shifted Young Turk perceptions of Ottoman Armenians was the Balkan wars. In October 1912, Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, and Bulgaria declared war on the Ottoman state. “Out-powered, demoralized, unprepared, and poorly equipped, the Ottoman army fought fourteen battles and lost all but one of them.”57 Within a few years, due to war losses and successful separatist movements, the Ottomans lost about 40 percent of its landmass and about 25 percent of its population. The first domino to fall was Bulgaria, which declared its independence, followed by Austria-Hungary’s annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Having fought a war against Italy in 1911, due to which the Ottomans lost Libya, the Balkan wars in 1912 ensured that Turkey was essentially no longer in Europe.58
What proved pivotal was not just the extent of territorial loss, but also its nature. Having lost almost all its European and Christian territories, the multinational and multiethnic character of the state lay in tatters, moving the center of gravity of the Ottoman Empire east, toward Anatolia. The Balkan provinces had been the “heart of the Empire, its provinces being by far the most advanced and the most productive. They had always provided much of the Empire’s wealth and had long been the recruiting ground for the army and the bureaucracy.”59 This was no longer the case. The loss of European territories precipitated a crisis for the Ottoman state; one scholar claims that “it is no exaggeration to state that the effect of the Balkan wars on Ottoman society was nothing short of apocalyptic.”60 There were a number of reasons for this.
First, and most important, the territorial losses and European opportunism narrowed the Young Turks relatively pluralistic Ottomanist ideology to one espousing Turkish identity and nationalism.61 After all, simple demographics meant that with the exit of the Albanians, Greeks, and Slavs, the Turks were numerically dominant in a way that they were not before 1908. Moreover, the very fact of territorial losses “strengthened the hands of centralizers and of Turkish nationalists/Islamicists against liberals and Christians—a stronger, more loyal state was needed.”62 As a consequence, the state saw a transition, from the “seemingly liberal, egalitarian Young Turks into extreme chauvinists, bent on creating a new order.”63 One exemplar of this trend was Ziya Gökalp, one of the key intellectual and ideological figures behind the new Young Turk movement, who believed that state strength comes from homogeneity. A nation, he wrote, “must be a society consisting of people who speak the same language, have had the same education and are united in their religious and aesthetic ideals—in short those who have a common culture and religion.”64
This paradigmatic shift in the regime’s conception of the state’s identity would have significantly adverse consequence for the Armenian community down the road. Armenians were now perceived as directly opposed to the Ottoman national core, after previously being seen as unthreatening to, and being subsumed under, it. As Bloxham notes, what eventually drove the Armenian genocide was the “the impulse ‘to streamline, make homogenous, organize people to be uniform in some sense. . . . CUP nationalism was . . . shaped by, and in reaction to, the ethno-nationalist movements in the Balkans.”65 Melson concurs, noting that “by 1912, certainly by 1915, the Young Turks were not particularly benign or dedicated to pluralism. They had become xenophobic integral nationalists for whom the identity and situation of the Armenians were sufficient proof of their treachery and potential threat to the continuity of the empire.”66 War losses generated a significant shift in the Young Turks’ outlook on questions of identity.
Second, the Balkan losses increased the salience of any seditious activity in Anatolia, which now constituted the Turkish heartland.67 As Abdullah Jevdet, a CUP leader, said: “Anatolia is the well spring of every fiber of our life. It is our heart, head, and the air we breathe.”68 The Young Turks considered disloyalty from its secessionist citizens as the primary cause of military defeat. The positive reforms they had instituted had, in a sense, sown the seeds of the state being scythed up.
More than the failure of the Ottoman army to mobilize and defend the empire, many observers saw treason at the heart of this tragic defeat. Local Christian civilians and armed bands in Macedonia had aided the onslaught of the Balkan States. The eviction of hundreds of thousands of Ottoman Muslims from Macedonia and Kosova entailed the forfeiture of countless homes and hectares of land to the Christian victors. Ottoman Christian subjects still under Istanbul’s rule were not immune to blame . . . the complicity of both Christian and Muslim Albanians in establishing an independent Albanian state in November 1912 confirmed to many in the government the duplicity and seditiousness of their former countrymen.69
Finally, the losses in the Balkan wars led to the predominance of external security concerns for the CUP, which “weighed heavily on the minds of the Young Turks immediately after the fighting ended.”70 No longer was the neighborhood deemed safe enough to risk policies that could result in border changes. The losses in the Balkan wars created a “new sense of crisis” for the state and its Committee of Union and Progress leadership.71 As Üngör argues, the issues of external security, a more fervent Turkish nationalism, and ethnic separatist mobilization were inextricably bound up with one another:
Most of all, the Young Turks’ perception that the catastrophe of the Balkans should never be allowed to happen to the remaining territories of the Ottoman Empire, especially the eastern provinces, would give birth to unprecedented forms of population politics and social engineering. One major outcome of these processes was a deep fear, or perhaps a complex, of loss. The fear of losing territory was a persistent phobia of both late Ottoman and Turkish political culture.72
Crucially, this increase in levels of fear the regime faced was directly due to the behavior of outside powers. As the U.S. ambassador during the war noted in his memoirs, “Of all the new kingdoms which had been carved out of the sultan’s dominions, Serbia . . . is the only one that has won her own independence. Russia, France, and Great Britain have set free all” the other Christian peoples in the Ottoman Empire.73 The realization of external vulnerability led the triumvirate of Enver, Talaat, and Jamal to make military restoration a serious priority on reasserting strong control of the Ottoman state in 1913. They wished to modernize the military corps, increase their spending on defense, acquire better equipment, and build modern naval ships. They also recruited German officers, thought to be the best officer corps in Europe, for army training purposes, as well as the British and French for the navy and reorganizing the gendarmerie respectively. The Russians, owing to the transparency of their designs on Ottoman territory, were not considered.74
Turkey’s territorial losses in the Balkan wars were significant from the point of view of the Armenian nationalists too, serving as valuable learning experiences. They thought great powers might help resolve their national question just as had been the case with other Christian peoples under the Ottomans.75 An article in a Russian newspaper argued that “all the Turkish Armenians regardless of their membership of a party . . . see Russia as their sole defender and savior and are envious of the peaceful life of the Russian Armenians.”76
In sum, the losses in the Balkan wars made the Young Turks more wary of external security concerns, more suspicious of any secessionist activity in its homeland, and more narrowly nationalistic in its outlook. Territorial losses changed how the ruling regime saw the state as well as how it saw the Armenian community: identity relations shifted from “indifferent” to “opposed.” Moreover, all these changes took place in an environment of internal upheaval for the CUP.77 Within this context of geopolitical weakness—a shrinking state facing ethno-nationalism from within and, from without, rapacious European powers with whom it suffered an imbalance of economic and military power—the Armenians and Russians pushed for a reform plan.78 The Mandelstam Plan hammered the nail in the coffin of Ottoman-Armenian relations.
THE MANDELSTAM PLAN
By the time the Balkan wars were over, the Armenians had essentially given up on eliciting concessions from the Turks without external intervention, their hopes from the 1908 revolution dashed.79 The obvious patron was Russia, whose reasons for supporting Armenian reforms were strategic. Unlike the 1890s, when they expressed greater trepidation at the prospect of Armenian independence or autonomy owing to a fear of nationalistic conflagration, Russia was more firmly behind this round.80 Previously, Russia was fearful that Armenian uprisings in the Ottoman Empire would spread to Armenian territories in Russia, a problem that it could do without. By the early 1910s, however, Russia’s strategic calculus had reversed. With Western powers, including Germany and Britain, taking an increasing interest in the region’s division of spoils, Russia became more assertive in its traditional preference for the strategic benefits of the territories in question. This was especially because Russia’s main rival in Europe, Germany, was deepening its footprint in the region, with schemes for railways in Persia and greater military cooperation with the Ottomans.81 Russia also had domestic political reasons to push for reform. Russia still faced its own restive Armenian community despite some minor efforts in placating it. Russia feared that Ottoman Armenians would use the example of other beleaguered nationalities under the rule of the Ottomans, rise to independence, and attempt to include Russian Armenians in an independent state.82 To dampen their rebellious spirit, Russia wished to advance the cause of their Armenian “brothers” across the border, so as to show that they had the community’s best interests at heart.
Russia therefore took the lead in designing and proposing a plan, which originated in the Armenian National Assembly, for reform aimed at Ottoman Armenians. The reform plan, named the Mandelstam Plan after the chief dragoman of the Russian embassy, was seen as a way to extend Russian influence in the region. In a secret notice sent by the Russian vice consul at Van to Russian ambassador Giers, in Constantinople, the need to take the initiative was made clear: “We must not allow Britain to oversee the realization of reforms in Kurdistan and Turkish Armenia which lie in the sphere of our political influence. A Russian protectorate for Turkish Armenians is a must; this gives the possibility for the Russian government to have a permanent influence in Turkey. This is one way to penetrate by peaceful means.”83
The Mandelstam Plan was signed between Russia and the Ottoman Empire in February 1914 after almost a year of deliberations between the two principals as well as Britain, Germany, and France. The negotiations were testy because of the stakes involved, with each power keenly aware of its interests in the region. Russia wanted to expand its influence and placate its Armenian minority; Turkey wanted to minimize foreign involvement on its territory above all else; Germany sought to gain a foothold in the region; and Britain wanted to ensure that neither Russia nor Germany gained too much.84 The plan that was finally agreed on entailed the creation of two Armenian “zones”—one in the six eastern Armenian vilayets and one consisting of Trebizond on the Black Sea—to be administered by two neutral European inspectors at the Porte. The foreign inspectors, nominated by European powers in conjunction with the Ottoman state for a term of five years, were to ensure the execution of liberalization reforms toward the Ottoman Armenian community.85 The administrators would have the right “to appoint and dismiss all officials and provisional judges” as well as “the command of the gendarmerie and the disposal of the military forces for the maintenance of order.” They would govern in consort with a “consultative council,” which would include European advisers. Armed elements of the state such as the police and gendarmerie were to be drawn from the local population, half of which were mandated to be Christians. Official Kurdish militias were to be disbanded. Both Christian and Muslim communities were granted elected assemblies for which they could nominate representatives.86
Germany, Britain, and France looked on this plan with considerable trepidation, viewing it as the first step toward the dismemberment of the Ottoman state and a violation of its sovereignty.87 During the negotiations, German ambassador Wangenheim reported in a cable that “Russia desires an autonomous Armenia . . . [but] autonomy is to be thought of as one step on the path that ultimately leads to Istanbul.”88 Wangenheim claimed elsewhere that “the Armenian question is the key that will open the Straits for Russia,” giving a clear indication of the prevailing wisdom in Germany on affairs in Turkey.89 The plan had also called for a “regional military service” that would ensure order and stability in those regions most susceptible to uprisings, but this element was shot down by the other European powers, who saw it as a step too far.90 The accord was signed by Turkish and Russian representatives in February 1914.91
The Ottoman leadership bristled under the external involvement in their internal affairs. In their collective mind, the Armenians were to blame for internationalizing a domestic issue, and thus causing embarrassment to the state.92 In addition, it greatly angered them that the reform question was brought up by the Armenians at a time of great national loss for the Ottomans, who had lost considerable swathes of territory in the Balkan wars of 1912. As one minister said, the defeats in the Balkan wars had “turned the heads of Armenian politicians,” who saw the confirmation of Turkey’s external weakness as an opportunity to press for the redress of grievances at home.93 Moreover, the constant interference from abroad was difficult to accept for a regime that so prized its national, independent, and modern identity.
That it was the Turks’ historical and traditional enemy, Russia, which was behind the chipping away of Ottoman territory and prestige only exacerbated matters.94 Indeed, the CUP government saw the Mandelstam measures as Russian preparation for annexation of the six Armenian provinces and increased control of the areas bordering Persia. As an editorial in the regime-affiliated newspaper Tanin put it, “Europe’s intervention and Europe’s desire to control our internal affairs is a warning to us to ponder the fate not only of Rumelia [Balkans], but also eastern Turkey, for it will be impossible to spare eastern Turkey the fate awaiting Rumelia.”95 Simple geography played a key role; “the fact that the Christian communities who revolted lived in the border regions of the Empire and that Empire progressively lost territories from the border regions were primary factors determining the policies” of the regime.96 Armenian allegiance with Turkey’s “national enemy” in humiliating the Ottomans ensured that the cognitive conflation between its external enemy and restive minority was all but complete.97 This conflation would have devastating consequences once the war began, and Russian support for Armenians shot up to “high” levels. Recent research in political science backs this assessment: rather than a long-standing ideological conviction on the part of Ottoman leaders, it was “Russian, and later French, military and diplomatic support of the Armenians—rather than merely the cultural or religious difference between Armenians and Turks per se—that transformed the perception of this group in the eyes Ottoman ruling elites and set the stage” for the genocide.98
Overall, then, the “initial rapprochement between the CUP and Armenian nationalists during the Revolution of 1908 in the name of ‘Brotherhood and Unity’” gave way to widespread suspicions that the Armenians were poised for a mass uprising, buoyed by the Ottomans’ losses of its European provinces as well as increased contact between Russian forces and Armenian dissidents.99 This fear, often exaggerated but still deeply held, led to drastic and genocidal measures when the level of external threat ramped up with the Ottoman entry, and disastrous losses, in World War I.
The Escalation to Genocide
By the end of 1914, the territorial and ideological changes in the Ottoman state, alongside the scarcely concealed alliance between Armenian nationalists and Russia, increased the baseline level of threat the center perceived from the Armenians. Peaceful reforms were now anathema, the prospect of an Armenian state or anything approximating it deemed impermissible.100 Gone were the days when the Young Turks considered Armenians a valuable and integral part of the tapestry of the revolutionary state. Now, Armenian identity was deemed directly opposed to the Ottomans’ concept of nationhood. Furthermore, the Young Turks’ optimism about their external environment had given way to the cold realization of their empire’s vulnerability.
With the outbreak of the Great War, which heightened considerably the baseline threat the Armenians posed to the Ottoman Empire, the idea of making concessions that could lead to an Armenian state was out of the question. The security consequences of such an eventuality were simply too grim, as Enver Pasha noted:
In my opinion this is a very big mistake. If today in the Caucasus a small Armenia possessing a population of five to six hundred thousand and sufficient territory is formed, in the future this government, together with the Armenians that will come mainly from America and from elsewhere, will have a population of millions. And in the east we will have another Bulgaria and it will be a worse enemy than Russia because all the Armenians’ interests and ambitions are in our country. Consequently, in order to remove this danger, the formation of even the smallest Armenian government must be prevented.101
The Turks were wary of the prospect of an Armenian state not just because Armenians themselves could cause them great harm in the future, but also because they could partner with others to the same end. For instance, there were concerns expressed that the British and others would use Caucasian Armenia as a base from which to drive out the Turks from eastern Anatolia.102 Even their decision-making at the end of the war betrayed Ottoman leaders’ central preoccupation with the security implications of an Armenian state, when in a bizarre diplomatic volte-face, they supported its creation, on one condition: that ethnic Georgians and Azeris join them. This was because at that point, it was clear an Armenian state would come into existence; the only question was its composition. Behind the Ottomans’ seemingly curious policy was a transparent aim, to weaken the Russian state from within. More to the point, where the Armenian state was essentially a fait accompli, the Ottoman diplomatic corps attempted to limit the size of the Armenian army, a signal that it was concerned with the security ramifications of Armenian independence.103
Before an Armenian state became a cartographic fact, however, the Ottoman Empire used a strategy of “collective repression” in 1914–15 to forestall its creation. This was because Armenian nationalists were supported at “high” levels by Russia during World War I. In other words, Ottoman leaders perceived that cooperation between Russia and the Armenians extended to them fighting side by side. Armenians’ collusion with Russia meant that when the war began, they were targeted for extermination and deportation by the Ottoman authorities. During the spring and summer of 1915, both materialist and emotional implications of “high” third-party support were operative. The threat of Armenian collaboration and rebellion, especially given the community’s location, ensured a tougher fight for the Ottomans against the Russians. Additionally, “the collective stereotypes of Armenians as grasping and mercenary, subversive and disloyal, turned them into an alien and unsympathetic category that then had to be eliminated.”104 Armenians had been the subject of massacres and violence before, most notably under the regime of the sultan,105 but the level, intensity, and length of time that they were made victims of genocidal policy was something unprecedented. At the center of it all was the Armenian-Russian partnership, and what it meant for Ottoman security. Below, I develop this argument in four steps.
First, the circumstances under which the genocide unfolded, particularly relating to Russian-Armenian collaboration, need to be closely examined. Second, a look at Ottoman leaders’ statements and quotes captures their decision-making processes at the time. Third, the timing of deportations is indicative of the importance of the external peril facing the Empire. Fourth, the location of the major Armenian population centers, on the path of oncoming Russian or British thrusts, alarmed the Ottomans because it exposed their vulnerable supply lines and threatened collaborationist attacks. Taken together, these items constitute strong evidence for the argument that the Armenian genocide was directly related to the Ottomans’ external security concerns.
Before we proceed, it is important to note two points. First, the question of whether the Armenian genocide was “preplanned” is contested in the historical literature. There are essentially two views. One claims that the genocide was planned and prepared for before the war broke out, and that the Ottoman authorities waited until the war only to use it as an excuse to carry out a long-held preference for the extermination of the Armenian nation, perhaps to create “space” for a Pan-Turkic empire. This is a view most often, but not exclusively,106 expressed by scholars sympathetic to Armenia.107 The other side argues that though the Armenians were subject to much violence and coercion before World War I, the policy of genocide and deportation arose only as direct responses to conditions of international war. I side with the latter group, and in the following pages show that this side has greater claims to historical accuracy.
The second note to make is to reiterate that an explanation for genocide is in no way commensurate with its justification. My purpose in this chapter is to understand the factors that led to the Ottoman genocide of Armenians, but it is certainly not to suggest that such strategic decisions are moral or excusable under any circumstances. There simply can be no justification for the slaughter of a million noncombatants. Even if one grants the Ottoman state the concession that there existed security exigencies concerning the Russian-Armenian alliance, the reaction to those exigencies was wildly disproportionate. As one historian notes, the allegations of disloyalty and treason aimed at the Ottoman Armenian community were “wholly true in as far as Armenian sentiment went, only partly true in terms of overt acts, and totally insufficient as a justification for what was done.”108 Perhaps more important, the Ottomans’ perilous security position in 1914–15, both externally and internally, was in large part its own doing: it joined the war of its own volition to fulfill revisionist aims despite its military and economic weakness relative to European powers, and through decades of vehemently resisting reforms that would improve the lot of its Armenian community, drove it into the arms of its longtime enemy, Russia. Cruelly, the most vulnerable actor in the Russia-Ottoman-Armenia triad was the one that bore the brunt of great power machinations.
WAR, COLLABORATION, AND GENOCIDE
Initially, the Ottoman Empire was neutral in the war, but the desire to oppose Russia was too great, given past hostilities. On October 20, 1914, Enver Pasha, as the minister of the navy, convinced Jamal Pasha to bombard Russian ports and ships with German ships. As a consequence, Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire on November 2, 1914. The British and French followed suit on November 5.109 It would be the tenth time that the Ottomans and Russia were at war in two centuries, but this time, the former’s traditional allies, Britain and France, were on the other side. Czar Nicholas II conveyed Russian war aims to the French ambassador: to expel the Turks from Europe, to bring Constantinople under a neutral administration, and to annex Armenia.110
Meanwhile, the Ottoman’s central concern in the war was to reclaim lost territories and, more broadly, to reclaim its status as a great power—to fight off British and French control of its fiscal policy and European violation of its sovereignty. The Armenian reform agreement signed just the previous year was particular cause for angst, and overturning it, or ignoring it altogether, was one of the driving decisions to enter the war.111 Barely a month after the Ottomans’ entry into the war, the two European inspectors required by the Mandelstam Plan, L. C. Westenenk from the Netherlands and Nicolai Hoff from Norway, were sent home, and the plan as a whole was torn up, by way of an imperial rescript.112
Once the war began, the Armenian community was dealt with on the basis of security: would it help provide it, or prove to hinder it? Armenian representatives from all the vilayets, but particularly in the Caucasus, rejected the Young Turks’ suggestions on cooperating during the war.113 Their refusal cemented the belief that Armenian nationalism was a proxy of European great powers and morphed into a stereotype of Armenians as collaborators. Upon the war’s commencement, Ottoman leaders received reports from the provinces about Armenian collaboration with advancing Russian forces. One telegram from the Interior Ministry to the eastern provinces in August 1914 referenced “completely reliable reports to the effect that the Russians have, through the assistance of the Armenians in the Caucasus, incited the Armenians among us . . . additionally, they have brought weapons and munitions with the intent of depositing them at certain places along the border.” Another cable to the eastern provinces evinced considerable concern with Armenian-Russian cooperation, requesting officials “investigate and report back soon . . . on how many Armenian families have as of now left for the Caucasus and whether or not there is such a revolutionary movement or sensibility as this is present among the Armenians living there or if it is limited.”114 In November 1914, the government “was already requesting lists of those of its subjects who had voluntarily gone to Russia, as well as members of their families.”115
The feelings of suspicion and the belief that the Armenians were fifth columnists were widely held. One cartoon that appeared in a satirical Turkish paper during the war summed up the dominant view in this regard, showing one Turk questioning another about where he gets his news. “I do not need war news,” the second Turk replied. “I can follow the course of the war by the expression on the faces of the Armenians I meet. When they are happy I know that the Allies are winning, when depressed I know the Germans had a victory.”116 Certainly the Ottoman authorities had reason to believe that they would face a two-pronged attack, from both within and without.117 Though Armenians had valiantly fought for the empire in its various wars in the past, the level of Armenian desertions to, and collaboration with, invading Russian forces was rising. Particularly in eastern Anatolia, the Ottomans had justifiable fears of an Armenian revolt being tied to external threats. Up to thirty thousand Armenians formed bands, and were armed and trained across the border in Russia, before returning when the war began.118 To cite an example of the eagerness with which the Russians and Armenians embraced each other, the czar traveled to the Caucasus to make plans for Russian-Armenian cooperation in preparation for the winter conflict between Russian and Turkish forces in the region. The president of the Armenian National Bureau in Tiflis said in response:
From all countries Armenians are hurrying to enter the ranks of the glorious Russian Army, with their blood to serve the victory of Russian arms. . . . Let the Russian flag wave freely over the Dardanelles and Bosporus. Let, with Your will, great Majesty, the peoples remaining under the Turkish yoke receive freedom. Let the Armenian people of Turkey who have suffered for the faith of Christ receive resurrection for a new free life under the protection of Russia.119
At the onset of the war, the czar also notably promised the Armenian catholicos Kevork V that “a most brilliant future awaits the Armenians” if they allied with the Russians against the Turks.120 In September, the czar told Armenians that “the eve of liberation from Turkey was nigh,” and Russian military plans included the formation of “armed Armenian bands under military command in the Caucasus at Olty, Sarikamish, Kagysman, and Igdyr, and, in Persia, bands at Choi and Dilman under the authority of the Russian military and the Choi consulate.”121 Within the specter of war, however, these promises of support from the Russian side and desertions from the Armenian side spelled disaster for the Armenians, since it completed the cognitive tying together of their cause with the Russians: perceptions of third-party support were locked at “high” levels.
It is important to note that Turkish accusations of desertions and Armenian soldiers passing over to Russian territory are corroborated by American, German, and Austrian sources, as well as prominent Armenian nationalists themselves, like Nubar. The historical record shows, among other instances, that the well-known Armenian partisan Andranik helped the Russian forces invading Saray, east of Van province, from Persian Choi, and that another group of Armenian volunteers joined the Russian forces in occupying Bayazid, in the north.122 In a cable from early February 1915, Ambassador Wangenheim conveyed to officials in Germany that “I constantly come up against an opinion among the Turks, which until now has not been refuted by the behavior of the Armenians, that if Turkey is defeated, the Armenian population would definitely join the winner’s side.”123
Young Turk leaders, then, “were convinced that all Armenians were potentially disloyal and likely to be pro-Russian.”124 Such Armenian-Russian collaboration was deeply concerning to Ottoman leaders—enough for Talaat, at the beginning of the war, to demand that Germany offer Russia parts of occupied Poland if it would translate into Russia’s withdrawal from any part of the Ottoman Armenian vilayets. He also asked that the Germans evacuate parts of Flanders as a quid pro quo for the British to leave Iraq.125 At the same time, the Ministry of War created the Secret Organization for the purpose of dealing with security threats throughout the empire. One of the first tasks that the Secret Organization concerned itself with—in addition to the Greek community in western Anatolia—was how to disentangle the Armenian community in eastern Anatolia from the territory in question, owing to its proximity to Russia.126 Prominent members of the Armenian political community and intellectuals were to be closely monitored.127 In addition, the Ministry of War, under Enver’s direction, also created a series of paramilitary youth groups, supplying them with arms and ammunition for the “defense of the fatherland.” Enver also ensured that the CUP maintained greater control of the military than previously by culling the old regime of officers—he fired eleven hundred in January 1914 alone—and promoting hundreds of loyalists to high-ranking positions.128
The killings of Armenians started in the late summer of 1914. In the border regions of the Caucasus and Persia, Armenian property was looted and plundered, and Armenian men were rounded up and killed, by militias and small bands of forces. At that point, the killings had not yet attained the massive scale they would later. Rather, the genocide proper began in the spring of 1915 as a series of massacres in sensitive border regions most vulnerable to external intervention.129 The killings then spread south and west from eastern Anatolia, where the largest share of the Armenian population lived. In all, more than 1 million Armenians died in the genocide, more than two-thirds of whom met their fate as a direct result of being deported.130 Most of the violence was carried out by paramilitary organizations and through secret orders.131
Balakian summarizes how the genocide unfolded:
Armenians were rounded up, arrested, and either shot outright or put on deportation marches. Most often the able-bodied men were arrested in groups and taken out of the town or city and shot en masse. The women, children, infirm, and elderly were given short notice that they could gather some possessions and would be deported with the other Armenians of their city or town to what they were told was the “interior.” Often they were told that they would be able to return when the war was over. . . .
A map of the Armenian genocide shows that deportations and massacre spanned the length and width of Turkey. In the west the major cities included Constantinople, Smyrna, Ankara, and Konia. Moving eastward, Yozgat, Kayseri, Sivas, Tokat, and Amasia were among the large cities of massacre and deportation. Along the Black Sea, Samsun, Ordu, Trbizond, and Rize were killing stations where Armenians were often taken out in boats and drowned. In the south, in historic Cilician Armenia, Adana, Hadjin, Zeitun, Marash, and Aintab were part of the massacre network. The traditional Armenian vilayets in the east—Sivas, Harput, Diyarbekir, Bitlis, Erzurum, Van—with hundreds of villages and dozens of cities, where the majority of the Armenian population of the empire lived on their historic land, were almost entirely depleted of their Armenian populations.132
The forced marches exacted such a high toll because they were through rough terrain in difficult weather, with no medical support or protection against marauders.133 First person testimony is sparse for obvious reasons, but some survivor’s tales have made it through the test of time. One memoir, for instance, describes a typical scene following a deportation order:
As I now recall that day, there is a trembling in my body. The human mind is unable to bear such heaviness. My pen cannot describe the horrors. Confusion! Chaos! Woe! Wailing! Weeping! The father kisses his wife and children and departed, sobbing, encrazed. The son kissed his mother, his old father, his small sisters and brothers, and departed. Those who went and those who remained sobbed. Many left with no preparation, with only the clothes on their backs, the shoes on their feet, lacking money, lacking food, some without even seeing their loved ones. Already thousands of men had gathered in the appointed place, and like madmen, others were joining them.134
THE MINDSET OF OTTOMAN LEADERS IN 1914–15
Why did the Ottoman Empire commit genocide against its Armenians? Ottoman leaders were obsessed with the prospect of territorial loss, and the potential of Armenians to aid in their state’s dismemberment by collaborating with Russia. The specific personalities behind the policies that led to genocide offer a clue as to its origins: by most accounts, Enver Pasha, the minister of war, and Talaat Pasha, the minister of interior, were behind the mass deportations, lending credence to the belief that the deportations were a security issue, rather than an ideological one.135 Unfortunately, it is difficult to ascertain the exact processes by which the triumvirate of Enver, Talaat, and Jamal made decisions because archival records within the Ottoman state were either lost or destroyed in a period of chaos.136 How ever, that these leaders consistently maintained both publicly and privately that their drastic measures against the Armenian population were primarily due to the wartime situation and the existential threat the state faced given Armenian-Russian collusion is instructive. Their particular emphasis on the threat posed by Armenians in their rear, as they faced the Russians in the Caucasus and the British in Palestine, suggests that the material effects of “high” third-party support were especially important. Alongside this material effect of Russian backing, Talaat’s and Enver’s statements also stress the emotional consequences of collusion that Armenians experienced: an angry and betrayed state.
Take, for instance, Talaat’s warning to an Armenian representative in a moment of candor: “We will do whatever Turkey’s interests demand, it is a matter of one’s fatherland. There is no place for personal attachments. Do not forget how you jumped at our throats and stirred up the problem of Armenian reforms in the days of our weakness.”137 Elsewhere Talaat stated that “it was deemed necessary, in order to avoid the possibility of our army being caught between two fires, to remove the Armenians from all scenes of the war and the neighborhood of the railways.”138 After the Armenian uprising at Van, timed to coincide with the Russian invasion, Enver revealingly told Ambassador Morgenthau in a private meeting that
the Armenians had a fair warning of what would happen to them in case they joined our enemies. Three months ago I sent for the Armenian Patriarch and I told him that if the Armenians attempted to start a revolution or to assist the Russians, I would be unable to prevent mischief from happening to them. My warning produced no effect and the Armenians started a revolution and helped the Russians. You know what happened at Van. They obtained control of the city, used bombs against government buildings, and killed a large number of Moslems. We knew that they were planning uprisings in other places. You must understand that we are fighting for our lives . . . and that we are sacrificing thousands of men. While we are engaged in a struggle such as this, we cannot permit people in our own country to attack us in the back. We have got to prevent this no matter what means we have to resort to. It is absolutely true that I am not opposed to the Armenians as a people. I have the greatest admiration for their intelligence and industry, and I should like nothing better than to see them become a real part of our nation. But if they ally themselves with our enemies, as they did in the Van district, they will have to be destroyed.139
As Enver said, treatment of secessionist minorities in war time obeyed different logics than during peace, when the external threat was not as significant: “During peace times we can use Platonic means to quiet Armenians and Greeks, but in time of war we cannot investigate and negotiate. We must act promptly and with determination.” On another occasion, he reiterated the importance of war and external security on their decision-making process: “Our situation is desperate, I admit it, and we are fighting as desperate men fight. We are not going to let the Armenians attack us in the rear.”140 In a cable to most of the Ottoman provinces, Talaat echoed this logic, writing that “the objective that the government expects to achieve by the expelling of the Armenians from the areas in which they live and their transportation to other appointed areas is to ensure that this community will no longer be able to undertake initiatives and actions against the government, and that they will be brought to a state in which they will be unable to pursue their national aspirations related to the advocating for a[n independent] government of Armenia.”141
Talaat stuck to similar themes in conversations with Morgenthau: “These people refused to disarm when we told them to. They opposed us at Van and at Zeitoun, and they helped the Russians. There is only one way in which we can defend ourselves against them in the future, and that is just to deport them.”142 He later drew a direct connection between the Armenian relationship with the Russians on the one hand, and the Turkish performance in the war: “They have openly encouraged our enemies. They have assisted the Russians in the Caucasus and our failure there is largely explained by their actions. We have therefore come to the irrevocable decision that we shall make them powerless before this war is ended.”143 After a private meeting with Talaat during the war, U.S. ambassador Morgenthau reported that “he [Talaat] explained his [Armenian] policy on the ground that the Armenians were in constant correspondence with the Russians.”144 Enver was similarly forthcoming with Morgenthau: “If the Armenians made any attack on the Turks or rendered any assistance to the Russians while the war was pending, [I] will be compelled to use extreme measures against them.”145 Those words proved to be prophetic.146
TIMING OF GENOCIDE: MOMENT OF NATIONAL PERIL
One could reasonably object to the above with the proposition that Enver and Talaat were employing justificatory rhetoric for decisions that had little to do with security. If their statements were mere window dressing, however, then how is one to explain that the timing of the genocide coincided with a security emergency for the Ottomans?
Indeed, it was only by the summer of 1915 that a clear and coherent policy of empirewide killings and massacres even developed. The deportations, the single leading cause of death of Armenians in World War I, began a full seven months after Turkey’s entry into the war.147 Generally speaking, the policy of genocide was instituted only in a period of national peril, between April and June 1915, when the Ottomans were on the back foot in the war. As one international relations scholar notes, “The radicalization [of Ottoman policy] seems to have occurred in large part in response to the Turks’ rapidly deteriorating military situation.”148 Part of the Turks’ worsening security was down to their own strategic myopia—Enver Pasha, for instance, chose the wintertime in 1914–15 to launch an attack on Russia’s Caucasus region. Despite some initial success, he lost more than seventy-five thousand out of ninety thousand men, mainly due to the weather. Moreover, the Russian general Yudenich foresaw Enver’s encirclement strategy, was prepared adequately, and dealt a crushing blow to Enver’s forces.149 It must be noted, however, that the Russians were aided in considerable part by six Armenian volunteer units, of eight to ten thousand men each, who were familiar with the terrain, and were useful as scouts, guides, and advance guards. After the Battle of Sarikamish, which effectively ended the Turkish fight in the Caucasus, the Armenian units received high praise from Russian military commanders and even the czar. The loss at Sarikamish, and the wider loss in the Caucasus generally, was pinned on Armenians by Enver—even if his own decision-making was largely to blame.150 Regardless of culpability for the loss, the bottom line was that “the disaster at Sarikamish left just some fifty-two thousand Ottoman soldiers spread over a six-hundred-kilometer front facing the much better equipped Russia’s Caucasus Army with roughly seventy-eight thousand effective combatants.”151 In addition, immediately after Enver’s failure in the Caucasus, the Ottoman army’s campaign in Persia failed. Enver’s brother in law, Jevdet Bey, was compelled to withdraw and retreat from Tabriz.152 The dev astating battlefield losses in January 1915 planted the first seeds of what was to come.153 As a result of the defeat, and in conjunction with earlier desertions, Armenian soldiers were disarmed and Armenian villages were massacred by retreating Turk forces,154 the first set of large-scale massacres against Armenians during the war.
More generally, the spring of 1915 was a time of considerable danger for the Ottoman state, since it faced invasion on three fronts: the British and French in the West, at the Dardanelles; the British in the South, in Iraq; and the Russians in the east.155 In February the Royal Navy launched the first attack on the Dardanelles. Britain and France had planned an amphibious assault, aimed at taking the Dardanelles on the way to Istanbul, establishing a “critical supply route to Russia.”156 Concomitantly, the allies were bombarding, and later landing, on the beaches north of Çanakkale. These allied movements “led the Unionists to believe that the end of the empire was certainly at hand.”157 Ottoman forces were also compelled to retreat from the Suez Canal in early February, while the British Indian Army attacked the Ottomans through central Iraq, occupying Basra in November. All the while, the weakness and lack of development insofar as the Ottoman economy and infrastructure was concerned only exacerbated the status quo, since it meant that provisions from the capital to the periphery declined both in quality and quantity.158
March 1915 was a turning point, with the Dardanelles attack in the foreground along with a Russian move toward Van. Concurrent with “the British coming up from the south, and the British and French landing at Gallipoli in April,” the government prepared to move the capital from Istanbul to the east and make a “last stand” in the Anatolian interior.159 As one scholar puts it, “The Ottoman Empire was being pinched in three directions at once. The Fourth Army in Syria and the Sixth in Mesopotamia were both in danger of being cut off owing to partisan attacks . . . in the worst position of all, however, was the Third Army facing the Russians, who were advancing against a beaten and battered enemy on both the northern (Erzurum) and southern front (Dilman-Van).”160 These developments “cast panic into the hearts and minds of the CUP leaders” because they reaffirmed their fears of a “nightmare scenario in which potential Armenian disloyalty would pave the way for an Allied incursion into Anatolia.” Consequently, the Special Organization—in charge of irregular paramilitary units—was reorganized and expanded to deal with the increasing threat.161 As Suny argues, Ottoman leaders were both fearful and angry: afraid of the future of their state and angry “at the perceived betrayal metamorphosed into hatred of those who by their nature were devious and treacherous.”162
Deportations were a result of this toxic mix of fear and anger. On April 8, there were “targeted” deportations from Zeytun and Maras, both sites of Armenian uprisings. On April 24–25, the night of the Allied landings at Gallipoli, Armenians in Constantinople were arrested and, more important, Talaat and Enver issued decrees ordering the reduction of Armenians to less than 10 percent of the population in frontier districts and frontline areas. On May 2, after the rebellion at Van, the entire Armenian population of Van was removed. Later, these relatively ad-hoc measures, gave way to “more systematic overtones.”163 First, the deportees from Zeytun, Maras, and Van were rerouted from the original destinations to Urfa and Aleppo, before it was decided to send them even further south, to the Syrian desert. Then, Talaat issued his famous decree of May 31, which called for the deportation of Armenians in the six eastern provinces away from frontline areas, to areas at least twenty-five kilometers away from rail lines. In June and July, Armenian uprisings behind Ottoman lines led to the deportation net being thrown wider still: it now included Samsun, Sivas, Trabzon, and the port cities on the Mediterranean, Mersin and Adana.164
The timing of the first deportation orders, and their ensuing escalation, lends strong support to the argument that external security considerations were a key driving force for the genocide. It was only when the Ottoman Empire was on the back foot in the war—after disastrous losses in the winter of 1914–15 and the prospect of being pinned between three fronts in March–April 1915—that Ottoman leaders began their policy of “collective repression” against their Armenian community. That the timing of this escalation so closely coincided with wartime fears of the end of the Ottoman Empire draws into sharp question the view that the Armenian genocide was unrelated to security concerns.
LOCATION OF DEPORTATIONS: SUPPLY LINES AND ALLIED INCURSIONS
Talaat stated that “if war is declared, Armenian soldiers will take shelter on the enemy side with their arms. If the Ottoman army advances, [they will] remain inactive, if the Ottoman army retreats, [they will] form armed bands and hinder transport and communication” (quoted in Bloxham 2003, 163). There is considerable evidence that the Armenians provided exactly such support, impeding the Ottoman war effort. The threat of Armenian collaboration was especially problematic because they were concentrated in locations that alternately posed a threat to Ottoman supply lines, or could serve as springboards for landings and incursions by the Russians, British, and/or French. As such, even the slightest suspicion of collusion was enough to radicalize Ottoman leaders during wartime—the stakes were simply too high, and the costs of being insufficiently concerned too weighty, to contemplate half measures.
The geographic logistics of the Ottoman war effort are crucial when understanding the roots of the genocide. Erickson sums up the Ottoman predicament:
The Ottomans were fighting the Russians on the Caucasian frontier, and the British in Mesopotamia and Palestine. The lines of communication supporting those Ottoman fronts ran directly through the rear areas of the Ottoman armies in eastern Anatolia that were heavily populated by Armenian communities and, by extension, by the heavily armed Armenian revolutionary committees. Importantly, none of the Ottoman armies on the fronts in Caucasia, Mesopotamia, or Palestine were self-sufficient in food, fodder, ammunition, or medical supplies and all were depending on the roads and railroads leading west to Constantinople and Thrace for those supplies. Moreover, none of these forces had much in the way of prepositioned supplies available and all required the continuous flow of war material. The Armenian revolutionary committees began to attack and cut these lines of communication in the spring of 1915.165
Rebellious Armenians threatened Ottoman prospects in war because of where the war was being fought and where the Armenians were concentrated: at the rear of the major fronts the Ottomans were fighting on. As Suny notes, “The Caucasian front was the longest front for the Ottomans and the most difficult to defend and supply. The Ottoman-Russian border stretched 280 miles, but the zone of fighting extended twice that distance, deep into Ottoman territory and Persia,” a “frontier region with porous borders.”166
Armenian regions posed special dangers to the empire’s rail system, the Ottomans’ “‘Achilles Heel’ because it served almost the entire logistics needs of the three Ottoman field armies in the Caucasian, Mesopotamian, and Palestinian theaters of operations (the Third, Sixth, and Fourth armies respectively).”167 The fact that Talaat’s deportation orders emphasized Armenians be resettled “at least twenty-five kilometers away from the Baghdad railway lines running to the frontier as well as away from other railway lines” is instructive: such a distance would be near impossible to traverse safely in one night’s darkness, suggesting that security was a key imperative for Talaat’s orders.168 The region of Dortyol, for instance, was a pressing concern both because it was located on the Mediterranean, and thus inviting to Allied incursions, and also because it was where the so-called “Berlin-Baghdad” railway split. Troubles in Dortyol occupied the attention of security bulletins and cables from Enver and Talaat in March and April in 1915, resulting in the deportation of Armenian communities from Dortyol and the nearby Alexandretta, Adana, and Bilan districts. In addition to the rail network, sizable Armenian populations were located on or close to the main road links from Sivas to Erzurum, which supplied the Ottoman Third Army in the Caucasus.169 The relative importance of these supply lines increased in the aftermath of Enver’s loss at Sarikamish, which moved the front to the lowland Urmia region. Urmia lay at the intersection of the Ottoman, Russian, and Persian empires, “ground zero in the Russo-Turkish espionage and propaganda wars over the loyalties” of Kurds, Armenians, and Assyrians.170 As such, Ottoman leaders’ deportation orders in the spring of 1915 could legitimately be seen as securing the “tactical rear of the Third and Fourth Armies” in the Caucasus and Mesopotamia/Palestine (see map 2).171
Aside from these general concerns about supply lines and railroads, Armenian uprisings in several prominent locations catalyzed Ottoman paranoia and fear, as the massacres in Van illustrate. Van was a crucial strategic location, important for its connection to Russian military plans, as well as its ability to rise up militarily based on it being armed and trained. It could be used by Russian forces launching into Mesopotamia and interior eastern Anatolia from Persia, or by the Turkish forces in the opposite direction.172 It was a significant military pivot, and its importance grew only after the defeat at Sarikamish. Specifically, as the center of gravity of the Ottoman-Russian war shifted south from the winter to the spring, the Ottoman defeat at Dilman in late April increased the significance of Van, which was now “directly in the path opened up by the Russian victory at Dilman.”173 Van had a dense Armenian population, and a significant Armenian Revolutionary Federation presence, one that had established prewar connections to the Russian consulate. Demographically, the Armenian population was greater than the Turkish and Kurdish population combined, further increasing its importance.174
In the spring of 1915, the CUP correctly anticipated a massive Allied offensive: while Russia was preparing to launch aggressively in the Caucasus, the British and French were expected to stage landings at Gallipoli on April 25. Turkish commanders had often spoken about the threat of insurrection in Van, and when news spread of Armenian collaboration with Russian forces, Ottoman forces turned their attention to the region. As preemptive measures, the authorities carried out mass arrests in the Armenian parts of Van on April 24, similar to the mass arrests carried out in Trebizond on April 19, which immediately preceded the Russian attack on the port of Kerasond/Giresun on April 20.175 These arrests represented the first step in the escalation in Van. Along with the arrests, the government demanded that the city hand over four thousand Armenian men for the army’s labor battalions. Van’s leaders surmised that those men would ultimately be killed, since that was the usual fate of Armenians in labor battalions all over the empire, and asked that the men instead be used for combat duty, but their request was refused. The Armenians then counteroffered with a proposal of handing over four hundred men, with the justification that the rest were exempt due to payment of a tax, but Jevdet Bey, now the governor of Van province, refused to budge.176 Concomitant with the mass arrests, the Armenian community in Van staged an uprising. On April 20, 1915, four thousand Armenian fighters fired at police stations, set alight Muslim houses, and set up a barricade behind which they stayed on the defensive. An additional fifteen thousand Armenian refugees soon joined the rebellion. Turkish forces suffered huge losses in trying to stamp out the rebellion and inflicted mass casualties of their own. The fighting went on for a month.177
With their ammunition running low, the Armenians were saved by the advancing Russian army, which forced the retreat of the Turkish units. The Russians’ advance itself was aided in considerable part by both Russian and Ottoman Armenians. Armenian units were especially useful as bands of shock troops, as well as guides to the area, and were crucial to the Russian advance. The entire episode—from the initial insurrection to the joint invasion of Van—was believed to be a coordinated rather than a random coincidence, even by foreign diplomats on the scene sympathetic to the Armenians. This, then, crystallized for the Turkish state the belief that the Armenians were traitors against whom strong action would be justified.178
During the conclusive days of the fighting in Van, the Ottomans brutally followed the Russian line of attack with massacres and deportations. As U.S. ambassador Morgenthau cabled in June 1915, “Because Armenian volunteers, many of them Russian subjects, have joined Russian Army in Caucasus and because some have been implicated in armed revolutionary movements and others have been helpful to Russians in their invasion of Van district, terrible vengeance is being taken.”179 German diplomats also backed this interpretation. On May 8, Ambassador Wangenheim cabled that “despite efforts by Armenian circles to diminish the significance of the riots which have broken out over the past few weeks in various places or to put the blame on the measures taken by Turkish authorities, there are increasingly more signs that this movement is more widespread than presumed up to now and that it is being encouraged from abroad with the help of Armenian revolutionary committees . . . it cannot be denied that the Armenian movement has taken on a worrying character over the past few weeks, which has given the government cause to introduce severe repressive measures.”180 As Reynolds notes, “At the same time as the Van rebellion was unfolding, the Russians were entering from the east, the British pushing on Baghdad from the south, and most ominously, the British and French were storming ashore at Gallipoli. The simultaneous attacks stretched the wobbling Ottoman army to breaking point.”181 Van was a crucial step in the escalation to genocide mainly because it confirmed the worst suspicions of the Ottomans, and that too at a strategically vulnerable time in the war.182 One historian of the genocide calls the Van insurrection the “turning point” as far as the deportations and massacres were concerned.183
Van was not the only geographic area where massacres and deportations followed the external security threat. One can also consider Cilicia. At the end of March 1915, the Ottomans feared that the Russians would make incisions through eastern Anatolia in a bid to capture the port city of Alexandretta/Iskenderun, because it represented the shortest route to bisect the empire and acquire a Mediterranean port. Indeed, the Russians themselves had advertised this strategy before the war. The Armenian population in Cilicia had a complicated history with respect to inviting outsider intervention to help their cause, and Ottoman authorities claimed that an uprising was to be timed to coincide with the Russian invasion. Some historians have dismissed those claims as pure propaganda, but Nubar was in contact with the British military in Egypt and floated the idea of the Armenian community in Cilicia being a bridgehead for invading Entente forces. The British had asked the Armenians to “revolt to make things more difficult for the government, and support the British by hindering [the government’s] efforts to mobilize.”184 Cilicia was consequently targeted with massacres and deportations.185
There was a similar story in Zeytun, where the fear of desertions and collaborations fed into the stereotype of Armenians as the “enemy within.”186 Before the war even began, there were signs of organized revolt; Armenians in Zeytun refused to be conscripted in the Ottoman Army and organized a corps of volunteers in order to disrupt Ottoman lines of communication. During the war, in May 1915, there was a second uprising in Zeytun, an episode which led to the formal introduction of deportation laws on May 27, with the purpose of drawing Armenian populations away from strategically important areas.187 As Enver told Ambassador Morgenthau, “We shall not permit them to cluster in places where they can plot mischief and help our enemies. So we are going to give them new quarters.”188 This was essentially the final nail in the Armenians’ collective coffin, since the general deportation orders spelled doom for the community. By June, the deportations were in full swing across the empire; only 20 percent of the deportees would even reach their desert destinations.189
The case of Adapazari, in northwest Anatolia, where the deportations began in July 1915, also followed this trend. Enver and Talaat believed that an Armenian rebellion was being planned in conjunction with an expected Russian landing on the Black Sea. “Talaat’s memoirs, as well as other wartime publications, offered evidence of escalating guerilla activity on the provincial border between Bursa and Izmit, as well as the discovery of hidden weapons caches throughout the region. Indeed, several secret telegrams confirm cases of Armenian bandit activity in Bursa and Izmit in 1915 and 1916,” though it should be noted that these reports were filed after the deportations had already begun.190
That the massacres and violence were proceeding in step with the external threat is shown not just by where the violence occurred but where it failed to occur.191 For example, between March 5 and March 17 in 1915, there was to be a joint British and French attack on the Dardanelles, to relieve pressure on Russia’s forces in the Caucasus. As a preemptive measure, authorities were given orders to carry out deportations—which, we must remember, almost always meant death for the deportees192—in the region between Constantinople and the new provisional government base in Eskishehir. The point was to ensure that the Armenians did not join invading forces and conduct reprisal operations against the population transfer of citizens, as the Ottomans wished to move their capital from Constantinople given the expected Anglo-French attack. But when the anticipated breakthrough did not occur, the population transfer, and attendant massacres, also failed to materialize, suggesting that “Armenian policy was still contingent on the course of the War, and was not fully proactive or general across the empire.”193
Certainly once the genocide achieved its own momentum, it bore less of a relationship to an external threat, especially after June 1915. It is also true that the cleansing of Armenians served the purpose of creating a more ethnically homogenous territory on which to base the modern Turkish state.194 Finally, there is little doubt that the Ottoman leadership could have arranged for deportations that did not necessarily result in mass death, but chose not to, almost assuredly due to a vicious antipathy against Armenians.195 But these qualifications aside, the spread of violence in 1915 shows that the escalation to deportations and massacres occurred as preemptive measures against a foreign military threat. “High” levels of Russian support for Armenian nationalists resulted in a tougher fight for the Ottoman Empire, owing primarily to Armenians’ location and potential for insurrection, as well as angry and emotional leaders bent on vengeance. As German ambassador Wolff-Metternich reported after a conversation with Talaat in late 1915, “In the districts on the Russian border and near Aleppo, mass displacements had been necessary on the grounds of military security. A Russian-engineered large-scale conspiracy among the Gregorian Armenians in the border areas and near Aleppo had been discovered. Attacks on bridges and railways had been planned. It had been impossible to single out any individual culprit from the masses of these people. Only the deportation of the whole could ensure security.”196
Moreover, in addition to the direct effects of collaboration, the indirect effects were important for external security too. The very existence of Armenian revolts in the empire meant that Turkish forces were often withdrawn from the front to deal with the uprisings, thus rendering them even more vulnerable to the external threat.197 For example, the rebellion in Van forced the Turks to reposition forces from strategically vulnerable campaigns in the Caucasus region and Persia to suppress the insurrection, fueling the belief that the Armenians were causing them considerable losses in the war.198
When the violence took place, where it took place, and where it did not take place—each of these factors supports Enver and Talaat’s claims that the Armenian genocide was a product of external security considerations. The Ottoman Empire escalated to deportations only at the height of its external vulnerability, after battles at Sarikamish and the Dardanelles. Its policies were first enacted in those areas most vulnerable to Armenian sabotage and collaboration with oncoming Russian forces and were not executed where the external threat was deemed less important. The Ottoman Empire used a policy of collective repression against its Armenian community because of “high” levels of support from Russia, whose men often fought alongside or in sequence with Armenian bands, in a war that threatened the very existence of the state. Because this war and the Russian-Armenian alliance closely succeeded the Balkan wars and the Russian-dictated Mandelstam Plan, which cemented CUP beliefs that the Armenians were both a short-term and long-term threat to Ottoman security, the Armenians were targeted with genocide.
Scholarly consensus supports these views. According to Holquist, when it came to the slaughter of the Armenian population, “Russia’s role—both in terms of intended and unintended consequences—was greater than that of any other party, aside from the CUP itself.”199 As Bloxham notes, “The stereotype of Armenians as proxies of the Great powers in peacetime was extended into a stereotype of military collaboration during warfare: the ‘inner enemy’ and the ‘outer enemy’ were now fully merged in the Ottoman mind.”200 Even those scholars that believe the genocide was “premeditated” concede the importance of the external security angle, as Kirakossian does when he writes that the Young Turks “were positive that in the forthcoming war the Armenians would become a threatening force in the enemy camp and considered it urgent to prevent them from taking unified action.”201
Generally, Western scholars maintain that the deportations and massacres were not an a priori plan of action, but rather a result of a series of more limited measures that cu | ||||||
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] | null | [] | null | null | September 19 marks the 102nd anniversary of the defeat of the Ottomans by the Armenian legion in Battle of Arara.
In a fresh article published on Friday, September 18, Asbarez details the story of how in early 1915 Mikael Varantian, a leading intellectual of the Armenian independence and renaissance movement of the late-19th century, sent a proposal to the Russian, British, and French ambassadors on behalf of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Western Bureau for the formation of a 20,000 strong Armenian volunteer military unit.
The feature reads:
The proposal suggested that the unit would receive military training in Cyprus and from their go on to Cilica to continue the war against the Ottomans. The ambassadors of Russia and Great Britain approved the proposal, but the French refused it, causing it to not materialize.
After the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign of 1915-16, the Allied Powers started searching for a new front to encircle the Ottoman army and knock them out of the war. French military authorities felt that the formation of new additional fighting units was necessary, and their first choice were Armenian deportees – particularly those from Mousa Dagh.
Considering the developments, General Clayton (director of the US intelligence office in Cairo) proposed to the French Ambassador in London the formation of Armenian Units under the French flag but based in Cyprus. The proposal was approved by the Armenian National Delegation with the condition that the Armenian unit would fight exclusively in Cilicia.
Thereafter, on September 21, 1916, General Pierre Rogues (French Minister of War) dispatched an investigation team led by General Ferdinand Romieu, to check on the possibilities of establishing an Armenian Military camp in Cyprus. The investigating team was also responsible for registering the first 500 volunteer fighters.
The legion was finally formed on November 15, 1916, but counter to the demands of the Armenian National Delegation, it was initially called the Legion d’Orient. Although the legion was formed by French authorities the judicial status of the Armenian soldiers was not clear as they were considered auxiliary forces not fully incorporated in the French army.
After lengthy negotiation between all parties, the British authorities approved the establishment of the military camp in Cyprus. The commander of the Legion, General Romieu decided to build the camp in Monagra far away from Turkish and Greek forces. The Armenian Legion volunteers consisted mostly of recruits from USA, Egypt, France, Western Armenia and eight volunteers from Ethiopia.
According to initial negotiations, the legion was supposed to participate in the Cilician territories battle, but because the French army was very weak at the time, the Armenian soldiers were diverted to the Palestinian front.
When Minister of War General Peirre Roques, and the Minister of Navy General Marie-Jean -Lucien Lacaze signed off on the establishment of the Armenian Legion, they included the following conditions:
The legion was to be stationed in Cyprus and would be commanded by French officers.
– Volunteers of the Legion would have the same status of French soldiers and would be under the French War Ministry’s responsibility.
– The Legion was to be deployed to fight in Cilicia and volunteers were to be recruited and organized by local Armenian committees and sent to Bordeaux and Marseilles (committees were to be reimbursed by the French Government for incurred travel expenses).
– The number of Armenian Volunteers consisted of six battalions, each containing 800 Volunteers, with an additional six battalions planned to be formed. Armenian committees were organizing recruitment of the soldiers in France and the U.S. By July 1918
– France registered 4,360 Armenian soldiers and 58 officers.
– Those volunteers who were from America were to have officially registered documentation from the representative of the Armenian National Delegation in the U.S. (Mr. Mihran Sevalsky). Volunteers from the Orient were required to have documentation from the French Embassy in Port Said in the Legion’s commanding office in Cyprus.
– The purpose of creating the Armenian Legion was to support the liberation of Cilicia, to encourage sentiments of national aspirations in support of rebuilding historic lands in Cilicia, and to become the core of the future Armenian Army.
In June 1917 General Edmund Allenby was appointed as the commander of the British-French troops, including the Armenian Legion, which would fight against 8,000 strong infantry and 130 artillery units of Turkish-German forces.
On September 18, the orders came to all forces and battalions that the next day, September 19 at 4 am the attack will begin. The volunteers of the Armenian Legion were celebrating. They would finally have the opportunity to fight their enemy of centuries – the enemy that massacred 1.5 million of their brothers and sisters and destroyed their churches and schools. They looked forward to the opportunity to liberate at least some part of their country.
Precisely on schedule and with full trust that the Armenian volunteers would fight with unprecedented passion, at 4am on September 19, 1918 General Allenby launched a major attack to seize a key position at the height of Arara as planned previously.
The Armenian Legionnaires were progressing slowly but with firm steps against the disproportionately large seventh Turkish army. Commanded by General Mustafa Kemal, the Turkish army unleashed fierce artillery bombardment from their fortified heights. Nonetheless, the Armenian Legion fought brilliantly, with total courage and with full faith that they will liberate Cilicia.
The Turkish seventh army was in full retreat on the first day of the battle and left their positions completely leaving behind hundreds of their fallen.
The Armenian Legion lost 23 volunteers whom they buried at Arara. In 1925, the remains of the 23 heroes were transferred to the Armenian Cemetery in Jerusalem where a monument was erected in their honor.
The Armenian Legionnaires, along with French and British troops went into Aleppo and Damascus. From there some of British troops continued to and captured Lebanon, while the rest (including the Armenians) went to Cilicia and liberated Adana, Aintab, Marash, Urfa and Hajin. The same historic lands that Armenians lost just a few years prior during the Genocide, were now liberated. The Armenian Legionnaires were dancing and singing in celebration of not one but two glorious victories. Just four months earlier Armenians defeated Turkish forces in Sardarabad, Bashabaran and Gharakilise and established the independence of the first democratic Republic of Armenia.
After the victory of the Battle of Arara, Legionnaire Manoog “Khan” Baghdasarian described the battle as follows: “According to the English, by their own confession, they had made three attempts to capture Arara, but had failed. Finally, it was destined for the Armenian Legion to capture that position and achieve a successful conclusion for the battle of Palestine.”
In his official dispatch to the Allied High Command, General Edmund Allenby commended Armenian forces stating, “On the right flank, on the coastal hills, the units of the Armenian Legion d’Orient fought with great valour. Despite the difficulty of the terrain and the strength of the enemy defensive lines, at an early hour, they took the hill of Dir el Kassis. I am proud to have had an Armenian contingent under my command. They have fought very brilliantly and have played a great part in the victory.”
Forty days after Turks and Germans lost the Battle of Arara, Ottoman Empire on October 29,1918 asked for armistice. | ||||||||
3581 | dbpedia | 1 | 33 | https://mirrorspectator.com/2018/09/20/remembering-the-armenian-victory-at-the-battle-of-arara-september-19-1918/ | en | Remembering the Armenian Victory at the Battle of Arara, September 19, 1918 | [
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"The Armenian Mirror-Spectator"
] | 2018-09-20T00:00:00 | By Barbara Merguerian With so many events to commemorate this year — the centennial of the first Armenian Republic and the 30th anniversary of the massive Spitak earthquake, to mention […] | en | http://mirrorspectator.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/favicon-16x16.png | The Armenian Mirror-Spectator | https://mirrorspectator.com/2018/09/20/remembering-the-armenian-victory-at-the-battle-of-arara-september-19-1918/ | General Allenby’s campaign came to an abrupt halt, however, when instead of receiving the expected additional men and supplies to continue his campaign, he was ordered to transfer large numbers of his troops to the European front, to counter a major German offensive in the spring of 1918. Only with the arrival of reinforcements in late summer, including units of the French Foreign Legion and the Armenian Legion, was he able to resume the offensive.
Finally, on September 18, 1918, Allenby launched a major attack northward. As a first step, the Armenian Legion was ordered to seize a key front-line position at the heights of Arara, located opposite Rafat and south of Nablus, in Palestine (present-day Israel). The Legionnaires faced strong artillery bombardment from the Turkish Seventh Army, firmly entrenched on the heavily fortified heights and commanded by General Mustafa Kemal (later Ataturk), under the overall command of the German General Otto Liman von Sanders. The Armenians fought brilliantly and achieved their objective on the first day of the attack, September 19, 1918.
Legionnaire Manoog “Khan” Baghdasarian afterwards described the significance of the battle as follows: “According to the English, by their own confession, they had made three attempts to capture Arara, but had failed.” He continued, “Finally, it was destined for the Armenian Legion to capture that position and achieve a successful conclusion for the battle of Palestine.”
General Allenby was well satisfied with the victory. “The Oriental Legion, or Armenian Legion, played an important role in the great attack which took place on September19, 1918 on the Palestinian front,” he reported the next day. “Of this I am proud.”
The victory did not come without losses. On the day after the battle, the Legionnaires gathered together and in a simple but solemn ceremony buried their 23 comrades who had fallen in battle. An additional 65 men had been wounded. (In 1925, the bodies of the 23 Legionnaires buried at Arara were re-interred in the Armenian Cemetery in Jerusalem, where a monument was erected over a common grave.)
The Turkish Army was now in full retreat, and General Allenby’s forces met little resistance in their advance north to Aleppo, Damascus, and finally Beirut, which they entered on October 20, 1918. There the Syrian troops were separated and the Oriental Legion was renamed the Armenian Legion (Légion Arménienne).
Turkey withdrew from the war, according to the terms of the Mudros Armistice, signed on October 30, 2018. Soon after, World War 1 came to an end with the Armistice of November11, 2018.
The British and French now took steps to bring about the partition of Turkey according to the terms of their secret agreements. As a ready force familiar with the territory, the Armenian Legionnaires were sent immediately to occupy strategic positions in Turkey.
Over the next several months, with General Allenby in overall command and serving under French officers, the Armenian Legionnaires occupied the major population centers of Adana, Aintab, Marash, Urfa and Hajin. An estimated 120,000 Armenian civilians who had been forced out of their homes during the Genocide now returned, feeling safe under the protection of the Allied forces. The Armenian Legionnaires believed that they had finally realized their dream of defending and safeguarding part of the Armenian homeland.
Postwar Settlement
After the war, however, the Allied governments were unable to translate their brilliant military victories in the Middle East into a just settlement. Exhausted by their heavy losses during the war, they were unable to reach agreement on the peace terms. British troops withdrew from Cilicia in the fall of 1919, leaving French forces.in control. Finding itself overextended in postwar overseas commitments, France did not adequately supply these forces, and the Turkish Nationalists were quick to take advantage of the situation and mount armed opposition to foreign occupation.
As Turkish attacks intensified, French forces began to withdraw, beginning in Marash in February 1920. As the French withdrew, often with heavy losses, they also began to disband the Armenian Legionnaires in a process that was completed by September 1920. Finally in October 1921 France signed the Ankara Accord with Nationalist Turkey and agreed to the final withdrawal of French troops from Cilicia, leaving the Armenian population to the mercy of the Turks. Armenians were either massacred or forced to depart in this savage continuation of the Genocide.
Bitter, disillusioned, and disappointed, the Legionnaires gradually resumed their lives. Yet the ultimate failure of their hopes and dreams does not diminish their valor, sacrifice, and devotion to their nation. Their brave action offered a vivid demonstration that Armenians could successfully take their destiny into their own hands and make meaningful gains on their own behalf. The ideals that had inspired the Armenian participation in the Legion were never lost, and the Armenian quest for freedom and independence continued. | ||||
3581 | dbpedia | 0 | 90 | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/9/7/205 | en | “Vibrating between Hope and Fear”: The European War and American Presbyterian Foreign Missions | [
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"Scott P. Libson",
"Scott P"
] | 2018-07-02T00:00:00 | Scholars have argued that World War I and its aftermath caused a rapid transformation in American global philanthropy. The decline of the American “moral empire” coincided with the rise of professional, bureaucratic, and secular philanthropy. The reasons for this transformation appear almost self-evident: the crisis greatly exceeded the capabilities of all private organizations, leading to the growth of state-supported, public, and semi-public organizations like the American Red Cross. In fact, though, mainline foreign missions grew rapidly after the war and did not decline until the Great Depression. In 1920, for instance, they combined to receive over 80 percent of Red Cross receipts. Even amid the decline of the “moral empire”, therefore, mainline foreign missions remained major sources of philanthropic aid and primary representatives of American interests abroad. This article looks at the hopes and fears of Presbyterian (USA) foreign missions in the years before American entry into the (imprecisely named) European War, in order to understand the resilience of foreign missions during a period of crisis. The war created numerous practical, financial, and conceptual challenges. But, it also inspired the mission boards to seek greater sacrifices among donors, to coordinate with other boards and the federal government, and to find alternative methods to achieve its goals. These efforts in the first half of the 1910s prefigured a nationwide transformation in ideas about service and voluntary giving. After the United States entered the war, these “social goods” became nearly obligatory in the minds of many Americans. | en | MDPI | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/9/7/205 | Department of Arts and Humanities, Indiana University Libraries, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
Religions 2018, 9(7), 205; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9070205
Submission received: 31 May 2018 / Revised: 21 June 2018 / Accepted: 27 June 2018 / Published: 2 July 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philanthropic Traditions through Christian History: Common Themes and Contestations)
Abstract
:
Scholars have argued that World War I and its aftermath caused a rapid transformation in American global philanthropy. The decline of the American “moral empire” coincided with the rise of professional, bureaucratic, and secular philanthropy. The reasons for this transformation appear almost self-evident: the crisis greatly exceeded the capabilities of all private organizations, leading to the growth of state-supported, public, and semi-public organizations like the American Red Cross. In fact, though, mainline foreign missions grew rapidly after the war and did not decline until the Great Depression. In 1920, for instance, they combined to receive over 80 percent of Red Cross receipts. Even amid the decline of the “moral empire”, therefore, mainline foreign missions remained major sources of philanthropic aid and primary representatives of American interests abroad. This article looks at the hopes and fears of Presbyterian (USA) foreign missions in the years before American entry into the (imprecisely named) European War, in order to understand the resilience of foreign missions during a period of crisis. The war created numerous practical, financial, and conceptual challenges. But, it also inspired the mission boards to seek greater sacrifices among donors, to coordinate with other boards and the federal government, and to find alternative methods to achieve its goals. These efforts in the first half of the 1910s prefigured a nationwide transformation in ideas about service and voluntary giving. After the United States entered the war, these “social goods” became nearly obligatory in the minds of many Americans.
1. Introduction
As Europe spiraled toward war in the summer of 1914, Protestant mission boards in the United States were nearly as ill-prepared as everyone else, but not quite. Americans quickly named it the European War, but the boards knew that to be a misnomer.1 Their stations covered the globe and the conflict had direct consequences for missions from the South Pacific to the Middle East to Africa. They also had experience in many of the philanthropic problems, if not the military ones, that the war greatly exacerbated, including fundraising, mobilizing the home front, and organizing a global workforce. The American Red Cross (ARC), for instance, quickly joined in the charitable effort in 1914, but it had no personnel in place, had a paid staff of twenty-five, and a membership of under 17,000. Doctors and nurses had to sail from New York, a process that took time and, given the American characterization of the war, initially focused on Europe. Much of the ARC’s international work in 1914–1916, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean, relied on foreign missionaries to carry out its on-the-ground work (Syria 1915). When the United States entered the war three years later, the ARC lacked the cash to succeed in its much-expanded mission. It launched a campaign to raise $100 million in a week, an extraordinary sum and in an extraordinarily brief period of time. Foreign mission boards again came to the ARC’s aid, as missionary societies across the country quickly reoriented their agendas to Red Cross needs. Historians have noted that American entry into the war created social obligations to serve one’s country and to contribute one’s wealth (Capozzola 2008; Hitchcock 2014, pp. 150–55; Irwin 2013, chp. 3–4; Zunz 2012, p. 66). Those were ideas that mission boards had been advocating for many years, a fact that historians frequently acknowledge but rarely explore.2
The Presbyterian (USA) Board of Foreign Missions (BFM), as the wealthiest American mission board by annual donations, exemplified the ways mission boards used their extensive experience in overseas philanthropy during the war. It evolved as a result of the conflict. The BFM came out of the war wealthier, and more committed than ever, to both foreign missions and non-sectarian philanthropy. That commitment is surprising, given the BFM repeatedly raised concerns about losing money and talented personnel to non-sectarian organizations. At the same time, it reflected broader trends within American philanthropy in the postwar era, where the division between religious and secular organizations was not always clear.
In August 1914, any hopeful outlook for the BFM would have seemed Panglossian. The initial weeks and months of the war sent mission boards scrambling. In the Ottoman Empire, the transnational financial system changed too quickly for the mission boards to keep up. Banks throughout the empire refused to honor the drafts on London banks that had been funding both BFM stations and those of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Congregational). London had entered financial chaos in late July as troops moved toward borders and war became increasingly inevitable. Similar to the financial crisis in 2007–2008, banks immediately sought to protect themselves. They held on to their cash reserves, particularly gold, and ceased to lend. In London, they closed for a week. Markets froze as well. To avoid further calamity, the London and New York Stock Exchanges closed on 31 July. The New York Stock Exchange remained closed for a month. The London exchange did not reopen until 4 January 1915 (Roberts 2013, pp. 3–6). Mission boards mainly faulted banks in Constantinople for not honoring their British or American drafts, but in any event, missionaries still lacked cash.
Similar problems arose around the world. In some regions, the BFM could do no better than ask Standard Oil for help. The Board paid the company’s treasurer in New York, who then directed operatives in Asia to distribute gold to the Presbyterian missionaries.3 In India, the missionaries were forced to pay skyrocketing rates of exchange.4 The boards circulated a call for additional contributions to pay for this “new peril to our finances arising from the war”. Donors responded with mixed results. “So it goes,” the American Board’s Cornelius Patton wrote, “vibrating between hope and fear”.5
Still, the situation in Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt attracted special concern. Within days of the banks closing, Charles A. Dana (unrelated to the nineteenth-century New York Tribune journalist) wrote to Russell Carter in desperation. Dana held a critical role for American Presbyterian missions in the Ottoman Empire. As the head of the American Mission Press in Beirut and the treasurer of the Syrian mission, practically every important transaction went through him. The financial crisis left Dana powerless. The Presbyterian mission had money and drafts on banks in London and New York as well as the Ottoman Bank and the Deutsche Palestine Bank, but his notes were “not worth the paper they are printed on”, because the banks were failing, and no one would honor the drafts.6 W. W. Peet, the American Board’s veteran treasurer in Constantinople faced the same problem and wired foreign secretary James Barton. “We are all suffering terribly for gold”, he complained. He wanted Barton to make a direct plea to President Woodrow Wilson for assistance. Barton contacted Arthur Brown of the BFM. He hoped that presenting a joint appeal with one of the wealthiest mission boards would bolster their case.7
On August 26, Barton met with Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan along with A. Woodruff Halsey of the Presbyterian board. Bryan asked them not to say anything except that “the government has this whole matter well in hand”.8 He then dispatched the USS North Carolina, a cruiser, to Constantinople from Falmouth in southwest England. It carried $150,000 in gold for the American Board, the BFM, and other missionary enterprises in the region, as well as for American tourists. The various boards reimbursed Washington, making deposits with the Treasury for the gold and for a previous loan of $17,800 that Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Sr. had personally offered for immediate assistance.9 Washington provided this aid at no expense to the mission boards.10
In hindsight, the emergency offers a window into the state of religious philanthropy at a moment of great change. In part, it demonstrated the federal government’s willingness to further the missionary project, both on an individual level and an institutional one. In an age of American global presence and nearly instant communication, through telegraph wires deep in the Atlantic, Peet’s frantic search for cash found quick resolution. Ambassador Morgenthau provided the initial loan. His position had been created only thirteen years prior. Then, less than a month after the start of the financial crisis, the federal government was already ordering ships thousands of miles away on a relief mission. Many Americans opposed foreign missions for various reasons, but the coming changes in American philanthropy would not result from any governmental antipathy for missions.
At the same time, the start of the war also highlighted the weakness of mission movement financing. The boards endured the volatility of the markets and the caprice of federal politics. Nothing obligated Morgenthau to lend his money or Bryan to dispatch the North Carolina; a different ambassador or secretary of state might not have taken any action. Indeed, a few years earlier, Morgenthau probably would have refused such a request, having felt disdain for “over-zealous advance agents of sectarian religion”. A transatlantic journey with some mission board administrators had convinced him to view missions as “a magnificent work of social service, education, philanthropy, sanitation, medical healing, and moral uplift” (Morgenthau and Strother 1922, p. 176). Also, the mission boards appeared to think that individually they might not have held enough clout to sway even the “godly hero”, William Jennings Bryan (Kazin 2006).
Regardless of these individual actors, though, the crisis demonstrated the limits of American power in the region. The US government certainly did not have “this whole matter well in hand”. The Turks prevented the North Carolina from entering the Dardanelles (with the excuse that mines made entry too dangerous) and the naval yacht Scorpion was forced to retrieve the gold on September 23. The gold remained in Constantinople, though, and would not get to other cities in the Ottoman Empire for some time. By mid-October, Beirut and Jerusalem in particular still needed funds. At that point, though, the bank restrictions had eased and the North Carolina’s “gold did us no good and was not accepted”, according to Katherine Jessup. Instead, it was sent back to Constantinople and mainly benefited the missionaries insofar as it showed their independence, not their reliance, on the American government. The advent of rapid communication had done nothing to expedite sea travel, and two or three months without cash could have caused serious damage to the missions. Nevertheless, Jessup felt relieved by the presence of US Navy vessels in the eastern Mediterranean (the North Carolina, as well as the Tennessee, which had been dispatched from the United States, both remained in the region). The American moral empire sometimes required a show of force.11
While the cash crunch ended quite quickly, other problems arose as the Great War spread and grew in intensity.12 The war impacted almost every aspect of missions work, both for missionaries abroad and organizers at home. For decades, the mission movement had tried to convince the public of its need for nationwide support. Interdenominational organizations, like the Laymen’s Missionary Movement or the Missionary Education Movement, had bolstered the non-sectarian claims of the movement. Fundraising campaigns and local missionary societies consciously created social obligations for support. The war, therefore, did not create the ideal of nationwide cooperation in philanthropy, but it did fuel it. Foreign missions benefited from a windfall in giving to war-related charities, and they capitalized on the added publicity for humanitarianism. As reflected in the case of the gold shortage in Constantinople, the mission boards expanded their preexisting cooperation with the federal government. Beyond that internal expansion, though, mission boards came to realize the great potential of non-sectarian philanthropy for accomplishing goals that missionaries had previously taken on themselves. That a sectarian organization like the BFM would encourage non-sectarianism was surprising, even to the BFM itself, as reflected in its periodic ambivalence about organizations like the ARC. The years preceding and during the European War nevertheless show that the ground had been prepared for this confluence of interests.
2. The Great War: A Turning Point for Philanthropy and Humanitarianism?
The classic timeline of World War I begins on 28 June 1914, the day Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Sophie, the Duchess of Hohenberg. It ends in 1918, when the Allies and Central Powers ceased hostilities, or 1919, when those adversaries signed the Treaty of Versailles. That chronology, however, minimizes global interconnections and the violent encounters that extended beyond the main period of conflict. The Italian invasion of North Africa in 1911 and the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 foreshadowed the worldwide conflagration. Conflicts in Egypt, India, Syria, and elsewhere after 1918 fed off dashed hopes of self-determination that the world war had sparked. The traditional narrative also emphasizes the nation-state instead of either the multi-ethnic empires that constituted much of the world in the 1910s or the nongovernmental organizations that were already starting to proliferate by 1914 (Gerwarth and Manela 2014; Iriye 2002, pp. 4–7, 18–21; Irwin 2013; Little 2009; Manela 2007). For these reasons and others, it makes sense to adopt an expansive periodization of missions in the World War I era, beginning in the early 1910s, with efforts to improve the effectiveness of mission movement financing, and ending in the 1920s, with non-sectarian philanthropies that employed the resources of foreign missions, such as the American Committee on Armenian and Syrian Relief.
The impact and consequences of World War I on voluntarism, humanitarianism, and philanthropy in the United States (and elsewhere) is undeniable, as recent historiography has underlined (Cabanes 2014; Hitchcock 2014; Irwin 2013; Little 2009; Watenpaugh 2010). Charitable organizations expanded, politicians and the press devoted more attention to the callousness of war, and philanthropy became more secular and scientific. Although the American state had played a role in these efforts since before the Civil War (McCarthy 2003), religion had continued to provide the main impetus for humanitarianism and proponents always identified this work as charitable. But the immense scale of World War I, as well as the events that surrounded it, forced a dramatic transformation in the resources devoted to humanitarianism, the role of the state, and the motivations for actions (Barnett 2011, pp. 1–5). Part of that transformation grew out of state demands of its citizens, as reflected in the draft, urban vice control organizations, and the quasi-public American Red Cross, each of which blurred distinctions between voluntarism and obligation (Capozzola 2008; Fronc 2009, chp. 6; Irwin 2013). Some historians argue that these developments formed a “key moment” in the history of modern human rights (Cabanes 2014, p. 10; see also Hitchcock 2014; cf. Moyn 2010, 2015).
The foreign mission movement adds a different perspective to the history of humanitarianism. Foreign missions bridged the war and evolved as a result of it, facilitating an analysis of both change and continuity.13 Both the quest for the “origins” of human rights and the confined examination of the war period predispose historians to emphasize change at this particular moment. Much of the continuity within American philanthropy consequently gets lost. Historians of Protestant foreign missions have done surprisingly little to address this lacuna. Several important works select 1914 or 1915 as an end date (Porter 2004; Robert 2008; Shenk 2004) or devote little attention to the impact of the war itself (Bays and Wacker 2003; Hutchison 1987; Robert 1997). Ian Tyrrell (2010) has argued that the war signaled the declining influence of leaders of the “moral empire”. There are certainly notable exceptions (Mislin 2015; Showalter 1998; Walther 2016), but it remains a topic worthy of greater attention.
To explore continuities in the 1910s is not to ignore the many changes that the war caused. It undoubtedly influenced philanthropies and humanitarian movements in profound ways, particularly through organizations, such as the League of Nations, Save the Children, and the American Red Cross. Many leaders in the postwar humanitarian movement, nevertheless, saw their work as a continuation of and elaboration on what they had been doing both during and before the war. Mission movement leaders had long encouraged the state to take a more active role in the moral empire (although they also wanted to maintain their own independence) and debated the benefits and drawbacks of social welfare programs (Hutchison 1987, chp. 4–6). That they hoped these efforts would eventually result in conversion to Christianity only further connects their prewar efforts with the postwar period’s views on the possibilities that European and American domination would promote “civilization”.
By any measure, missionaries played a bit part in the conflict and I am not arguing for a reinterpretation of the war itself. Missionaries and mission boards remained vitally important to millions of Americans, however, as demonstrated by the thousands of missionary societies and tens of millions of dollars donated each year. That was true before, during, and after the war, but is missing or minimized in histories that focus on the rise of non-sectarian philanthropy during and after World War I (Irwin 2013; Watenpaugh 2010, 2015; Zunz 2012, chp. 2). By overemphasizing change, we misrepresent the complexity of the American philanthropic landscape and the diverse interests of the American people. We also reinforce the truism that war is the major force behind historical change.
The evolution of mission boards during and after the war points to the gradual and complicated transformation of American global philanthropy from predominantly, or at least supposedly, religious and missionary in nature to non-sectarian and “humanitarian”. In the end, the bit part played by missionaries did little to influence the war and the mission boards could hardly be called war victims. They did, however, prepare the way for the larger organizations like the American Red Cross, through organizational structures both within the United States and abroad. The boards, in turn, took advantage of the war to raise additional capital and to grow. The BFM and other mission boards thus succeeded in their aims of both expanding their own international footprint and promoting a nationwide, non-sectarian humanitarian agenda.
3. Presbyterians and Foreign Missions
The cooperation between the American Board and the BFM at the start of the war was hardly coincidental. They were two of the largest and wealthiest mission boards, each headquartered in the northeast (the BFM in New York and the American Board in Boston).14 Over a century earlier, in 1801, the common Reform Church background of Congregationalism and Presbyterianism had led to the Plan of Union, in which the two churches had decided to cooperate in their evangelistic endeavors. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church consequently urged churches to support the American Board when it began operations about a decade later. The union never appealed to many Presbyterians and “Old School” Presbyterians formed the Board of Foreign Missions in 1837. In 1870, with the reunion of the “Old School” and “New School”, the BFM became the primary Presbyterian foreign missions board outside the former Confederacy. The American Board transferred numerous missions to the BFM to reflect the new circumstances. By World War I, the BFM had grown wealthier than the American Board,15 but each could claim a degree of importance within foreign missions circles in the United States. The prestige of each board was underlined by the prominence of its administrators, including Robert Speer, Stanley White, and A. Woodruff Halsey of the Presbyterian Board and James Barton, Cornelius Patton, Enoch Bell, and Harry Hicks of the American Board. All held important positions of leadership within the global mission movement and occasionally outside of it as well.
Presbyterian governance of foreign missions was relatively similar to the American Board. Each had a small executive committee of secretaries charged with overseeing missions abroad and promoting them at home, as well as a treasurer to oversee the finances.16 For both boards, the secretaries had pastoral and missionary backgrounds, while the treasurers were lawyers and businessmen. Women in each denomination formed their own organizations in the years after the Civil War. Larger and smaller bodies, comprised of leading members of each domination, supervised the executive committees in various ways.
Polity had always separated Congregationalists and Presbyterians and that distinction had major implications for fundraising. While the American Board passed budgets and expected contributions from churches, church authority ultimately rested with the congregation. The more hierarchical structure within Presbyterianism, with its sessions, presbyteries, and synods, allowed for more top-down decision making. If the General Assembly (the highest body within the church structure) established a fundraising campaign, it came as more authoritative, in some ways, than what a mission board might propose on its own. That is not to ignore the wide diversity within Presbyterianism (or the national bodies within Congregationalism) and the conservative-modernist debates that divided the Presbyterian Church in the early twentieth century, profoundly influenced fundraising and foreign missions.
4. Apportionments and the Every Member Canvass: Balancing Financial Goals with Donor Empowerment
Wartime and interwar philanthropic fundraising sought to instill a sense of social obligation to give.17 Although the historiography of fundraising has tended to emphasize non-sectarian precursors to that monetary mobilization, religious groups provide an equally useful example.18 In the case of the BFM and the Presbyterian (USA) Church more generally, it is a history of trial and error. These trials and errors helped prepare mission boards, congregants, and fundraisers for future changes. Mission boards adapted to or resisted forced cooperation within and outside their denominations. Meanwhile, fundraisers began delegating their responsibilities to congregants. Donating had ceased to be about anonymously putting money into an envelope. Neighbor was soliciting contributions from neighbor and even the charitable organizations themselves had lost some control over the fundraising drive. This dynamic, which Olivier Zunz (2012, p. 44) associates with a growing “culture of giving”, intensified the social obligation to donate, and it only grew in intensity with the start of the war as both religious and non-religious organizations employed similar tactics.
The fundraising errors within the Presbyterian Church derived largely from attempts to coerce individuals or groups to act more efficiently, instead of offering, at least, the illusory control implied by the “culture of giving”. For example, in 1912, the General Assembly proposed a centralized treasurer to oversee the budgets and fundraising of all Presbyterian benevolent associations, including the BFM, Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, home mission board, and others. The proposal failed, partly due to the strong opposition from the BFM. Secretary Robert Speer argued that the BFM’s treasurer had an extremely complicated job, managing donations, disbursement, investments, and overseas real estate, work that a centralized treasurer could not have handled alone. In more general terms, though, Speer lamented the growing tendency “to separate still further the donors from the actual work which their gifts support. Such a Treasurer … would have no living touch with the work which the money passing through his hands was doing. The palsy of a purely banking officialism would fall upon the administration of the benevolent accounts”.19
While the centralized treasurer scheme never came to fruition, centralized or cooperative fundraising did become a reality. By allowing donors to give to benevolences in general (not unlike a community chest), rather than to foreign missions one week, home missions the next, perhaps church erection the following, etc., these plans simplified church collections for both ministers and parishioners. Within the Presbyterian Church, it took several forms in the years before the war: the “cooperating plan”, apportionment, and the Every Member Canvass. The American Board adopted versions of each around the same time.20
A year before the centralized treasurer plan, in 1911, the General Assembly had created a “Joint Executive Committee” as part of its “cooperating plan” (later called the Presbyterian United Movement). The Joint Committee oversaw apportionments and budgets for the various benevolent organizations of the church. By centralizing money-management, the committee would supposedly increase efficiency. Fundraisers had “been working each for his own Board; hereafter, they are to work each for all the Boards”. More to the point, though, “the Boards [would] be relieved of the responsibility of seeking money from church organizations”, since that responsibility would rest on the new committee. It immediately suggested changing apportionments/allotments, the amount each church was asked to raise, and launched an “every-member-weekly-pledge system” (Minutes of the General Assembly 1911, p. 179, 181). To clarify the bureaucratic overhaul, the Assembly Herald eventually diagramed the United Movement’s structure (Figure 1).
These concerns were not misplaced. Problems arose from the start. First, the Joint Committee had little control over many factors related to the boards’ budgets, like the rate of return on their investments. Second, this added hierarchy could quickly interfere with local church structures, producing counterproductive tension. Of particular concern was whether women would be allowed to direct their donations to the allotment of their women’s societies (they could) and whether allotments as such would “evaporate the genuine spirit of scriptural giving, and transform the generous and gladsome giver into a reluctant and unwilling taxpayer”. The scheme also seemed to encourage frugality by reducing allotments to churches that gave less and increasing allotments to the generous (Minutes of the General Assembly 1912, pp. 251–55).
The BFM had some trepidation about centralized giving. So did the American Board for that matter. Both boards (staffed only by men) had recently used the same arguments about efficiency to promote more centralized financial control, specifically as it applied to their own control over the women’s boards.21 Clearly indifferent to the double-standard, they were loath to let church-wide bodies determine what percentage foreign missions deserved among all the donations for benevolences. Part of this concern was undoubtedly the natural response to a loss of power. In addition, though, both boards claimed their work appealed to the public more than, say, relief funds for retired ministers.22 Their missionaries traveled the wide world, risked their lives, and brought back stories and foreign goods that congregations consumed with enthusiasm (Hasinoff 2011). While the United Movement offered “great possibilities for good, … it is imperative … [to] keep our churches informed on Foreign Missions”, A. Woodruff Halsey warned his colleagues.23
Robert Speer led the opposition to the apportionment plan. Speer correctly noted that despite all the praise given to “systematic benevolence”, the concept was hardly new. He specifically referenced the American Systematic Beneficence Society, founded in 1856. Speer, like almost every church official, admonished parishioners for failing to support missions to a sufficient degree, but he also identified the problem as one of knowledge and a sense of proportion, not of systematization. Those who were giving too little did so because they required “objective information about the definite work to be done and … presentation of sufficiently distinct and concrete tasks”. Cooperative plans not only did nothing to help educate parishioners, but they also encouraged them to think of benevolences as “undifferentiated”. Speer argued that donors ought to be required to indicate exactly how money should be divided. He feared the “new plans instead of enlarging the giving of the Church are drying it up at its springs” (Speer 1914, pp. 302–3; Minutes of the General Assembly 1912, p. 260).
The BFM initially challenged coordinated giving by asking the General Assembly for more of the donations. When that failed, they protested the entire concept of apportionment. By 1915, the Every Member Canvass (EMC) had apparently made the system unnecessary and, after similar complaints from the various benevolence boards, the General Assembly abolished the Joint Executive Committee. It replaced it with a new committee, focused exclusively on the EMC, that had a slightly larger makeup and representation from each of the boards.24 Although the Church began the apportionment scheme with high hopes, by the time it abandoned it, apportionment was being described as “a mechanical and quite subordinate feature of the Budget Plan which has only served to divert attention from what is really primary, essential and vital, viz.: the application of Scriptural principle of enlisting every member to give as an integral part of the weekly worship” (The Presbyterian United Movement 1914, p. 183).
By 1916, nearly 80 percent of Presbyterian churches were participating in the EMC.25 Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, and others similarly adopted the approach quickly. Lyman Pierce, the developer of the EMC, had previously partnered with Charles Sumner Ward to raise money for the YMCA by employing a "whirlwind" method. The EMC grew out of that work. Rather than extended campaigns that lasted until a goal was met, whirlwind campaigns sought huge sums of money in very brief periods of time after “bombarding the public with surefire appeals”. Between 1850 and 1905, the Y had raised $35 million; in the decade after the first whirlwind campaign in 1905, they raised $60 million (Cutlip 1965, pp. 38–50, quote on 38; Pierce 1938, pp. 140–45).
Not surprisingly, when Pierce joined the Laymen’s Missionary Movement in 1908 and developed the EMC, churches and mission boards had great hopes. Unlike earlier schemes that had produced similar optimism, such as the double-envelope system, the EMC required parishioner participation (a “personal touch”) in addition to ministerial and administrative leadership. Like whirlwind campaigns, the EMC emphasized preparatory work. Ministers preached about missions while organized groups of parishioners spread information through publications and discussions. Canvassing committees divided up congregations so that small teams could visit each member at home within a short period of time (often one day) to solicit a pledge to give. The method intentionally encouraged competition, both among the solicitors and the donors. Donors then fulfilled their pledges on a weekly basis. Proponents of the EMC hoped the method would increase commitments, broaden the pool of donors, and particularly encourage greater giving from "nominal givers” (“paradoxical people who believe with their intellects, but not … their check-books”). For most denominations, the EMC covered both church expenses, including the pastor’s salary and building upkeep, as well as benevolences, such as foreign and home missions (The Why and How 1913, p. 14; Methods that Win 1913; Weber 1932; Hudnut-Beumler 2007, pp. 102–10).
While other fundraising schemes had previously employed elements of the EMC, the EMC distinguished itself in the manner of the canvass. The canvass forced each congregant to make a pledge of support to fellow members of the congregation, turning voluntary giving into a sort of social coercion. As a later director of the EMC for the Presbyterian Church (USA) noted, only somewhat disingenuously, “The canvass rightly conceived is a problem in human relations and not a plan for raising money” (Weber 1932, p. 11). The strategy sought to improve the image of fundraising by deemphasizing monetary conversations and underlining the role of the canvass in bringing people together.
A case from 1913–1914 illustrates the impact of the EMC. The White Plains, New York, congregation of the Westchester Congregational Church was facing a shortfall in giving to foreign missions. Coincidentally, a conference on the EMC was passing through town and so the congregation debated whether to hold a local canvass. The officers of the church unanimously approved, but they took no action until all the men of the church voted in favor. As a result of this “democratic” process, “the men naturally felt that this was their own idea”. Next, forty men formed a committee to perform the canvass and the church sent letters about the canvass to every church member. In this instance, men did not represent their wives and women received separate letters, urging their participation in the giving, if not in the soliciting. The men on the canvassing committee were told which families to visit and “were instructed to learn what they could about the families before making the visits”. On the morning of the canvass, the pastor preached about giving and the EMC, and then the men made their rounds. “In their eagerness to have some part in the campaign”, the women of the congregation prepared a supper for the canvassers. In the end, local support rose 20 percent and giving to benevolences rose 60 percent.
As evidenced by this case, the EMC claimed to promote greater personal investment in church and community. Indeed, church treasurer Crescens Hubbard argued that the “collective” decision-making reflected a “democratic” process. While that initial decision may have resulted from male suffrage, everything else suggested a hierarchy. Most significantly, the Westchester’s EMC sidelined the women in the church, who traditionally had gained power through their fundraising abilities (Gordon 1998; Bergland 2010, pp. 177–78; Beaver 1968, chp. 1; Robert 1997, pp. 188, 305). Church leaders appointed male canvassers and told them whom to visit. The church then sent donations for benevolences to the various boards, including the American Board. Hubbard clearly interpreted the campaign as a success, and the church did go from a shortfall to a surplus, but to identify the process as democratic mistakes nominal collective action for actual democratic power.26
The EMC succeeded in raising more money by converting voluntary actions (contributions to benevolence) into social demands. The “personal touch” of parishioner canvassing additionally created tiers of participation and the illusion of community control. The interdenominationalism of the EMC reflected trends against sectarianism. While Westchester sidelined women to a greater degree than other churches, the response of the women in the congregation was not unusual (Reeves-Ellington et al. 2010). They organized themselves and found a way to make their presence felt. Each of these aspects of the EMC matched developments that would occur during and after World War I, though on a much greater scale. Indeed, the possibility of philanthropic responses to the war depended upon the preexistence of structures that could raise money efficiently and organize large groups of “volunteers”.
5. Neutral “in Speech and Writing”, Though Perhaps Not in Deed
The value of those prewar experiences would take some time to bear fruit. In the first few months of the war, missionaries operating within the warring nations or their colonies faced certain immediate and pressing dangers, which preoccupied officials and supporters at home. Their challenges demonstrated that, unlike the philanthropies that grew out of the war, mission boards had an existing infrastructure at the start of the conflict. They were ready for what they called “the new internationalism”.27
In the early months of the war, channels of communication closed in parts of the Ottoman Empire, China, and in German colonies in Africa. The African colonies saw fighting particularly early in the war. French and British forces captured Togoland (roughly present-day Togo) within weeks of the declarations of war and on 15 August, the countries decided on a coordinated attack against German Kamerun (roughly present-day Cameroon). The fighting in Kamerun, which contained a significant missionary presence of American Presbyterians, lasted far longer and resulted in many more casualties than in Togoland (Farwell 1986, chp. 1–5). In September 1914, the English navy captured the German postal steamer Germania, which had been the American Board’s “only means of communication that our missionaries in [Micronesia] have with the outside world. It means that mail and provisions are cut off and they are dependent upon the native foods”.28 Only fourteen years after the Boxer Uprising, when mission boards similarly lost contact with their missionaries, the lack of word troubled missionary supporters within the United States.
In addition to freezing communication, the start of the war froze exchange markets, making it virtually impossible for the boards to send money to foreign missionaries. “Letters of credit, bills of exchange, bank checks, nearly everything in that line is held up these days”, American Board Home Secretary Cornelius Patton told his main fundraisers.29 The boards felt forced to consider costly alternatives, given the dire financial condition. Brown Brothers, for example, offered to send one thousand Turkish pounds to Constantinople at an exorbitant interest rate.30 The American Board also considered taking out insurance at rates as high as 25 percent to protect deliveries. While American Board officials preferred to temporarily halt all shipments, the Board already had $13,000 worth of goods on English and German ships at the start of the war and seriously considered spending $3000 to insure those assets.31
Frozen exchange markets proved especially problematic because some of the missions felt they needed to increase their workload at the start of the war. Some 140 British and Irish missionaries (both Protestant and Catholic), representing fourteen denominations, were operating in Ottoman Syria at the start of the war. With the United Kingdom and the Ottoman Empire on opposing sides, all of these British subjects returned home. The remaining missionaries, mostly American Presbyterians, felt they needed to fill the void while at the same time the lack of currency forced them to cease their own publications (The Syrian Situation 1914, pp. 643–44; War News from Workers 1915, p. 113).
The dangers of missionary work during war went beyond life and property. From the perspective of the denominational boards, the need to appear neutral was paramount. Mission boards faced a particular complication due to the independence of each missionary or, at least, each mission field. The interests of a mission in Kamerun, which had cooperated with the German colonial government and German missionaries for many years, differed greatly from the interests of a mission in British India. Mission boards could only respond tardily to missionaries’ comments or publications that seemed to promote one side of the war. Self-preservation frequently conflicted with collective goals.
In the opening months of the war, the Presbyterian BFM sent several circulars to all missionary fields encouraging them to remain neutral “in speech and writing”.32 The need to reiterate the directive and to specify the ways in which missionaries could appear partisan reflected the officials’ challenges. It also reflected the public value of missionary perspectives. By the end of 1914, the press had already received and published extracts of missionary letters, angering Arthur J. Brown. “We beg you”, he wrote the missionaries, “to be exceedingly careful when you write to your relatives. Please caution them not to print your letters even in their local papers. … It would be lamentable if the cause of Foreign Missions were to be identified with this strife”.33
To maintain total neutrality and to play the role of humanitarians, the missionaries were told to offer assistance to fellow missionaries from both sides of the conflict. Assistance came in many forms and often appeared to contravene the goal of neutrality. Basel Evangelical Missionary Society Secretary H. Dipper asked the Presbyterian board to send money to China on his behalf. Though Swiss, the Basel Society employed numerous Germans, relied on Swiss and German donations, and had offices across the border in German Alsace.34 Since the Basel Society’s treasurer was headquartered in Hong Kong, Dipper feared the British would cut off its flow of money. The most neutral course would have seemed to be for the BFM to refuse such requests. Otherwise, it placed itself in a position of negating a British action clearly designed to harm German interests. While Dipper eventually found an alternative solution, depositing money in the Deutsche-Asiatische Bank in Berlin and Canton, the Presbyterian board also agreed to help in any way it could.35
A similar arrangement arose in the German colony of Kamerun. At the very start of the battle for Kamerun, even before the capture of the coastal city of Douala, Karl Foertsch of the Gossner Missionary Society (headquartered in Berlin) was requesting that the Presbyterian board transmit its funds to its missionaries in the region. Following the capture of Douala and Allied advances in the region, the BFM agreed to supply the German missionaries with any money they needed and also agreed to forward German correspondence with its own. Throughout the battle in Kamerun in 1915, A. Woodruff Halsey sent Foertsch updates and called on Presbyterian missionaries in West Africa to aid local French, Swiss, and German missionaries.36
As the war stretched into 1916 and beyond, the goals of maintaining abandoned mission stations continued. Karl Foertsch continued to ask that the BFM maintain the missions in “Kamerun” (already renamed Cameroon/Cameroun by the French), care for missionaries if possible, and send information from the field.37 The Société des Missions Evangéliques de Paris (SMEP) also required financial assistance, partly as a result of taking over German stations, and A. Woodruff Halsey assured them of “the desire and aim of our Board in every way to cooperate with you”.38
The extended nature of the war, however, also made clear that no status quo ante would be possible. The West Africa Mission needed to adjust to French rule and repeatedly asked the BFM to send more French-speaking missionaries.39 The Board put off such a request until the French government could comment. When word came, indirectly via the SMEP, the message was clear: American missionaries were welcome only insofar as they would further colonization endeavors. Their main role would be to teach French and act “as auxiliaries of the French influence”.40 This dependence on the SMEP would help repay some of the SMEP’s debt to the BFM, as the SMEP extended its presence in West Africa and helped install BFM missionaries.41 “We trust that, if the Cameroons or some part of it become definitely french [sic]”, a SMEP official wrote to Halsey, “one of the happy results of our dear franco-american [sic] alliance will be that a greater liberty will be given in all our Colonies to American missionaries and we hope to see the day where several of the American Societies will come and occupy some of our large unoccupied fields in french [sic] Africa”.42
Though willing to offer both information and material support for German and French missionaries, A. Woodruff Halsey refused to express opinions about the war itself. In Karl Foertsch’s initial request for assistance, he mentioned the “great successes” of the German army to which “we can thank God” and “the entire German populus [sic] glows with intense enthusiasm”.43 Halsey immediately put an end to the conversation, noting, “We absolutely refuse to take any part even in discussion of matters relating to the War”.44 Halsey overstated the collective views of the BFM. A few months later, Julius Richter (a close associate of many American mission movement leaders and an organizer of the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh in 1910) complained at length of American arm sales to the Allies, claiming that “American Christianity” itself was “hopelessly discredited. … I hear now from day to day more doubtful remarks on the sincinerity [sic] and the seriousness of American Christianity”. Unlike Halsey, Arthur Brown was willing to engage the topic, sympathizing with Richter’s complaints about arm sales and emphasizing that “the Christian leaders of this country … are advocating peace and neutrality [and] have no more connection with the manufacture and sale of ‘guns and bullets’ than you have and no more influence over them”.45
In addition to creating difficulties relating to neutrality and transmitting goods, money, and information between the United States and the mission fields, the war created a more abstract problem in the minds of foreign missions administrators. Mission boards feared the idea of a conflict among Christian nations would make both evangelism and fundraising more difficult. The BFM told missionaries to emphasize that “this war is not due to Christianity nor to a failure of Christianity, but to a disregard to its precepts and the failure of men to obey its principles”.46 Paradoxically, the BFM argued that the war pointed to both the failure of Christianity and the possibility of the same. For believers in the “Gospel of Peace” to be “at each other’s throats” was a “horrible incongruity”, but the only solution to “end such monstrous incongruities” was to see Christianity as a “world opportunity” (Christmas is a World Opportunity 1914, p. 642). “Christianity will have to become Christian”, wrote a missionary in China (The European War 1915, p. 17). Cornelius Patton described “this war of horror and shame” as having “embarrassed” the American Board.47
These fears that non-Christian peoples would begin “misinterpreting Christianity” as a belligerent religion belied the colonialist mentality of mission board officials.48 The BFM expressed particular concern that “the war may leave the Chinese to interpret western civilization in terms of force and violence, rather than in terms of peace and good-will” (The Effect of the War 1915, p. 16). It is doubtful that anyone in China would have had trouble thinking of western civilization in terms of force and violence after a century of occupation and intervention by “western civilizations”.
Fears that non-Christians would see the war as an outgrowth of Christianity helps explain the mission boards’ near universal preference for neutrality and peace, rather than siding with the Allies or Central Powers. It also points to a reason mission movement officials had for decoupling their religious and national projects.
The challenges that mission boards faced with the outbreak of the war point both to broader American dilemmas regarding the meaning of neutrality and to the particular agendas of foreign missions. Although most Americans supported neutrality in the early years of the war, appearing neutral posed greater challenges for American organizations operating around the world. The Presbyterian board chose to enact its version of neutrality by confining assistance, whether for the benefit of Allies or Central Powers, to the realm of missions-related activities. They were willing to go to almost any lengths to help any missionaries, regardless of nationality, continue their work, but would not comment on the war itself beyond their hopes for peace.
6. Warlike in Speech and Writing
The Presbyterian board’s prohibition on war commentary did not inhibit its use of the war for fundraising purposes. Like almost every wartime organization, when it came to the quest for money, the war and American nationalism were front and center. The ARC pictured the American flag and the Red Cross flag side by side. The Commission for Relief in Belgium urged wartime thrift to help Belgian children. Both the American Board and Presbyterian BFM were actually somewhat surprised to discover that the war benefited their finances. Many of the concerns that the war elicited were immediately apparent with the start of hostilities, but how congregants would respond remained unclear for several months. At the same time, mission boards recognized that overseas conflicts had helped bring their work into the public consciousness in the past and, as it turned out, the Great War was no different. Giving to foreign mission societies appeared to be one of the most rapid means of offering support for the victims of the war, facilitating those fundraising efforts.
Both the American Board and the BFM compared the European War with the Civil War. Northern foreign mission boards had survived the Civil War with relatively little change. If such a large domestic conflagration could not stop the mission movement, surely congregants could answer the contemporary crisis with equal vigor. Robert Speer of the Presbyterian board viewed the war as a test, and quoted the General Assembly report of 1862, which called for “onward movement in the missionary work”.49 His colleague, Arthur Brown, expanded the comparison to include examples of mission boards succeeding amid other conflicts, particularly British mission boards founded during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, and missionary achievements during the Crimean War and Boer Wars. “Without question, American Christians of to-day can equal the devotion and self-sacrifice of Christians of former days,” he challenged donors.50
After addressing their concerns about frozen markets, the American Board quickly transitioned to a more optimistic attitude regarding the consequences of the war on missions financing. As Cornelius Patton wrote in September 1914, “We do not take war very much into account. The Board has lived through a great many political crises in Turkey, and the work grows apace. We seem to thrive on difficulties in this work. In fact, we try to make difficulties become opportunities”.51 By February of 1915, Cornelius Patton was feeling good about the financial position of the American Board. “I find that the Boards are not suffering in their finances in any marked way, and in several instances, the gifts are running ahead of last year. This general situation is true of all the leading Boards”. The war, according to Patton, was promoting a spirit of self-sacrifice, “a splendid test of the quality of the faith of our church members”.52 The Missionary Herald remarked that “it would be strange indeed if every individual was not moved to increase his contribution in times like these” (A Worthy Gain 1916, p. 23).
Initially, the Presbyterians seemed to face very different circumstances. The war could not have arisen at a worse possible moment for the BFM. With the close of fiscal year 1913–1914 on 31 March, the Presbyterian board found itself with a deficit of $292,000. It was one of the largest deficits in the board’s history. The war seemed to compound the problem, and the fact that both the home missionary society and publication society faced similar deficits made the situation even worse. In a fortuitous decision, the board had decided, months before the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, to name the campaign to close the deficit, the No Retreat Fund.
The debt frayed nerves. The BFM asked the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society to help fill the gap, claiming the general board was paying the salaries of many missionary women and, therefore, deserved the women’s support to close the debt. The women balked at the demand. They had more than exceeded their goals and argued that issuing emergency requests would be counterproductive.53 If the women would not participate collectively in the No Retreat Fund, the BFM asked them to assume the support of more missionary women. They also demanded that focus remain on “the emergency that is upon us. … There can be no question that the primary urgency is that we should meet this budget and avert the disaster of another deficit”.54 Whatever the interests of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, whatever success they might have been achieving, the men prioritized the needs of the BFM.
Not helping the situation, the two groups disputed how the BFM calculated giving. Since the BFM issued the official publications of giving, the woman’s societies had to continually battle to get their statistics printed as they desired. In 1914, Mary Wood and Henrietta Hubbard wrote repeatedly to Robert Speer to complain about the BFM’s calculations of giving. Among the disagreements, would giving to Christian Endeavor Societies, when submitted through the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, be included in the receipts? How was the BFM calculating donations of the Young People’s Societies? Depending on what was included in annual giving, the disparity totaled between one and two hundred thousand dollars.55 The women had little desire to contribute to a No Retreat Fund anyway, but the fact that they might not even receive recognition for their work certainly did not make them more eager to help.
War metaphors had infused missionary rhetoric for decades, so it was not prophecy that led the Presbyterian board to reference “retreat” in their debt-raising scheme.56 The cover of the January 1914 edition of The Assembly Herald (the Presbyterian monthly covering all benevolent societies, Figure 2) epitomized these war metaphors. It featured a woman as a Roman soldier with a banner reading, “Presbyterians all together … in simultaneous effort for all boards and causes”. The gray background and the woman’s cloak (a Roman paludamentum) blowing through the air suggested a mighty storm. Within the gray clouds, though, appeared to be rays of light and the woman’s strength and steadiness made clear that no storm would dislodge her. In front of her stood a Roman shield with the word “Presbyterian”, implying the protection of the church. She is, one assumes, the personification of the church itself.57
Once the war actually began, the use of war metaphors increased markedly. For many Americans, the European War seemed both very distant and yet ever-present, creating a prime opportunity for the mission boards. To capitalize on that sentiment, the Presbyterians launched a campaign for a week of “self-denial” to close their debt. Like the “No Retreat Fund”, the “self-denial” week reminded congregants of the actual suffering resulting from the war. The BFM emphasized the “solemn duty” of everyone to contribute, and that this was an “extra emergency fund” that did not count toward the budget generally. Repeated use of the word “emergency” (e.g., “The Boards of Home and Foreign Missions are facing a great emergency”, “The emergency is now accentuated … by the War”, “Present the emergency on 3rd January”) also reminded congregants of the war, which was regularly described as an “emergency”.58 Elsewhere, Robert Speer used a fundraising appeal to ask the Shadyside Presbyterian Church for “courageous and sacrificial loyalty”.59 Although war metaphors were not uncommon, the usage here undoubtedly reminded congregants of the European War and, for those who believed the rhetoric, donations to foreign missions appeared to offer a means of participating in the self-sacrifice of soldiers without endangering oneself or abandoning neutrality.
If congregants failed to connect the BFM’s war metaphors with the Great War, the board made its point explicit with direct references to the war in its fundraising appeals. In a list of “examples of self-denial” to be used in potential advertisements, first on the list was the Canadian Pacific Railway, whose employees collectively sacrificed a day’s wages to give to the government for the war effort.60 The war had disproven that the imperial powers of “Great Britain and Germany and France were the true representatives of Christianity” and given missionaries, whether American, British, or German “an opportunity of moral advantage”. “This is our opportunity”, A. Woodruff Halsey told pastors in Pittsburgh, and they needed to close the deficit to take advantage.61 Noting that the war had added additional costs both to “care for its own missionaries” and “to relieve the suffering and distress of missionaries of Continental Societies who have been entirely cut off from their support”, the BFM asked for increased giving.62 In addition to the cost of helping other missionaries, specific causes for the increased expenses included the cost of transportation, rising costs to exchange money, and the cost of drugs and other goods.63 Elsewhere the board asked for “sacrificial” giving in response to the war.64
The BFM’s rhetoric allowed congregants to imagine themselves as participants in the efforts to alleviate suffering. In launching the “Sacrificial Emergency Call”, Maitland Alexander issued a call to arms, on behalf of God, he seemed to say. The “tremendous sorrows and sufferings of the war” and “the favor enjoyed by our own land through the blessings of Peace” created an opportunity that demanded a response. Thus far, the Church had built a “great machine” for “world-wide influence”. The war demanded humanitarian actions and the fact that Europe stood at the center meant that Americans would need to be the ones to respond. It needed “to meet the splendid opportunity with splendid gifts”, though, to exert its power at this moment of opportunity. Alexander called on “every one of our 10,000 churches [to] resolve that their full resources should be thrown to the help of the armies of the living God”. Preaching, praying, and giving, according to Alexander, were the weapons of God’s army (Alexander 1915, pp. 1–2).
The givers themselves were only part of the “army”. Missionaries stood at the frontlines and the BFM made sure supporters knew of the bravery of these “soldiers”. In January 1915, a special edition of the BFM’s regular Bulletin pamphlet announced that “not one of the 1226 missionaries has asked to come home on account of the war”, that none had suffered bodily harm or lost property, and that the missionaries mainly complained that new missionaries were not being sent to the field. Indeed, missionaries were interpreting the war not “merely as a great EMERGENCY, but a GREAT OPPORTUNITY for setting forth as never before the ‘truth as it is in Jesus.’” The Bulletin closed by noting, “The WAR EMERGENCY has brought into clear relief the SACRIFICIAL spirit of missionary and native Christian in non-Christian lands. It is a noble CHALLENGE to the home Church”, thus bringing together the war with the fundraising schemes.65
The excerpted letters in promotional materials emphasized the connections between missions and the war. Missionaries in West Africa reported on the movement of troops and German missionaries. In China, “life in the war zone continues to be full of excitement”. Introducing the letters from Syria, the Bulletin described the situation as a “storm center”. “In no one of the Missions is the condition of the people more pitiful, the work of the missionary more arduous, and the Christian spirit more manifest.” The Bulletin made clear that the war had not in the least diminished the work for missions and indeed, giving to foreign missions directly helped those suffering from the war without being partisan.66
The overall message of both the excerpted letters and the fundraising campaign in general was that missions represented a third alliance in the war, fighting for peace. Arthur Brown went even further, calling “foreign missions … the antithesis of war, standing for everything in the relations of different peoples which would make war between them impossible”. God, according to Brown, identified “only one race and that is the human race”. Brown acknowledged the many noble charities that provided immediate relief for Europeans suffering directly from the war, but he emphasized that donors needed to help him expand giving to foreign missions if they wanted to put an end to war for good. He even accused donors of dishonesty if they chose to give to war charities instead of missions. “The conjoint exhibit of moral failure, moral need and moral opportunity in the military tragedy to-day convulsing humanity calls Christians to a supreme test of how much they … will dare and do to make [Christ] King and Peacemaker over this distracted earth.”67
Brown’s message reflected a conception of Christianity as peace-loving and mission boards certainly saw their work as promoting spiritual, social, and transnational harmony. That message translated into one of bringing together the warring nations. Writing from Bata in Spanish Guinea (modern-day Equatorial Guinea), a missionary referred to the English and Germans “get[ting] on well together”. Missionaries in India were taking collections from both English officials and Indians for the preservation of the German missionaries. In China, the story was of a German missionary taking the hands of a British missionary to say, “Brother were our nations bound together in love as you and I are, this terrible slaughter could not occur”. The Bulletin described missionaries in China as one “body, German, English, American”. While German and British armies fought in Europe, Africa, and Asia, the Bulletin suggested, peace reigned over the mission movement.68
War rhetoric facilitated the BFM’s argument that it presented a “great opportunity” to participate in the war effort in support of peace. The Presbyterian board’s “No Retreat Fund” ended up being highly successful, and the BFM significantly reduced its deficit by the end of the fiscal year on 31 March 1915. Advertising, which regularly used war metaphors, proved particularly effective. “Many [donors] said frankly, that the only reason they were sending the contributions was because of the advertisements.”69 The board praised congregants for their “unselfish service” and “self-denial”, especially amid financial unrest and the “titanic war”.70
7. American Entry into the War
When the United States joined the war as an active combatant in 1917, it impacted American missionaries in many ways. Some, particularly those in the Turkish territories, feared they would find themselves in enemy territory. More abstractly, American entry into the war challenged ideas about service and the degree to which missions could be considered a noble endeavor during wartime. Practical implications stemmed from such questions, such as whether missionaries would need to register for the draft.
Even before the United States formally declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917, mission boards contemplated the ramifications of a war with Turkey. Dozens of American missionaries were stationed in the region and acted as the primary American response to the ongoing genocide of Armenians. They feared that war would prevent further relief work.71 The American Board and BFM worked together, as they had at the start of the war, to convince the US government that its quarrel was with Germany and not Turkey. In February, the American Board’s James Barton and the BFM exchanged letters, encouraging each other that war with the Ottoman Empire was not inevitable and would be greatly undesirable. They enlisted Henry Morgenthau and Charles Crane to persuade the State Department and Woodrow Wilson of their views and they coordinated their letter-writing to Secretary of State Robert Lansing. By the middle of the month, the State Department had told Morgenthau that it would heed the advice of “Crane, Cleveland Dodge and representatives of the Presbyterian and American Boards”.72
While American missionaries in the Ottoman Empire faced the greatest anxiety, missionaries around the world suddenly found themselves to be belligerents. How that new status would impact missions was an open question and one mission boards quickly sought to answer. The ideas that they presented to their missionaries and to the US government provide useful insight into the value they perceived in the foreign mission movement.
On 18 May 1917, a little over a month after the war declaration, President Wilson signed the Selective Service Act into law. Over the following week, the BFM’s Arthur Brown traveled to Washington on behalf of the Foreign Missions Conference of North America, met with General Enoch Crowder (who was overseeing the draft), and submitted a lengthy explanation to Crowder of the mission movement’s perspective on the draft. Crowder had asked Brown to provide facts about foreign missionaries and to express his views on missionary exemptions. The government required most men aged twenty-one to thirty to register for the draft, but clergy and seminarians were among the few classes of people that the draft had exempted from the start. That criteria alone exempted nine-tenths of foreign missionaries (men and women), but still left over a thousand missionaries potentially subject to the draft. Brown urged Crowder to grant them an exemption too. He believed, based on his conversation with Crowder, that Americans living outside the United States or its territories would not need to register in any case. That seemed to be a misreading of the statute, but it nevertheless raised several interesting questions. The Philippines, for instance, were not included on the list of the territories. Furloughed missionaries were in the United States at the time, but only briefly.73 Even if Brown had a misread the legislation (it required “registration by mail” for men “temporarily absen[t] from actual place of legal residence”), the law did not seem to account for the global presence of Americans. What was an American missionary’s legal residence? How would registration by mail work if one were registering from Tokyo or Douala?
The Selective Service Act prompted these interesting questions about the status of missionaries, but Brown had no interest in basing his argument for exemptions on legal ambiguities or oversights. Instead, he argued that missionaries rendered a service to the United States akin to, possibly even greater than, that of a soldier in war. In writing to Crowder, whom Chris Capozzola has described as a “snippy martinet who had little interest in taking orders from civilians” (2008, p. 27), Brown emphasized the desire of mission boards “to carry out the wishes of the Government”. That said, he subtly urged Crowder to understand missions work as itself in line with the wishes of the government.
Missionary work … is of indispensable value as a humanitarian as well as a Christian enterprise. … Indeed missionary work is one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful influence in creating and strengthening the bonds of sympathy and good feeling between the United States and other nations. … It is not a question whether foreign missionaries are to serve their country; of course they are to do this. The question is whether they are not doing so to better advantage in their missionary work than if they were to enter the ranks in the army or navy.74
Forwarding the letter to several of his colleagues, Brown stressed the point even further, identifying the continuing service of missionaries as “absolutely essential to the cause of humanity and righteousness and liberty”.75 Foreign missionaries ought to be exempted from selective service, Brown argued, because they had already volunteered to serve God and country.
Although Brown’s letter remained private, mission boards made the argument publicly. Presbyterian publicity identified missionaries as being “in the Great War … [as] accredited agent[s] for the distribution of world famine relief in non-Christian lands”. The deaths of wartime missionaries, it called “heroic” sacrifices in the line of “duty”.76 To missionaries in the field, the BFM and American Board urged that they remain at their stations and not volunteer for the military. “The war is a conflict between forces of evil and forces of righteousness and everyone who has consecrated himself to the eternal warfare of humanity must feel the pull of the conflict and long to have a personal share in it.” By framing it as a “conflict between … evil and … righteousness”, James Barton could claim the missionaries had no need to take up arms; they were already fighting for the side of righteousness.77
8. The American Red Cross: Non-Sectarian, State-Supported Philanthropy as a Better Way?
In the United States, the American Red Cross (ARC), and not a foreign mission board, was and continues to be the nonprofit most associated with World War I. From the start of the war, Red Cross societies had far more visible roles than missionaries. The ARC had access to resources unlike other American humanitarian organizations, particularly the overt support of the federal government. After assisting in the aftermath of the Charleston, SC, earthquake of 1886; the Johnstown, PA, floods of 1889; and other domestic disasters, Clara Barton had taken the organization abroad in early 1896 to aid Armenian Christians. Though the campaign had not been entirely successful, the government still granted the organization official status to assist Cubans in the aftermath of the American invasion of that island in 1898. Barton was then ousted from the organization and the ARC became more scientifically oriented and more closely aligned with the federal government, developments that would continue until the start of World War I (Irwin 2013, chp. 1–2). It should come as no surprise that mission boards were forced to define their wartime work in relation to the ARC. Equally expected, mission boards publicized their cooperation with the ARC far more frequently than the ARC noted its reliance on foreign missionaries. This fact may explain why missionaries stand in the background, if they appear at all, in the literature on World War I.
Near the start of the war, the Syrian Protestant College (which was independent of any mission board, but closely aligned with the movement) volunteered to support the Red Crescent, offering an American surgeon, a missionary, nurses, and students. “It ought to be of tremendous service,” wrote Bayard Dodge, son-in-law of the college president, Howard Bliss. They were to “work under the regular symbol of the Red Cross, which will give prestige to the mission work and popularity to the American interests. … The opportunities for Red Cross work for the soldiers is tremendous and the needs of the army challenge us to exert ourselves to the utmost”.78 Elsewhere in the city, missionaries made bread and distributed it where needed using Red Cross funds (Echoes from the War Zone 1915, pp. 500–1; War and Missions 1915, p. 550). Several months later, the Turkish government officially accepted the aid of the American Red Cross (ARC), working alongside the Red Crescent. The Constantinople chapter of the ARC quickly asked for fundraising help from mission movement leaders, as well as the Rockefeller Foundation, Ambassador Morgenthau, and others.79
The Presbyterian BFM and the ARC also coordinated efforts to serve as banking agents for Syrians living within the United States. When the war broke out, the immigrants sought ways to send money to their relatives in Syria. Syrian Societies of the United States, the ARC, and the BFM jointly provided that service. By the end of 1915, the BFM alone had helped transmit close to $500,000 to individuals in Syria (War Relief Work 1915, pp. 691–92) and “the Red Cross Chapter in Beirut is made up almost entirely of American missionaries”, the Assembly Herald proudly proclaimed (Syria 1915, p. 500).
The American Board and the ARC shared resources as well. In Constantinople, American Board medical missionary Alden R. Hoover served as the director of ARC work (Ambassador Henry Morgenthau held the title of president, reflecting the official support of the federal government). Hoover oversaw seven hundred beds in various hospitals across the city during the winter of 1915–1916. He performed his ARC work alongside another American Board medical missionary, Frederick D. Shepard, who had been stationed in Aintab (present-day Gaziantep, near the Turkish border with Syria). Shepard worked for several months in Constantinople but died in early 1916. Hoover and Shepard are pictured in Figure 3, a photo of the Red Cross hospital, alongside many American Board missionaries (Shepard is directly behind the seated woman at center and Hoover is the mustachioed man to his left). Yet another American Board medical missionary took over Red Cross relief work in the city of Adana (west of Gaziantep).
With its public–private partnership, the ARC should have been well positioned to respond to the outbreak of the war in Europe. In fact, though, they only had $200,000 in working funds in 1917 and a disorganized structure. Knowing they would need far more money, Woodrow Wilson created the Red Cross War Council, which hired Charles Sumner Ward and famed Rockefeller publicist Ivy Lee to build the organization’s coffers. Ward, the former partner of Lyman Pierce (discussed above in relation to the Every Member Canvass) essentially created another whirlwind campaign. With assistance from the president and the leading publicist in the country, as well as the nation’s rapt attention, the drive succeeded like nothing before. The 1917 drive achieved its seemingly impossible goal of $100 million in a single week only to repeat the feat again the next year (Cutlip 1965, pp. 110–35).
Although the BFM and American Board cooperated and coordinated with the ARC, the mission boards did so with some trepidation. Cooperation had mutual benefits, but the BFM and its supporters also feared the power, popularity, and prestige of the ARC. Some clergy worried about their ability to meet expenses in light of the ARC’s successful fundraisers. As this view fell outside the official position of the BFM, E. Fred Eastman (1917, pp. 544–47) printed a strong response in praise of the Red Cross in the Assembly Herald. Associating the ARC with the Good Samaritan (even renaming it the “American Society of Good Samaritans”), Eastman compared ARC opponents with those who had heard Jesus tell the parable and nonetheless disapproved of the Samaritan. Elsewhere in the same issue, Warren H. Wilson (1917, p. 538–39) called on “every minister of Christ [to] champion this organization of mercy”. At the same time, though, he urged those ministers not to join the ARC or the military. Their service at home, he claimed, was “equal to that of a captain in the Army”. Similarly, in writing to missionaries, Arthur Brown argued for staying put. Noting that many potential missionaries had already chosen to work for the ARC, he feared the value of missions was being ignored. “Without foreign missionaries in Syria and Persia, the Armenian and Syrian Relief Committee and the Red Cross could not do their work”, he wrote.80 In other ways, the dominance of the ARC cast a long shadow on other organizations. The Bureau of Enemy Trade refused to let the BFM send aid directly to Syria, because unlike the ARC and several other non-sectarian organizations, the BFM was not an “approved society”.81
Even if the BFM sometimes perceived non-sectarian philanthropy as a foe, their allied interests made them friends far more frequently. Their goals abroad, of course, frequently overlapped, but so did their interests at home. They were mutually invested in getting Americans to feel obligated to give their time and money, and also in rewarding those who did give. Soon after the passage of the Selective Service Act, Congress looked for additional funds to pay for the war and passed the War Revenue Act of 1917. The Act greatly increased taxation on income and initially offered no deductions for charitable giving. The proposal set off alarm bells, with nonprofit administrators warning of dire consequences. The uproar again aligned the interests of the ARC and mission boards. Senator Henry Hollis (D-NH) proposed an amendment to allow for charitable deductions up to 20 percent of income, an amount that was seen “as very modest”, but acceptable. ARC “campaign agencies throughout the country are being enlisted in support of the movement”, Edwin Bulkley wrote happily to BFM Secretary George Scott.82 The board was perfectly satisfied to ride on ARC coattails from time to time. In the end, a 15 percent deduction passed, which the BFM praised as a demonstration of “the importance our Government puts upon maintaining the work of the Church”, comparing it favorably with the concept of tithing (The Presbyterian United Movement 1917, p. 571). Whereas government assistance in the first days of the war had come through personal solicitation, the Hollis Amendment solidified the financial foundation that would allow church benevolence to flourish in the decade after the war.
9. Conclusions
By 1919, the war was over, but mission boards were holding out hopes that the wartime gains would continue into the future. Certainly, the passage of the Hollis Amendment made the future look more promising. Their prewar fundraising attempts to create a social obligation to give had only strengthened during the war and had been replicated by larger philanthropies like the ARC. Unlike wartime aid societies, such as the ARC or the Committee for Relief in Belgium, the mission boards had no intention of demobilizing and their financial needs continued to grow. Donations to fifteen of the largest Protestant mission boards more than tripled in the 1910s, growing from a cumulative $9.6 million in 1910 to $29.7 million in 1920. Much of that advance occurred during the war itself, with growth jumping from an average of 5.6 percent in the first five years of the decade to almost 20 percent in the last five years. Giving largely held steady during the 1920s (Fahs 1929, p. 46).
It certainly did not seem like Christian philanthropy was on the wane. Instead, it was the ARC that faced internal conflict and “a rapid decline in American enthusiasm for the ARC and its foreign relief projects” (Irwin 2013, p. 143). The various philanthropic war agencies disbanded altogether. Meanwhile, missionaries attempted to use what influence they had (some, but not much) to help define geopolitics in peacetime. The American Board’s James Barton attended the Lausanne Conference in 1922/23 that resolved ongoing conflicts between the Republic of Turkey and western European nations. He not only lent his expertise, having worked in and with the Ottoman Empire for many years, but he also provided a commentary on the conference for supporters at home. The countries and issues were different, but missionaries had played similar roles in other contexts in the decades before the war. Indeed, in contrast with much of the literature on philanthropy that emphasizes great change resulting from World War I, the mission movement suggests a large degree of continuity.
At the same time, the collaborative work of the mission boards during the war seemed to point toward a future of Christian philanthropy less rooted in denominations. The prewar missionary activities could have also predicted that outcome, particularly in the form of numerous interdenominational associations and world missionary conferences, but the prominence of non-sectarian or interdenominational organizations had grown as a result of the war. While the American Board and BFM had approached Secretary Bryan on their own at the start of the conflict, by the end, interdenominational groups like the Foreign Missions Conference of North America (still led by the same BFM and American Board secretaries, among others) had largely taken over those conversations. They concluded that the war had allowed foreign missions to demonstrate its social value and that the “new internationalism” that they anticipated in the 1920s was, to a great degree, something that missionaries already practiced. Not surprisingly, their conclusions were infused with a belief in the ultimate necessity of Christianity, but they were also able to articulate a value in non-evangelical work, particularly relief efforts in response to the Armenian Genocide. Those interests would later translate into support for non-sectarian philanthropy in the 1920s and 1930s.
As foreign missions vibrated between hope and fear during the European War, the movement evolved. Its transformation was not radical, but it was profound. It reminds historians that as revolutionary as war might be, change can occur slowly even in war. When Cornelius Patton wrote, “so it goes, vibrating between hopes and fears”, he was speaking of money. Receipts were good one week, bad the next. That simple logic, hoping for money and fearing its absence, explains much of the history of American philanthropy, religious, secular, and everything in-between. Protestant foreign missions continued, in large part, because donors continued to give the boards money. They changed as a result of global circumstances and in an effort to tip the balance toward hope and away from fear. World War I, unlike the Great Depression, left open those possibilities.
Funding
This research was partially funded by a research fellowship from the Presbyterian Historical Society.
Conflicts of Interest
The author declares no conflict of interest.
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1
Which is not to say missionaries or missionary officials used a different term even when discussing “critical” situations in Africa and the “most serious situation” in China. “Presbyterian Missions and the European War”, Bulletin No. 7, September 1914, United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records, RG 81, box 6, folder 23, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (hereafter Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records).
2
Julia Irwin (2013, p. 14), for instance, notes that Evangelical Christianity had been a “mobilizing impulse for … humanitarian activities, at home and abroad” in the nineteenth century and lumps missions together with “charitable assistance” and “social reform” as “humanitarian activities”. She makes this point while claiming that “American humanitarians increasingly defined their work in non-sectarian and social scientific terms”. What is left unsaid is that sectarian organizations themselves also promoted non-sectarianism and social scientific approaches.
3
In numerous instances where the global banking structure temporarily halted, Standard Oil provided American transnational nonprofits with a source of money. It was one of the few American corporations whose reach extended almost as far as foreign missions and whose wealth vastly exceeded any charitable society. Arthur Brown to “friends”, 23 September 1914, box 6, folder 23, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
4
Arthur Brown, “Bulletin No. 1”, 24 August 1914, box 6, folder 23, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
5
Cornelius Patton to E. L. Smith, 17 August 1914, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archives 1810–1961 (ABC 4.1, vol. 20) Houghton Library, Harvard University (hereafter ABCFM Archives).
6
C. A. Dana to Russell Carter, 8 August 1914, box 6, folder 22, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
7
James Barton to Arthur Brown, 21 August 1914, box 6, folder 22, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
8
A. Woodruff Halsey to D. Stuart Dodge, 27 August 1914, box 6, folder 22, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
9
Circular from James Barton, 28 August 1914, ABC 9.5.1, box 8, folder 12, and Cornelius Patton to Brewer Eddy, 27 August 1914, ABC 4.1, vol. 20, ABCFM Archives; Correspondence between Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions and the US State Department, August–September 1914, box 6, folder 22, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
10
A. Woodruff Halsey to Cleveland Dodge, 2 September 1914, box 6, folder 22, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
11
“U.S. Cruisers to Remain in Europe”, New York Tribune, 24 September 1914; “Syrian Ports Fear Attack by French”, New York Tribune, 19 October 1914; “U.S. Ready to Aid Americans in East”, New York Tribune, 31 October 1914; Katherine Jessup to Ralph E. Prime, 20 December 1914, box 6, folder 22, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records; Russell Carter to the BFM secretaries, quoting a letter from Charles Dana, 4 March 1915, box 6, folder 24, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
12
By the following summer, the American Board was using its ability to get funds to mission stations throughout Turkey as a fundraising method. James Barton, “Bulletin on the Turkish Situation”, 3 July 1915, box 6, folder 24, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
13
John Branden Little and Akira Iriye have drawn opposite conclusions about the history of World War I nonprofit work, but each emphasizes rupture rather than continuity and evolution. Little notes that “few relief organizations founded in World War I remained active internationally in the 1920s and 1930s” (2009, p. 7). Focusing on other groups, Iriye emphasizes that, “with a few exceptions … both intergovernmental organizations and international nongovernmental organizations stopped functioning during the war. … The growth of international organizations in the aftermath of the Great War was not so much a reaction against the brutal and senseless fighting as a resumption of an earlier trend that had been momentarily suspended” (Iriye 2002, pp. 19–20).
14
The American Board also had a major office in New York, which it sought to expand in the years before the war. Cornelius Patton to the Corporate Members of the American Board, 12 June 1912, box 27, folder 8, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
15
Indeed, about twice as wealthy (as measured by annual donations) and twice as large. The BFM was the largest foreign mission board in the United States. The American Board was comparable in size to the boards of other large denominations outside the former Confederacy (e.g., Adventists, American Baptists, and Methodists).
16
Though one could equally say that the American Board was an outlier in that it had six executive officers, while the BFM and almost every other American foreign mission board employed four. Fred C. Klein, “Report of Committee on Credentials”, in “Report of the Committee on Home Base”, [1912], box 27, folder 5, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
17
Regarding the federal government’s efforts to increase charitable giving during the war, Olivier Zunz writes, “The intensity of the effort reinforced the perception that giving was part of being an American” (2012, p. 56, see also pp. 56–66).
18
Zunz, exemplifying a tendency among many scholars, briefly notes the history of giving through churches before turning to focus on “occasions … when fundraisers … bypassed the church and lodge” (Zunz 2012, p. 44, see also pp. 44–55; Cutlip 1965, chp. 1–3).
19
Robert Speer to David G. Wylie, 23 December 1912, box 50, folder 15, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
20
While this section focuses on centralized giving within the Presbyterian Church, other bodies (including the Foreign Missions Conference of North America, the Laymen’s Missionary Movement, and the Missionary Education Movement) were promoting interdenominational fundraising campaigns. In the case of an interdenominational campaign, the funds would go to denominational church bodies, but participating denominations would all adopt the same themes, promotional texts, and timelines. In 1914–1915, for instance, the theme was to be “the social force of Christian missions” and William Faunce’s The Social Aspect of Foreign Missions (1914) was to be the key text for church groups to read. See, for example, “Minutes of the Meeting of the Committee of Twenty-Eight” and “Report of the Committee of Twenty-Eight”, 1914–1916, Foreign Missions Conference of North America Records, NCC RG 27, box 3, folder 11, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
21
Control over women’s fundraising was a longstanding issue that had originally quashed women’s efforts to create their own interdenominational boards. Only a few years after World War I, the male-dominated denominational boards would force the women’s boards into mergers, further asserting their control of women’s financial resources (Robert 1997, pp. 129, 302–7).
22
Indeed, that was precisely the point of cooperative plans. The plans overcame the greater appeal of some endeavors over others, permitting a more systematic budgeting process without impacting the methods of raising money.
23
A. Woodruff Halsey to Members of the Executive Committee, 12 October 1914, box 50, folder 17, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records. The American Board felt similarly, as Home Secretary Cornelius Patton underlined, “We cannot afford to have this work merged in their minds with that of the other denominational agencies, simply one more thing that Congregationalists are doing”. Cornelius Patton to James Barton, 18 September 1915, ABC 4.1, vol. 23, ABCFM Archives.
24
Abolition of the Joint Executive Committee, 1913–1915, box 50, folder 17, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
25
“Sixth Annual Report”, [1917], box 51, folder 4, Ecumenical and Relations Records.
26
The methods that Hubbard described only continued to expand in complexity and systematization (Leach 1958, pp. 219–28).
27
“Tentative Rough Outline of a Report on the Missionary Outlook in the Light of the War”, n.d., box 30, folder 14, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
28
Mabel E. Emerson to Theodore H. Wilson, 28 September 1914, ABC 4.2, vol. 11, ABCFM Archives. The sh | |||||
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] | null | [] | null | en | /static/favicon/wikisource.ico | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:EB1922_-_Volume_32.djvu/680 | was unable to hold back, and he organized a Syrian Cabinet under Riza Pasha and did his best to enforce discipline through- out his dominions where compulsory military service had been reintroduced on Dec. 21 1919. The authority of Damascus was, however, unable to restrain the outbreak of Arab Nationalist enthusiasm which the formation of the kingdom of Syria aroused. Antioch was taken from its small French garrison on March 20, there was anti-European trouble from the Amanus to Jerusalem (see PALESTINE) , and Arab officers entered into renewed relations with the Nationalist Turks of Angora. As early as Dec. u 1919 Ramadhan ibn Shalash, the Arab governor of Raqqa, instigated by Angora, had made common cause with a Kurdish freebooter, Ibrahim Pasha Milli, and had attacked Deir ez Zor, from which, although hi the French sphere of influence, the British had not yet withdrawn. The Emir Faisal immediately dismissed Ramad- han, but he became contumacious, declined any longer to recognize the authority of Damascus and openly adhered to the Nationalist Turks. His Arab successor in Raqqa, Maulud Pasha, was equally disloyal, and throughout the summer disturbances in both French and British areas were actively fomented by him and other disobedient adherents of the Damascus Government. More vigorous steps were taken by the Nationalist Turks of Angora. Not content with conducting a campaign of ex- termination against the Armenians in Cilicia where the French were not strong enough militarily to occupy the whole province in the face of the formidable Turkish forces operating against them and the Armenians, the Government of Angora invaded northern Syria itself. Aintab was attacked in strength on April i
1920. It was relieved by a French column with some difficulty on April 15-16, but, when the relieving troops were withdrawn on April 28, the siege was resumed on April 30. It was relieved a second time on May 22, and an armistice was concluded on May 29 by which the French evacuated the citadel and established themselves in a fresh position. They were again attacked by the Turks and relieved for a third time on Aug. n. This time the French were strong enough to attack in their turn, although un- able entirely to invest the Turks, who had occupied the citadel as part of their position. After long-drawn operations, during which the Turkish mines in one of the piers of the great bridge of the Bagdad railway over the Euphrates at Jerablus were exploded by lightning and two spans of the bridge wrecked, the French were successful, and Aintab was once more made safe on Feb. 10
1921. During this period its pop. is supposed to have decreased by some two-thirds to 25,000. Nor were the disturbances in the N. confined to the Aintab area, apart from the campaign in Cilitia. Nationalist Turks and Syrians at the beginning of Dec. raided as far S. as Jebele on the coast 14 m. S. of Latakia, and farther E. a force of Nationalist Turks established themselves near the newly fixed boundary between Syria and Mesopotamia and tried to stir up unrest among the desert tribes.
In the S. the existence of an independent state at Damascus with Nationalist aspirations to absorb all Syria and the Lebanon, and unwilling to admit French influence or recognize any French mandate, was likely to prove an uneasy neighbour the more so as the Emir Faisal had declined on two occasions (March 27 and May 8) to repair to Paris at the invitation of the Allies to explain the situation. The Emir maintained that it was only by remaining at Damascus that he could hope to restrain the more extreme Nationalists from launching a wholesale attack upon French territory. As soon, therefore, as Gen. Gouraud had an adequate force at his command with which to enforce the authority given to France as Mandatory for Syria on behalf of the League of Nations, he made ready to impose it upon Damascus, when in June 1920 the Emir Faisal was beset by difficulties. Himself one of the Ashraf, a son of the King of the Hejaz, he found it increasingly difficult to restrain the Nationalist Syrians, the pro-Turk panislamists and the Patriarchalist tribesmen who were traditionally hostile to any authority which sought to stand between them and their prey in the cultivated lands. In June the Cabinet of Riza Pasha fell, largely on the question of the relations between Syria and the Europeans particularly the French, and Hashim Bey Attassi took office. At that time
in the discussions of the budget in the French Chamber it appeared that France, while proposing to allot some 3,700,000 for the : expenses of the High Commissionership of Syria and some 440,000 for propaganda to be directed against the extremist doctrines of those opposed to her rule, was ready to grant a subvention of 800,000 to the Emir Faisal provided that he co- operated whole-heartedly in the execution of the Mandate. The Emir was, however, in no position to do so, owing to the intractability of the Nationalist leaders who threatened to depose or murder him if he ventured to abate in any way from the extreme i of their ambitions, wholly incompatible wi th any foreign Mandate. At the same time the economic situation of Syria was bad, and the taxes were extremely high for example, the camel tax in Syria was 3 (3 is. 6d.) per beast as against i rupee (is. 4d.) per beast in Mesopotamia, and the sheep tax was 36 P.T. (75.) against 8 annas (Sd.) and were, moreover, farmed, owing to the absence of the necessary fiscal machinery for ensuring official collection. Thus the Emir's Government was regarded with sus- picion by the Nationalists and those who were opposed to any accommodation with France, or indeed any European Power.
On July 14 1920 Gen. Gouraud informed the Emir that French authority was to be enforced and that he would assume control of the Syrian railways hitherto run by the Arab administration, parts of which had not been working since January. This in- timation was none too soon, as it was known that the Arab general, Rushdi Bey, in command of the 3rd Arab Div. and governor of Aleppo, who had formerly been in the Ottoman service, was in active communication with the Nationalist Turks of Angora for the purpose of arranging joint operations against the French. Almost at the same time Gen. Gouraud found it necessary to arrest nine members of the Administrative Council of the Lebanon, apparently for conspiring with Syrian Nationalists to make it impossible for France to exercise her Mandate.
The Emir Faisal was willing to comply with Gen. Gouraud's wishes, but the Syrian Nationalists, miscalculating their strength, opposed the advance of Gen. Goybct's column which was sent to occupy Damascus. They even attacked the Emir Faisal, delayed the final message of submission sent by the Emir and his Cabinet to Gen. Goybet, and by ill-judged hostilities com- pelled the French to defeat them smartly at Khan Meisehm on the road through the mountains N.W. of Damascus on July 24, and to enter that city next day as conquerors rather than as protecting allies, thus bringing about the downfall of the Emir, whom the French held responsible for the resistance of the Nationalists although it had been offered in defiance of his authority and policy. The Emir's last Cabinet fell with him, and the French, who inflicted a fine of 8500,000 (10,000,000 frs.) upon the country, caused a new administration to be formed under 'Ala ed Din er Rubi, while the Emir Faisal and his family withdrew from Damascus on July 28, going to Haifa, where he remained until Aug. 4, when he left for Europe.
The suppression of the Nationalists at Damascus did not immediately bring peace to the country, as the French were unable adequately to control the Hauran, and on Aug. 20 Bedouin raiders stopped a train at Khirbet el Ghazali on the Hcjaz railway and murdered the Syrian prime minister 'Ala ed Din er Rubi, Ata el Ayyubi, the Minister of the Interior, and 'Abdur- rahman Yusuf, President of the Council of State; for some time afterwards railway communication was hazardous in that area, and trains were generally protected by a guard of soldiers in armoured trucks at either end.
On Sept. i 1920 Beirut became an autonomous district of the Greater Lebanon (Grand Liban) , which was enlarged from its former extent under the Turks so as to embrace all Biqa' or the Coelesyria composed of the Turkish kazas of Hasbeya Rasheya, Biqa' and Baalbek (which, originally allotted to " O.E.T.A. West," were left to the administration of O.E.T.A. East by Gen. Allenby as having been largely liberated by Arab troops), and the coast territories between Palestine and the Nahr "Akkar; and next day the former Turkish sanjak of Latakia and the north- ern parts of that of Tripoli were formed into a new administrative area of Ala wiya { Terr itoire des Alaouites). In the N. the Turkish | ||||
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] | 2024-07-29T22:27:06+00:00 | The Battle of Hattin (also known as "The Horns of Hattin" because of a nearby extinct volcano of the same name) took place on Saturday, July 4, 1187, between the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and the forces of the Ayyubid dynasty. The Muslim armies under Saladin captured or killed the vast... | en | /skins-ucp/mw139/common/favicon.ico | Military Wiki | https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Battle_of_Hattin | Battle of HattinPart of the Crusades
Illustration of the Battle of the Horns of Hattin in a medieval manuscript
DateJuly 4, 1187LocationHittin, near Tiberias
Coordinates: Result Decisive Ayyubid victory
Belligerents Kingdom of Jerusalem
Knights Templar
Knights Hospitaller
Order of Saint Lazarus
Principality of Antioch AyyubidsCommanders and leaders Guy of Lusignan (POW)
Raymond III of Tripoli
Balian of Ibelin
Gerard de Rideford (POW)
Raynald of Châtillon (POW)† Saladin
Gokbori
Al-Muzaffar Umar[1]
Al-Adil I
Al-Afdal ibn Salah ad-Din[2]Strength
20,000 men[3][4]
15,000 infantry
1,200 knights[5]
3,000 light cavalry[6]
500 turcopoles[7]
30,000 men[4][8]
12,000 cavalry
Casualties and losses heavy likely light
The Battle of Hattin (also known as "The Horns of Hattin" because of a nearby extinct volcano of the same name) took place on Saturday, July 4, 1187, between the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and the forces of the Ayyubid dynasty.
The Muslim armies under Saladin captured or killed the vast majority of the Crusader forces, removing their capability to wage war.[9] As a direct result of the battle, Islamic forces once again became the eminent military power in the Holy Land, re-conquering Jerusalem and several other Crusader-held cities.[9] These Christian defeats prompted the Third Crusade, which began two years after the Battle of Hattin.
Location[]
The battle took place near Tiberias in present-day Israel. The battlefield, near the town of Hittin, had as its chief geographic feature a double hill (the "Horns of Hattin") beside a pass through the northern mountains between Tiberias and the road from Acre to the west. The Darb al-Hawarnah road, built by the Romans, served as the main east-west passage between the Jordan fords, the Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean coast.
Background[]
Guy of Lusignan became king of Jerusalem in 1186, in right of his wife Sibylla, after the death of Sibylla's son Baldwin V. The Kingdom of Jerusalem was at this time divided between the "court faction" of Guy, Sibylla, and relative newcomers to the kingdom such as Raynald of Châtillon, as well as Gerard of Ridefort and the Knights Templar; and the "nobles’ faction", led by Raymond III of Tripoli, who had been regent for the child-king Baldwin V and had opposed the succession of Guy. Disgusted, Raymond of Tripoli watched as his fellow poulain barons hastened to Jerusalem to make obeisance to King Guy and Queen Sibylla. The great lord of Tripoli rode in the opposite direction, up the Jordan River Valley to Tiberias.[10] The situation was so tense that there was almost open warfare between Raymond and Guy, who wanted to besiege Tiberias, a fortress held by Raymond through his wife Eschiva, Princess of Galilee. War was avoided through the mediation of Raymond's supporter Balian of Ibelin.
Meanwhile, the Muslim states surrounding the kingdom had been united during the 1170s and 1180s by Saladin. Saladin had been appointed vizier of Egypt in 1169 and soon came to rule the country as sultan. In 1174, he imposed his rule over Damascus; his authority extended to Aleppo by 1176 and Mosul by 1183. For the first time, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was encircled by Muslim territory united under one ruler. The crusaders defeated Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard in 1177, and in the early 1180s there was an uneasy truce between the two sides, which was broken by the raids of Raynald on Muslim caravans passing through his fief of Oultrejordain. Raynald also threatened to attack Mecca itself.
In April 1187, Raymond agreed a treaty with Saladin. As part of their agreement, Raymond allowed the sultan to send a reconnaissance force to Galilee. At the same time a group led by Balian of Ibelin on Guy's behalf was journeying through the area. Raymond advised Balian to remain in the castle of Afula until the Muslim forces had moved on, however his suggestion was ignored.[4] This embassy was defeated at the Battle of Cresson on May 1, by a small force under the command of Al-Afdal. Raymond, wracked with guilt, reconciled with Guy, who assembled the entire army of the kingdom and marched north to meet Saladin.
Siege of Tiberias[]
In late May Saladin assembled the largest army he had ever commanded, around some 30,000 men including about 12,000 regular cavalry. He inspected his forces at Tell-Ashtara before crossing the River Jordan on June 30. The opposing Crusader army amassed at Zippori; it consisted of around 20,000 men, including 1,200 knights from Jerusalem and Tripoli and 50 from Antioch. Though the army was smaller than Saladin's it was still larger than those usually mustered by the Crusaders.[4] After reconciling, Raymond and Guy met at Acre with the bulk of the crusader army. According to the claims of some European sources, aside from the knights there was a greater number of lighter cavalry, and perhaps 10,000 foot soldiers, supplemented by crossbowmen from the Italian merchant fleet, and a large number of mercenaries (including Turcopoles) hired with money donated to the kingdom by Henry II of England.[11] Also with the army was the relic of the True Cross,[4] carried by the Bishop of Acre, who was there in place of the ailing Patriarch Heraclius.
On July 2, Saladin, who wanted to lure Guy into moving his army away from the springs at Saffuriya, personally led a siege of Raymond's fortress of Tiberias while the main Muslim army remained at Kafr Sabt. The garrison at Tiberias tried to pay Saladin off, but he refused, later stating that "when the people realized they had an opponent who could not be tricked and would not be contented with tribute, they were afraid lest war might eat them up and they asked for quarter...but the servant gave the sword dominion over them." The fortress fell the same day. A tower was mined and, when it fell, Saladin's troops stormed the breach killing the opposing forces and taking prisoners.
Holding out, Raymond's wife Eschiva was besieged in the citadel. As the mining was begun on that structure, news was received by Saladin that Guy was moving the Frank army east. The Crusaders had taken the bait.
Guy's decision to leave the safety of his defenses was the result of a Crusader war council held the night of July 2. Though reports of what happened at this meeting are biased due to personal feuds among the Franks, it seems Raymond argued that a march from Acre to Tiberias was exactly what Saladin wanted while Sephoria was a strong position for the Crusaders to defend. Furthermore, Guy shouldn't worry about Tiberias, which Raymond held personally and was willing to give up for the safety of the kingdom. In response to this argument, and despite their reconciliation (internal court politics remaining strong), Raymond was accused of cowardice by Gerard and Raynald. The latter influenced Guy to attack immediately.
Guy thus ordered the army to march against Saladin at Tiberias, which is indeed just what Saladin had planned, for he had calculated that he could defeat the crusaders only in a field battle rather than by besieging their fortifications.
Saladin had also unexpectedly gained the alliance of the Druze community based in Sarahmul led by Jamal ad-Din Hajji, whose father Karama was an age old ally of Nur ad-Din Zangi.[12] The city of Sarahmul had been sacked by the crusaders on various occasions and according to Jamal ad-Din Hajji the crusaders even manipulated the Assassins to kill his three elder brothers.
The battle[]
The crusaders began their march from Sephoria on July 3. Guy would command the center, with Raymond in the vanguard and Balian, Raynald, and the military orders made up the rearguard. The crusaders were almost immediately under harassment from the Muslim skirmishers on horseback.
By noon on that day, the Frankish army had reached a spring at the village of Tur'an some six miles (10 km) from Sephoria. Here, according to Saladin, "The hawks of the Frankish infantry and the eagle of their cavalry hovered around the water."
It was still nine miles (14 km) to Tiberias. Therefore, with only a half day of marching time remaining, any attempt to leave this sure water source to seek that objective the same day, all while under the constant attack of Saladin's army, would be foolhardy. (In 1182 the Frankish army had only advanced 8 miles (13 km) in a full day in face of the enemy and in 1183 Guy had managed but six miles (10 km) in a similar situation, taking a full day.) But, as Saladin wrote, "Satan incited Guy to do what ran counter to his purpose." That is, for unknown reasons, Guy set out that very afternoon, marching his army forward, seeming to head for Tiberias.
When Saladin arrived from the taking of Tiberias, and after the Frankish army left Tur'an, the Muslims began their attack in earnest. Saladin sent the two wings of his army around the Frankish force and seized the spring at Tur'an, thus blocking the Frankish line of retreat. This maneuver would give Saladin's victory.
There was a major change in the Crusaders plan. Believing that the Crusaders could not fight its way across Saladin's front, Raymond persuaded Guy to veer to the left and head for the springs of Hattin only 6 miles (9.7 km) away. From there they could march down to Tiberias the following day.[13]
In the ensuing struggle, the Frankish rearguard was forced to a standstill by continuous attacks, thus halting the whole army on the arid plateau near the village of Meskana. The crusaders were thus forced to make camp surrounded by the Muslims. They now had no water nor any hope of receiving supplies or reinforcements. Guy hoped that his men could make a dash for the Spring of Hattin the following morning.[14]
While the Crusaders gasped with thirst, the Muslim army had a caravan of camels carrying goatskins of water up from Lake Tiberias (now known as the Sea of Galilee).[15]
Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad summarizes the situation of the Frankish army:
They were closely beset as in a noose, while still marching on as though being driven to death that they could see before them, convinced of their doom and destruction and themselves aware that the following day they would be visiting their graves.
On the morning of July 4, the crusaders were blinded by smoke from fires that Saladin's forces had set to add to the Frankish army's misery, through which the Muslim cavalry particularly the divisions commanded by Gokbori pelted them with 400 loads of arrows that had been brought up during the night. Gerard and Raynald advised Guy to form battle lines and attack, which was done by Guy's brother Amalric. Raymond led the first division with Raymond of Antioch, the son of Bohemund III of Antioch, while Balian and Joscelin III of Edessa formed the rearguard. While this was being arranged, five of Raymond's knights defected to Saladin and told them of the dire situation in the crusader camp.
Thirsty and demoralized, the crusaders broke camp and changed direction for the springs of Hattin, but their ragged approach was attacked by Saladin's army which blocked the route forward and any possible retreat. Count Raymond launched two charges in an attempt to break through to the water supply at the Lake Tiberias. The second of these saw him cut off from the main army and forced to retreat.
After Raymond escaped, Guy's position was now even more desperate. Most of the crusader infantry had effectively deserted by moving on to the Horns of Hattin to escape the storm of destruction. Guy attempted to pitch the tents again to block the Muslim cavalry, but without infantry protection the knights' horses were cut down by Muslim archers and the cavalry was forced to fight on foot. Then they too retreated to the Horns.
Now the crusaders were surrounded and, despite three desperate charges on Saladin's position, were eventually defeated. An eyewitness account of this is given by Saladin's 17-year-old son, al-Afdal. It is quoted by Muslim chronicler Ibn al-Athir:
When the king of the Franks [Guy] was on the hill with that band, they made a formidable charge against the Muslims facing them, so that they drove them back to my father [Saladin]. I looked towards him and he was overcome by grief and his complexion pale. He took hold of his beard and advanced, crying out "Give the lie to the Devil!" The Muslims rallied, returned to the fight and climbed the hill. When I saw that the Franks withdrew, pursued by the Muslims, I shouted for joy, "We have beaten them!" But the Franks rallied and charged again like the first time and drove the Muslims back to my father. He acted as he had done on the first occasion and the Muslims turned upon the Franks and drove them back to the hill. I again shouted, "We have beaten them!" but my father rounded on me and said, "Be quiet! We have not beaten them until that tent [Guy's] falls." As he was speaking to me, the tent fell. The sultan dismounted, prostrated himself in thanks to God Almighty and wept for joy.[16]
Aftermath[]
The Muslim forces had captured the royal tent of King Guy, as well as the True Cross after the Bishop of Acre was killed in the fighting. Prisoners included Guy, his brother Amalric II, Raynald de Chatillon, William V of Montferrat, Gerard de Ridefort, Humphrey IV of Toron, Hugh of Jabala, Plivain of Botron, Hugh of Gibelet, and many others. Perhaps only as few as 3,000 Christians escaped the defeat. The anonymous text De Expugnatione Terrae Sanctae per Saladinum Libellus claims that Raymond, Joscelin, Balian, and Reginald of Sidon fled the field in the middle of the battle, trampling "the Christians, the Turks, and the Cross" in the process, but this is not corroborated by other accounts and reflects the author's hostility to the Poleins.
The exhausted captives were brought to Saladin's tent, where Guy was given a goblet of iced water as a sign of Saladin's generosity. When Guy passed the goblet to his fellow captive Raynald, Saladin allowed the old man (Raynald was about 60) to drink but shortly afterwards said that he had not offered water to Raynald and thus was not bound by the Muslim rules of hospitality. When Saladin accused Raynald of being an oath breaker, Raynald replied "kings have always acted thus. I did nothing more." Saladin then executed Raynald himself, beheading him with his sword. Guy fell to his knees at the sight of Raynald's corpse but Saladin bade him to rise, saying, "It is not the wont of kings, to kill kings; but that man had transgressed all bounds, and therefore did I treat him thus. This man was only killed because of his maleficence and perfidy."
The True Cross was fixed upside down on a lance and sent to Damascus. Several of Saladin's men now left the army, taking Frankish prisoners with them as slaves.
On Sunday, July 5, Saladin traveled the six miles (10 km) to Tiberias and, there, Countess Eschiva surrendered the citadel of the fortress. She was allowed to leave for Tripoli with all her family, followers, and possessions. Raymond of Tripoli, having escaped the battle, died of pleurisy later in 1187.
The executions (one of only two executions of prisoners ordered by Saladin) were by beheading. In an act of solidarity, many of the captured crusaders falsely claimed to be Templar knights, forcing Saladin's men to behead them as well.[citation needed] Saint Nicasius, a Knight Hospitaller venerated as a Christian martyr, is said to have been one of the victims.[17]
"Saladin ordered that they should be beheaded, choosing to have them dead rather than in prison. With him was a whole band of scholars and sufis and a certain number of devout men and ascetics, each begged to be allowed to kill one of them, and drew his sword and rolled back his sleeve. Saladin, his face joyful, was sitting on his dais, the unbelievers showed black despair" – Imad ed-Din, Saladin's Secretary [18]
Guy was taken to Damascus as a prisoner and the others were eventually ransomed.
In fielding an army of 20,000 men, the Crusaders states had reduced the garrisons of their castles and fortified settlements. The heavy defeat at Hattin meant there was little reserve with which to defend against Saladin's forces.[19] The importance of the defeat is demonstrated by the fact that in its aftermath a host of settlements and fortifications were captured by Saladin's forces.[20] By mid-September, Saladin had taken Acre, Nablus, Jaffa, Toron, Sidon, Beirut, and Ascalon. Tyre was saved by the fortuitous arrival of Conrad of Montferrat. Jerusalem was defended by Queen Sibylla, Patriarch Heraclius, and Balian, who subsequently negotiated its surrender to Saladin on October 2 (see Siege of Jerusalem).
According to the chronicler Ernoul, news of the defeat caused Pope Urban III to die of shock.
News of the disastrous defeat at Hattin was brought to Europe by Joscius, Archbishop of Tyre, as well as other pilgrims and travelers. Plans were immediately made for a new crusade; Pope Gregory VIII issued the bull Audita tremendi, and in England and France the Saladin tithe was enacted to fund expenses.
The subsequent Third Crusade, however, did not get underway until 1189, being made up of three separate contingents led by Philip Augustus, Richard Lionheart, and Frederick Barbarossa.
Panorama[]
References[]
Notes
Bibliography
Further reading[]
[] | ||
3581 | dbpedia | 1 | 72 | https://www.solistravel.am/en/History_Armenia/ | en | History of Armenia Ararat Travel | [
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Armenia has a history of thousands of years. However during their history the Armenians have had various tragic pages. The country has been under the sway of such empires, as Roman, Byzantine, Persian, Seljuk Turks, etc. The country was divided into two parts in 387. And these parts have always been under different empires’ rule.
In modern historical period, the eastern part of Armenia was under the rule of Persia, later, Russian Empire. The Western part was under the sway of Byzantium, later, Ottoman Empire.
Nowadays, the territory of the Western Armenia is in the territory of the modern Turkey. This territory is full of Armenian relics, such as churches, fortresses, other buildings and architectural complexes.
In the beginning of the 19th century, Eastern Armenia was ceded by the Persians to the Russian Empire.
This part of Armenia declared independence in 1918 but the sovereignty (the First Republic of Armenia) lasted only two years. The Red Army of the Soviets conquered the country in 1920.
Being under the Soviet rule for 70 years, Armenia restored its independence in 1991. Today’s Armenian state is considered the Third Republic of Armenia.
Urartu Kingdom
2000-1000 B.C. The Indo-European people start to emerge in Europe and Asia and begin to settle down in the Armenian Highland.
860 B.C. The Urartu Kingdom is mentioned for the first time in the scripts of Assurbanipal, the mighty Assyrian king. The center of the Urartu Kingdom laid by the shores of Lake Van and developed to an impressive neighbor for Assyria.
9th c. B.C. The original Armenian tribes start to settle down in the Armenian Highland and establish themselves. According to the legend the leader of the Armenians was a man by the name Hayk, whom the Armenians regard as their tribunal father and therefore call themselves "hay" (hay), i.e. the sons of Hayk, 60/22 and their country Hayastan (the country of Hayk). Another more scientific explanation about the naming of the Armenian people is based on the original tribes of which the present Armenians consist of. The local people who lived in the area at the time of the arrival of the Indo-European tribes were called the Arme-Shupria people (the people of king Arame). The invading Indo-Europeans called themselves the Hayatsa people and came in time to dominate the Armenian highland and assimilate the Arme-Shuprias. Based on the names of these two people, the Armenians called themselves by the name of the dominant tribunal name, i.e. "hay" and the country Hayastan, while the neighbours called them by their old name: Armenian and their country Armenia. Another theory is simply suggesting that the name Armenian is the remaining of "Arian men", who the natives called the newly arrived Indo-Europeans.
782 B.C. The Urartu king, Argishti I, builds the city of Erebouni (present-day Yerevan) and proclaim it as his capital.
Armenia becomes a country
7th c. B.C. The Armenian prince, Parouyr, allies himself with the Medes and the Chaldeans in the war against Assyria. After the conquest of the Assyrian capital, Nineveh, the victors appoint him as the Armenian king.
521 B.C. Armenia is mentioned officially for the first time, as a country, in cuneiform belonging to the Persian king, Darius I. Armenia is annexed to Persia.
331 B.C. Alexander the Great attacks Persia and defeats Darius III. However, Armenia is never conquered by the Macedonian army. This results in Armenia freeing itself from Persia and, more or less, regains its independence.
322 B.C. The first Armenian Kingdom is founded by King Yervand I.
215 B.C. After almost an entire century of independence, Armenia loses its sovereignty to the Seleucids for a short period of time.
The Artashisian Dynasty, the First Royal Dynasty of Armenia (190 B.C. - 12 B.C.)
190 B.C. King Artashes I proclaims himself as king of Armenia and becomes the founder of the first Armenian royal dynasty, the Artashisian.
105 B.C. Armenia loses the ongoing war against the Persians and King Artavazd II, in accordance to the customs of those days, to surrender his son, Tigran, to the enemy. Tigran grows up at the Persian royal court, which characterized his way of thinking and played a major role during his future ruling.
95 B.C. King Artavazd II dies and is succeeded by his son, Tigran II, also known as Tigran the Great. During the reign of Tigran II, Armenia reaches its height in history and becomes a mighty power. The Roman general Lucullus came to be the only real opponent of Tigran the Great.
Tigran the Great creates Great Armenia
70 B.C. The Armenia of Tigran II reaches its height. His empire stretches from the Caspian Sea in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in south-west and Black Sea in the north-west.
69 B.C. A war breaks out between Rome and Armenia. Lucullus engages in his first war against Tigran II.
68 B.C. Lucullus starts his second war against Armenia.
67 B.C. Pompey's war against Armenia.
56 B.C. Tigran the Great dies in 56 B.C. and is succeeded by his son Artavazd III.
53 B.C. Marcus Antonius attacks Armenia. In collusion with Cleopatra he lures the Armenian king into a trap and murders him.
34 B.C. Alexander, son of Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra, is put on the Armenian throne and rules the country during three years under the protection of the Roman army.
31 B.C. Artashes II, son of the murdered King Artavazd III, comes to power and allies himself with the Persian king Farhad.
20 B.C. The Roman emperor, Augustus, removes Artashes II from the Armenian throne and replaces him with his brother, Tigran III.
12 B.C. Tigran IV becomes king of Armenia. He is the last king in the Artashesian dynasty and dies in 2 B.C.
2 B.C. Caius Caesar sends his stepson, Ariobarzane, as king of Armenia.
11 A.D. Ariobarzane I is succeeded by his son Artavazd V.
17 A.D. Germanicus comes to Armenia in order to crown King Artashes III.
Arshakounian Dynasty Arshakounian, the Second Armenian Royal Dynasty (53 A.D. - 423)
53 A.D. Tirdat I takes the Armenian throne and founds the Armenian royal dynasty of Arshakouni.
62 A.D. Tirdat I is crowned by Emperor Nero in Rome and proclaimed as king of Armenia.
228 The Sasanids, who since a while back have taken the power in Persia, attack Armenia but are driven back.
242 The Sasanids sign a peace treaty with Rome and concentrate their forces entirely against Armenia. King Khosrov I falls victim for a act of treason and is murdered by the Sasanids.
252 King Khosrov I's son, who has been saved from the Sasanid mass murder of the royal family and grown up abroad, returns to Armenia and is announced as King Tirdat III.
288 King Tirdat III is baptised by Grigor Lousavoritch (Illuminator) and accepts Christianity.
Armenia: The First Christian Nation in the World, 301
301 Armenia becomes the first official Christian state in the world, when King Tirdat III proclaims Christianity as the official state religion of Armenia.
303 The construction of the cathedral and the Holy Sea of Etchmiadzin (Armenian for "the confinement place of God's only-begotten son") begins and is finished in year 305.
330 King Tirdat III dies and Armenia enters one of the most difficult periods in its history. King Khosrov II succeeds Tirdat III on the Armenian throne.
340 Khosrov II's son, Tiran, comes to power. During his reign, Armenia is weakened further as a direct result of the conflict between the court and the church.
363 Byzantine sings a treaty with Persia, according to which the Byzantine Empire gives large and strategic areas in Armenia to the Persians and, furthermore, abandons Armenia alone against the Sasanid Persia. Shapour attacks Armenia and a bloody war breaks out.
369 King Pap is crowned as king of Armenia and leads the country to victory against the Persians and drives them out.
374 King Pap falls victim for a staged Byzantine conspiracy and is murdered during a feast.
378 King Vagharshak is crowned as king of Armenia. During the coming years, Armenia is divided in two camps: one supported by Byzantine and another supported by the Sasanids.
386 King Khosrov III is crowned as king. Byzantine annexes the western parts of Armenia (Armenia Minor) to the East-Roman Empire.
392 Armenia regains its might by the coronation of King Vramshapouh in 392.
Mesrop Mashtots invents the Armenian alphabet
405 Mesrop Mashtots, on orders from King Vramshapouh and Catholicos Sahak I, invents the Armenian alphabet.
416 Shapour, son of the Sasanid king Yezdgerd I, is put on the Armenian throne.
423 King Artashes retakes the Armenian throne from the Persians. With his death in 428, the second Armenian royal dynasty of Arshakounian comes to its end. Thereby, this branch of the Persian Arsacid dynasty survives two centuries longer than its main branch in Persia.
428 Armenia in annexed to Persia.
449 The Sasanid king, Yezdgerd II, declares an order according to which all Christians in his realm must convert to Mazdeism. This ignites the fuse of the future war against Armenia.
451 On the spring of this year, the Persian army invades Armenia since the Armenians have refused to renounce Christianity and thrown out the emissaries of Yezdgerd. The battle of Avarayr, on May 26, goes to history since a small Armenian army, led by Vartan Mamikonian, loses the battle but succeeds to convince Yezdgerd to abandon his plans for converting the Armenians.
489 The Sasanid king appoints Vahan Mamikonian, Vartan Mamikonian's brother, to the general governor of Armenia and recognizes Armenia's right to self-ruling and religion freedom.
491 The Armenian Church remains faithful to its mono-physical faith and separates itself from the churches in Rome and Byzantine.
7th c. The emergence of Islam alters the entire Middle East and also affect Armenia's future significantly.
639 The Arabs start their war against Armenia but are successfully driven back by the Armenians during 640 and 642.
645 The Arabs appoint their own general governor for Armenia and the country remains under their rule until 859.
697 Armenians rebel against the Arab rule and the Armenian forces are led by Prince Smbat Bagratouni.
774 Armenians rebel once more, this time led by Prince Moushegh Mamikonian.
850 The house of Bagratouni possesses almost the entire Armenia, except the provinces of Vaspourakan and Zangezour. Thereby, Armenia had regained one united power in the country.
The Bagratouni Dynasty, the Third Armenian Royal Dynasty (862- 1045)
862 Prince Ashot Bagratouni is acknowledged by the Caliphate and Byzantine as king of Armenia and thereby the third Armenian royal dynasty, the Bagratouni, is founded.
952 King Ashot III comes to power. During his reign, the capital is moved from Dvin to Ani, the city of the 1001 churches, on the shores of Arpa River. The city flourishes and become the heart and pride of the Bagratouni Armenia.
11th c. The first Seljuk Turks attack Armenia, but are driven back.
1042 King Smbat III dies and the Byzantine Emperor seizes the opportunity and attacks Armenia from west while the country is at war against attacking Turks from the east. Gagik II (also called Khatchik), nephew of Smbat III, at an age of 14 is crowned as king of Armenia. He becomes the last Bagratouni king.
1045 Byzantine invades Armenia and the country is turned into a province within the East-Roman Empire. King Gagik II is put in jail. The only parts which succeed to maintain their independence are the provinces of Kars and Lori, which remain independent in another 100 years.
1048 Seljuk Turks attack Armenia once more, came all the way to the province of Karin (present-day Yerevan) and massacre the entire population of Arzen (present-day Erzurum).
1054 Seljuk Turks attack Armenia but the fortresses of Ani and Manazkert manage to withstand their assault.
1064 The capital of Ani falls. The once magnificent capital of the Bagratouni, the city of 1001 churches, is plundered and levelled with the ground and the population is slaughtered without exemption.
1071 The decisive battle at Manazkert takes place between Byzantine and the Seljuk Turks, and in the absence of the Armenians who, until the moment Byzantine forced them to fight in two different fronts, managed to withstand the waves of Turkish assaults in more than 100 years, the Byzantine army suffers a crushing defeat and the entire Asia Minor stands wide open for the Turkish invasion, which in time leads to the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
The Great Emigration to Cilicia
1080 Prince Rouben, an Armenian prince of Bagratouni origin, who together with a number of other Armenian princes have emigrated from Armenia to Cilicia, at the Mediterranean cost, establishes a new principality in the mountainous part of Cilicia. This becomes the foundation for the fourth Armenian royal dynasty, the Roubinian dynasty, and the epos of New Armenia.
Roubinian Dynasty, the Fourth Armenian Royal Dynasty (1187 - 1375)
1187 Levon II, known as the Magnificent, comes to power. During his reign the independence of New Armenia is proclaimed and the country transforms to a kingdom, the fourth in the Armenian history, although this time the kingdom is not situated on the Armenian Highland.
1199 On June 6, Levon II is crowned by Cardinal Conrad de Wittelsbach from Mayence, the representative of Pope Celestin II and the emperor, in the church of Christ's Holy Wisdom in the city of Tars, in presence of 15 bishops and 39 Armenian princes and a group of Latin noblemen, presented the royal crown to Levon II and Archbishop Grigor VI crowned Levon II as the new ruler and heir to the Roman Empire in the East.
1220 Levon II dies and since he had no sons, the throne passes to his daughter, Isabelle. But the country is ruled by Grand Baron Constantine, who was one of Levon II's old commanders.
1270 Levon III succeeds his father on the throne. His first mission is to strike down a rebellion among discontent Armenian princes and then a war against the sultan of Egypt.
1291 By this time, a while longer than two hundred years after the first crusaders landed on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, there was only one Christian country left in the region, and that was New Armenia which had been left to its own fate. Despite this the country was able to continue its resistance for another 100 years.
1342 The Armenian throne goes to the Lusignan family who got its right to the Armenian throne by the marriage between Isabelle II and Amoy de Tyr, brother of Cypress' former king Henry II. The marriage resulted in two sons, Jean and Guy, who both served at t the Byzantine court. After the death of Levon V, Jean returns to Armenia and becomes the crown prince of the country for a short period of time. The second brother, Guy, arrives to Armenia shortly after and is crowned as the new king.
1344 The new king, Guy, who is Catholic, pushes forward the issue of uniting the Catholic and the Armenian churches, which once more rouses strong reaction among the Armenian people who revolt and kill Guy. He is succeeded by Constantine IV, son of the great Armenian commander, Baudouin.
1363 Constantine V, also a Catholic, comes to power, but is murdered by the people where after the country, under a short period, is ruled by his widower, Marie de Gorigos.
1374 Levon VI Lusignan, nephew to Guy and grandson of Isabelle, H?houm II's sister comes to power. He will become the last Armenian king.
1375 The Egyptian sultan attacks Armenia in order to eliminate the last Christian stronghold in the region, and after a short resistance the fortress of Sis surrenders, which also marks the end of the Kingdom of New Armenia. Levon VI is taken as prisoner to Cairo where he refuses to regain his throne and country in exchange for converting to Islam.
1382 After intervention of the Castilian king, Levon VI is set free and travels to Rome, then Spain and finally to France. In Paris he lives at the court of Charles II, until his death in 1393, after which he is buried in the St Dennis Cathedral, among other French royalties.
Armenia is transformed into a stage for plundering and war by the Turkish people
1400 The armies of Mongol Timur Khan sweep over Middle East and into Asia Minor and Armenia and bring death and destruction. In the city of Isfahan (Persia) alone Timur raises a pyramid consisting of 70,000 skulls from the murdered city inhabitants.
1402 Timur defeats the Ottoman sultan Bayazid in the battle at Angora and conquers the cities of Izmir, Brousse and Nic? but doesn't manage to cross the Dardanelles in order to attack Byzantine. He returns to Central Asia, but dies on the road of illness in 1045.
1453 On May 29 Sultan Mehmet II attacks Constantinople with an army of 200,000 men and the Byzantine emperor Constantine XI, known as Drogasus, and his small army of 10,000 men who had been abandoned by other western powers, could only put up a heroic resistance and at least defend their honour. The city falls and with it the East-Roman Empire ceases to exist.
1514 Sultan Selim I, known as the Cruel, attacks Persia, defeats Ismail Shah's army and conquests the major part of Armenia in 1516. Hence, it is not until the beginning of the 16th century that the Ottoman Turks gain control over Armenia.
1585 The Ottoman Turks have gained control over entire Armenia and even Georgia and Persian Azerbaijan.
1620 After a major war between Persia (led by Shah Abbas), and the Ottoman Empire, a peace treaty is signed according to which the latter keeps the major part of Armenia, while the important parts of Yerevan, Nakhichevan and Karabakh are given to Persia. During this war Shah Abbas forces more than 150,000 Armenians from the border city of Joulfa (in Nakhichevan) to abandon their homes and moves them to outer skirts of the Persian capital, Isfahan. The new city is named New Joulfa.
18th century Armenia is transformed to a constant war scene between Persia and the Ottoman Empire and is devastated. Europe re-discovers Armenia and the country and its people start to be mentioned in western books and travel stories.
Russia conquers East Armenia
1827 The Russian army, led by Paskievitch, occupies the city of Etchmiadzin and besieges Yerevan. Then he marched towards Nakhichevan and took the province in June. In August the Persians arrived, led by Price Abbas Mirza, to the plains of Yerevan in order to attempt forcing the Russians to end their siege, but were defeated in a battle near the city of Astarah. Finally, on October 2, the garrison of Yerevan, consisting of 4,000 men and 50 canons, surrendered.
1828 After the fall of Yerevan Paskievitch continued towards Tabriz and was preparing to continue all the way to Tehran. But the Persian Shah agreed to sign the Turkmentchai Treaty (February 1828). According to this treaty, the Persians regained the provinces of Yerevan and Nakhichevan from Russia and paid almost 2,000,000 robles in war indemnity.
The Persecutions of Armenians in West Armenia Starts to escalate
1877 During the Russian-Ottoman war of 1877-1878, Armenia was once more transformed to the scene of a number of horrible inhuman evil deeds which the irregular groups within the Turkish Army committed against the Armenian population. And it was in this way that the majority of the Armenians in Bayazid, Vehiadin and Alashkert were murdered. 7/378 (in the city of Bayazid alone, 24,000 Armenians were murdered, while the Armenian populations in Kars, Basen and Van suffered heavy casualties).
1878 Russia defeats the Ottoman Empire and a peace treaty is signed between the two countries in San Stefano. This treaty resulted in the independence of Bulgaria, which in those days also included Macedonia. And as far as it concerns the Asian part of the Ottoman Empire, according to the treaty, Russia received the provinces of Kars, Ardahan, Batum and Bayazid. In return Russia would retreat its troops from Erzurum, but on the insistence from the Armenians the paragraph 16 was added which would result in the reforms within the Armenian provinces. Paragraph 16 stated the following: "Since the evacuation of Armenia, which the Russian soldiers occupy and must be returned to the Ottoman Empire, can create conflicts in its provinces and create difficulties which can damage the relations between the two countries, the Sublime Port assures the immediate creation of administrative self-governments in these Armenian provinces and transfer the rule to them and ensure the safety of their lives and properties against the Kurds and the Cherkeses."
1878 On June 14 a secret treaty is signed between Great Britain and the Ottoman Empire, in Cypress, a treaty according to which England gave its word to force Russia to pull out from the provinces of West Armenia which they occupied before the implementation of the promised reforms. In return, according to the same treaty, the sultan promised to "implement necessary reforms for the improvement of the administrative rule and the protection of the Christian inhabitants and other minorities under the rule of the Sublime Port, measures which the two governments (British and Ottoman) later would put a stop to?
1878 When the Berlin Treaty, after a month of discussions, was signed on July 13, 1878, the most important alteration which had been inserted in the San Stefano Treaty, from Armenian point of view, were the following: First of all Russia must content itself with Batum, Ardahan and Kars and give up Bayazid and Alashkert. 24/383 Moreover, the paragraph 16 in the San Stefano Treaty, about the implementation of the reforms in the Armenian populated provinces was changed to an extreme vague and empty formulation
1881 Tsar Alexander III is crowned as the new Russian ruler and begins to drive an aggressive policy towards non-Russian people in the empire and converting all Christians to the Russian Orthodox faith. This policy was carried out towards all the non-Russian people, but was especially concentrated towards the Finns, the Protestant Baltic peoples, the Catholic Poles and the Gregorian Armenians, i.e. the non-pure Orthodox Christians
1885 The first Armenian movement was founded in Europe. It was necessary to include two simple and clear concepts in the Armenian masses within the Ottoman Empire: nation and freedom.
1890 On February 2, the Armenian patriarch in Constantinople handed over a letter to the Sublime Port in which he had complained about the indifference and the silence of the Ottoman military towards the attacks and the assaults which took place in the Armenian provinces.
1890 In June 1890 there was a bloodbath in Erzurum. The Ottoman military had, on account of a groundless report and lies, intruded the Armenian church in Erzurum in order to search for hidden weapons. The Armenians, infuriated by this desecration, under the leadership of one of their most famous figures, Harutyun Pasdermadjian, tried to defend the church but the Turkish military executed them on the spot.
1892 The following goal was declared during the first party convention of Dashnaktsoutyoun: "Political and economic freedom to West Armenia".
1893 The Turkish attempts for crushing and annihilating the activities of the Armenian Hntchak party, ended with the events in Mersivan, where they burned down the Armenian collage and arrested and sentenced several Armenians to the death, events which aroused the wrath and the hatred of the Anglo-Saxon world and lead to the direct intervention of the officials of the Great Britain.
1893 The prelude to the mass murders during 1894-1896 began with the events in Sasoun. The Armenians in this mountainous region suffered especially more from the Kurdish assaults and crimes. Since the creation of the Homayoun lackeys, the Kurds had been armed to the teeth. Besides the taxes which the Armenians must pay to the government, they were also forced to pay illegal fees and taxes to the Kurdish clan leaders.
The Armenian Massacres, 1894-1896, the Prelude of the Genocide in 1915
1894 The Armenians in Sasoun refused to subject themselves to this oppression, i.e. to pay illegal taxes and fees to the Kurds who were about to ruin them. However, they continued to pay their taxes to the collectors of the Ottoman government. The Kurds who had been angered by this action attacked the Armenians of Sasoun, but these courageous mountaineers hit them back. Then the Kurds called for help from the Turkish government and the Turks immediately sent an armed force to the area. These soldiers, who were led by General Zeki Pasha, joined the Kurds, occupied Sasoun and started a horrible mass slaughter (August 1894). This mass murder, which was the first link in a long chain of crimes and oppression which was about to continue from 1894 to 1922, was perhaps the most terrifying one in regard to how it was carried out compared with all other mass murders which happened after it, since 3 500 out of 12,000 Armenians in Sasoun were murdered.
1895 In September, the Armenians in Constantinople arranged a demonstration led by the Hntchak party, which ended in a bloodbath. In the wakes of this event, other large massacres took place, from September and all the way to December 1895. Large scale massacres took also place in Trabizond, Bayberout, Erzurum, Erzinjan, Bitlis 186/412, Diyarbakir, Kharpout, Arabkir, Malatya, Sivas, Mardin, Aintab, Marash and Caesarea. These massacres reached their peak in Ourfa, where 3,000 Armenians were murdered during the first week of the new year, of whom the majority were women and children who had taken cover in the city church. These were burned alive in the church.
1896 The massacres start to decline since the major power shave started to realise the magnitude of the events in the distant Armenian provinces, but new massacres continue to take place in Moush and Kilis Vajin. The sum of the victims for the massacres in 1894, 1895 and 1896 have been estimated to around 150,000 people and this figure is the sum of 100,000-110,000 murdered plus another tens of thousands who lost their lives during the harsh winter in Armenia since their homes had been burned to the ground and they lacked food and heating, as well as children who had become orphans when their mother and father had fallen victims for the massacres. To this figure one must add those who had been forced to convert to Islam (the alternative was the death), the number of who according to the French ambassador amounted to 40,000 persons.
1896 To this figure one must add those who had been forced to convert to Islam (the alternative was the death), the number of who according to the French ambassador amounted to 40,000 persons. On the same day, the revolutionaries sent a letter to the European major powers, in which they wrote the following: "We are now in the Bank Ottoman building and will not evacuate it before the sultan promises to attend to our demands and hand over the solution of the Armenian Question to an international judge. Otherwise, on the third day, we will blow up us and the bank."
1897 The new Tsar Regime began to implement its anti-Armenian policy in Trans-Caucasus by closing 300 Armenian schools in East Armenia and hundred other schools in the rest of Transcaucasia. Other Armenian institutions such as libraries were closed, Armenian newspapers were confiscated and the aid organizations were harassed. At the same time, a real spy organization was established around the Armenian Church and its priests. On order from the Russian government the Russian papers began to incite the public against Armenians, Finns, Jews and Poles 38/458 and in the schools of Caucasus they started to expel the Armenian students.
1903 In June, 1903, when Nicholas II was sick, Plehve used the opportunity and issued on his own an order in the name of the tsar, according to which all the properties of the Armenian Church was being confiscated and handed over to the Russian state treasury.
The Young Turks Seize Power in Turkey
1908 The Young Turks, in June, with the assistance of the Turkish army in Macedonia, overthrow the regime of Abdul Hamid, the Armenian revolutionaries were right by their side and participated actively to such a degree that the Young Turks officially acknowledged the importance of the Armenian assistance. As a consequence of the 1908 revolution, the sultan was forced to establish the parliamentary rule from 1876, a liberal monarchy which had been proclaimed in the beginning of the Russian-Ottoman war in 1876-1877, but which had remained on the paper. This way, the Ottoman Empire transformed to a parliamentary monarchy in which the rights of the individuals and freedom were guaranteed.
1909 In April 1909 Sultan Abdul Hamid, with the assistance of loyal persons, attempted to stage a coup against the revolutionaries, but the Young Turks, yet again by the support from the Turkish army in Macedonia, managed to retake the capital and force the person who Gladstone called the "great murderer", i.e. Sultan Abdul Hamid II, to abdicate. Even in this occasion the Armenians proved to be among the most loyal supporters of the new regime and it was thanks to their assistance and sacrifices that a number of Young Turk leaders escaped a certain death during the first days of the coup which seemed to end in the victory of the coup makers.
1909 A new massacre of the Armenians started in the Armenian provinces and especially in Cilicia. It is still uncertain who was behind these massacres which cost the lives of 15,000 Armenians, and we don't know whether this was the last act of vengeance of the fallen regime or the first measure of the new one. One of the best experts on eastern questions, Viktor Berard, claims firmly that the cooperation between some of the people in the Progress and Development in these events can be proved with certainty.
1912 Turkey, which because of the Balkan War had lost the major part of its European conquests, not only refused to understand that the strength of an empire lies in the satisfaction of its subjects and their freedom, but even forced itself towards a policy which pursued the plan about compulsory homogenization of the non-Turkish peoples in the empire. This policy was particularly intensified against the Arabs and the Armenians. A new oppressive and assault-regime, which strongly reminded about the overthrown regime of Sultan Abdul Hamid, was implemented in West Armenia and the Turkish officials began once more to use the nomadic Kurd tribes for plundering and confiscation of the Armenian farmlands and in order to drive the Armenians away from their homes.
1913 The major powers force Turkey to implement the reforms stated in Berlin Treaty's paragraph 61. Only Germany, which wished to expand the existence of the Ottoman Empire, in order to itself take over the country someday, opposed entirely any plan regarding the implementation of reforms in West Armenia. The Turkish secret diplomatic efforts for implanting disagreement and division among the members of the "Triple Alliance", was revealed by the English intelligence service and ended in the failure in Anatolia.
1914 By the request of Russia which also was supported by England and France, there was a reform planed signed on February 8, 1914. 11/471 According to this plan they would appoint two international supervisors from neutral countries, who would monitor the administration and the ruling in the Armenian provinces of the Ottoman Empire. This reform plan also guaranteed that the Armenians, in relation to their numbers in each province, would contribute with a number of Armenian advisors, officials and polices to the local governments.
1914 But just as the two observers from the neutral countries, namely Westeneck from Netherlands and Hoff from Norway, had been appointed and the latter had just arrived at his office in the city of Van (June 1914), the sparks of the First World War were ignited. Chateaubriand writes: "During the history there are events which are as mockeries against the human fate."
1914 The Turkish leaders, after the losses in west, started to turn their gaze towards east and plan a union of all Turkish people which would result in a united empire which stretches from the Bosporus to Central Asia. However, there was one more obvious obstacle. Even if they managed to shatter Russia, the Christian non-Turkish Armenians were an obvious hinder on the path of the realization of this dream since they, with their geographical situation, separated the Ottoman Turks from the rest of their Tartar cousins by the Caspian Sea in the Russian Empire, and thereby all other Turanian peoples who are more or less neighbors with each other in a long chain which stretches all the way to Mongolia. The leaders of Union and Progress first attempted to ensure themselves of the cooperation of the Armenians and asked them to start an armed revolt in East Armenia and Transcaucasia and in return they were promised self-governance for East Armenia and the neighboring areas in West Armenia after the war. The leadership of the Dashnak party rejected this offer during its congress in August 1914, which was held in Erzurum and replied that, at an eventual war between Turkey and Russia, the Armenians are obliged to fight for their respective land. Exactly as Winston Churchill reminds: the Armenians preferred the war, with brother-killings in two fronts, to the suggestion of the Turks about treason against the Russians."
The First World War
1914 As Turkey stood beside Germany (October 1914) to participate in the war, they decided to use this occasion and get rid of the Armenians once and for all. Besides, just after the end of August, Turkey expelled the Norwegian observer, Hoff, in an extremely violent and threatening manner and had in this way torn the treaty from February 8, 1914 and emptied West Armenia of the presence of all the representatives of the western major powers and eventual witnesses to what was about to happen.
Armenian Genocide 1915
1915 On the evening of April 24, 1915, which is now remembered by Armenia and around the world as the remembrance day of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. At the same time they began to arrest and execute Armenian officers and soldiers who, with loyalty, were serving on the Caucasus front. Thousands of them had already sacrificed their lives for Turkey during the battles in Basen and Sarighamish.
1915 The annihilation of the Armenians civil population was implemented as an outright extermination according to a well-planned ethnical cleaning since they mass deported the Armenian inhabitants and drove them in long caravans towards the deserts of Mesopotamia and Syria. The caravans of refugees were subjected to assaults from the army units, gendarmes and military special units who had been enlisted among the fanatic and primitive individuals in the population. These murdered the Armenians without any discrimination and women and young girls were abducted to be sold to the harems of the Turkish men in power or their military leaders. The ways these persons were executed are so heinous that one almost can’t believe that they can happen in the reality, even less in the 20th century, but that hey should belong to the most horrible and sad fairy tales. The Turkish soldiers who guarded these caravans even waged on the gender of the foetus in the wound of an Armenian woman, cut her up after the wager and took out the foetus to find out who had won. No one has ever, neither before nor after, described such an action by the enemy towards their prisoners. At the arrival to Ter Zor, the Armenians who had survived the march through the desert were packed into the caves and the soldiers put them on fire. If one compares this to the incinerators of the Nazis in the concentration camps, one can instantly see how the Turks used the same, but more primitive methods. The survivors tell stories about how they ate the parts of the burned human bodies in order to not starve to death. The Armenian Church in Syria holds annual services at the opening of these caves for the remembrance of the victims in Ter Zor.
1915 Of the 2,000,000 Armenian inhabitants in Turkey, 1 800,000 were subjected to this plan and more than 1,000,000 lost their lives. Only a few hundred thousand could escape to Transcaucasia or survive in Syria and Mesopotamia.
1915-1916 At the Caucasian front, the Armenians were at the first lines and had an important role in defeating the advancing Ottoman armies who came towards Caucasus at the beginning of 1915, and later participated in a number of unique operations which were carried out in difficulty accessed mountain passages, military operations which resulted in the victory of the Russian Caucasus army and the conquest of Van in 1915 and Erzurum, Trabizond and Erzinjan in 1916.
Republic of Armenia, (May 28, 1918 - December 2, 1920)
1918 On May 28, 1918, after the disintegration of the Transcaucasian government, the independent Republic of Armenia is proclaimed. On June 4, 1918, Turkey, in accordance to the Batum Treaty, recognized the borders of Armenia which then, due to secret agreements between Turkey and the Tartars, was limited only to Yerevan and Sevan, while the rest of East Armenia was divided between Turkey and the Tartar territory which later would be declared as Azerbaijan.
1919 As a result of the allied victory over Germany and its Axis powers, Armenia, in the beginning of 1919, once more retook the provinces of Alexandrapol and Kars. The latter province was especially of great importance for the new government, since the most fertile farmlands for cultivating wheat were situated here and could supply the country with crops.
1919 On May 28, 1919, i.e. on the first anniversary of the recovered independence, the government of Armenia, in accordance with the decision taken in the Armenian parliament and the council in West Armenia, declared the annexation of West Armenia to the Republic of Armenia and hence the reunion of West and East Armenia.
1920 The allied powers recognize de facto Armenia as an independent state.
1920 In April 1920, during the conference in San Remo, the prime ministers of England, France and Italy (Lloyd George, Millerand and Nitti) at last paid attention to investigating the paragraphs in the ceasefire treaty with Turkey and in regard to the Armenian Question decided to establish an Armenian state consisting of the provinces of Trabizond, Erzurum, Van and Bitlis. This plan was handed over to the Ottoman delegation in Cedonse (the foreign ministry of France) on May 11, 1920.
1920 In April 1920, the Red Army, with assistance of the Turkish nationalists, conquered Baku and then the entire Azerbaijan. The new Azerbaijani soviet republic repeated its earlier claims on Karabakh and Zangezour. In August 1920 a congress, under the leadership of Zinovief, Parlek, Belar Kun, was held by the title of "The Congress of the Eastern peoples", delegated by Enver Pasha. This congress was the decisive sign of the active support which Soviet gave to Kemal Atatuk's Turkey. Of this reason, Armenia was forced to maintain some of its forces, for defending of the eastern boundaries of the country against Soviet Azerbaijan, at the same time that the Turks began to advance from the west.
1920 In June 1920, during the conference in Spa, the allies answered the Turkish offer. The notes of the allies, with the signature of Millerand (French prime minister), which was sent away on June 17, mentioned the following in regard to Armenia: "The Armenians have been massacred with an unequalled violence. During the war, the Ottoman government's massacres, deportations and the assaults of the prisoners have only been surpassed by its earlier acting in these matters. It is estimated that from 1914 until now, the Ottoman government, under groundless accusations of revolt, have murdered 800,000 Armenian men, women and children while more than 200,000 Greeks and 200,000 Armenians have been exiled or been driven away from their homes. The Ottoman government has not only refused to fulfil its duties concerning the protection of its non-Turkish subjects in the Empire towards plundering, oppression, violence, assault and murder, but there are even numerous evidence of that the government itself is guilty of the planning and coordination of the most violent attacks against these peoples, whose protection the government should have been responsible for Of the same reasons, the allies can’t insert any changes in the paragraphs concerning the creation of a free Armenia."
1920 On June 22, the treaty was ratified by the imperial council in Constantinople, with a total majority except for one single voice.
The Peace Treaty in Sevres Recognizes the Independent Armenia consisting of East and West Armenia.
1920 On August 10, the signing of the peace treaty between Turkey and the allies took place in the guest hall of the chin factory in Sevres, a suburb south west of Paris. A. Aharonian 36/501, who represented the Republic of Armenia, which at last would not exist only as a de facto state but was recognized officially and internationally, signed the Sevres Treaty, a treaty which contained two important paragraphs from Armenia's point of view:
1. Turkey declares that, precisely as the ally's earlier recognition, it acknowledges Armenia as an independent and free country.
2. Turkey and Armenia and also the other countries which have signed this treaty approve that the decision concerning the borders between Armenia and Turkey in the provinces of Erzurum, Trabizond, Van and Bitlis would be assigned to the president of USA and they approve his decision in this matter and also all decisions concerning facilitating Armenia's access to open seas and the demilitarization of the Ottoman territories adjacent to Armenia.
1920 The nationalist government in Ankara, despite the existing cease-fire treaty of Mudros and the peace treaty of Severs, resumes the offensive towards Armenia. During the months of September and October the Armenian army in north managed to stop the advancement of the Turks. On October 14 the Armenian army in Novoslibili started a counteroffensive which came to determine the outcome of the war. After an initial victory, the Armenian army could no longer neutralize the advancement of the enemy. During the following days, the Turkish army approached Kars and on October 30, after a swift maneuver with its right flank, managed to take the fortress of the city.
The Soviet Republic of Armenia
1920 On December 2, 1920, the representatives of the Armenian government, in Alexandrapol, were forced to accept the peace terms forced upon them by the government in Ankara. Turkey did not only kept West Armenia but also annexed Kars and Ardahan in accordance to the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. Moreover, Turkey annexed also the province of Igdir (in which the national symbol of the Armenians, Mount Ararat, is located) and demanded the creation and the transformation of Nakhichevan to an in dependent Tartar state.
1921 By the Treaty of Moscow (March 1921), which established normal relations and friendship between Soviet Russia and the Ankara government, Turkey dropped its claims to Batum and the other districts in return for Russian abandonment of efforts to redeem for Soviet Armenia the Surmalu district in Yerevan. In that sector, the new Turkish boundary was extended to the Araxes River, thus incorporating the fertile Igdir plain and Mount Ararat. What was more, the treaty provided that Sharur-Nakhichevan would not be attached to Soviet Armenia but would instead be constituted as an autonomous region under Soviet Azerbaijan, even though it was separated from eastern Transcaucasia by intervening Armenian territory.
Karabakh and Nakhichevan are annexed to the Azerbaijani S.S.R.
1921 On July 5, the Supreme Soviet decides to annex the two regions of Karabakh and Nakhichevan to the Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. The leadership of Soviet Armenia protests against this decision, but without any results.
1922 When a new conference was held in November 1922, in Lausanne, in order to revise the items in the Sevres Treaty, the situation had turned remarkably to the advantage of Turkey. According to Winston Churchill: "The allies army in 1918, at the table of the peace negotiations had reached a total victory against Turkey, but during the course of four years the nagging politicians had let this victory be turned into a defeat."
European Parliament Officially Recognizes the Armenian Genocide
1987 On June 18, The European Parliament officially recognizes the Armenian Genocide and calls upon Turkey to recognize the Genocide.
The Prelude of Karabakh Conflict
1988 Suddenly, unexpectedly, on February 13, 1988, Karabakh Armenians began demonstrating in their capital, Stepanakert, in favour of unification with the Armenian republic. Six days later they were joined by mass marches in Yerevan. On February 20 the Soviet of People's Deputies in Karabakh voted 110 to 17 to request the transfer of the region to Armenia. This unprecedented action by a regional soviet brought out tens of thousands of demonstrations both in Stepanakert and Yerevan, but Moscow rejected the Armenian's demands. In response to the demands, Azerbaijanis in Sumgait, an industrial town on the Caspian, went on a rampage for two days, and at least thirty-one people died before Soviet troops ended the pogrom.
1988 In response to the demands, Azerbaijanis in Sumgait, an industrial town on the Caspian, on February 26, 1988, went on a rampage for two days, and at least thirty-one people died before Soviet troops ended the pogrom.
1988 On December 7, 1988, a massive earthquake devastated northern Armenia, killing at least 25,000 people and rendering hundreds of thousands homeless. World attention focused here for several weeks, and aid poured in from many countries.
1989 Karabakh Armenian National Council, on August 23 declared the secession of Karabakh from Azerbaijan and its merger with Armenia. The Armenian Supreme Soviet then declared the Karabakh National Council as the sole legitimate representative of the Karabakh people. The Azerbaijani Supreme Soviet responded by abrogating the autonomy of Karabakh and Nakhichevan.
The Second Independent Armenian Republic
1991 On September 21 Armenia proclaims its independence and its decision to leave the Soviet Union.
1991 On December 21 the Soviet Union cease to exist.
1992 On the spring of this year, the Armenians of Karabakh celebrated their first major victory in what was beginning to turn into a full scale war against Azerbaijan.
1994 Russia managed to negotiate a ceasefire (February 1994) which was officially signed on May 12, 1994, and which is still in power (2005). | |||||
3581 | dbpedia | 1 | 24 | https://www.amacad.org/publication/ottoman-experience | en | The Ottoman experience | https://www.amacad.org/profiles/contrib/lightning/favicon.ico | https://www.amacad.org/profiles/contrib/lightning/favicon.ico | [
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"Molly Greene"
] | 2005-05-01T08:00:00-04:00 | en | /profiles/contrib/lightning/favicon.ico | American Academy of Arts & Sciences | https://www.amacad.org/publication/daedalus/ottoman-experience | When those states which have been acquired are accustomed to live at liberty under their own laws, there are three ways of holding them. The first is to despoil them; the second is to go and live there in person; the third is to allow them to live under their own laws, taking tribute of them and creating within the country a government composed of a few who will keep it friendly to you.
–Machiavelli, The Prince, 1532
Toward the end of the fifteenth century, an Ottoman scribe named Bali was charged with surveying the newly acquired island of Limnos in the northern Aegean. The Ottoman treasury needed to know what sorts of revenues the island could be expected to provide. Bali went out of his way to explain the animal husbandry practices of the peasants so that the treasury would understand his calculation of the sheep tax:
because the climate of the island is temperate and is not excessively cold, they apparently are not accustomed to separating their rams from their ewes. For this reason their lambs are not particular to one season. Were they to be counted along with the sheep it would cause the peasants some distress; because they were desirous of and agreed to give 1 akçe per head of sheep, their lambs were not counted with them. It was recorded that only their sheep be counted, and that 1 akçe be given per head of sheep.
It is an arresting image: an Ottoman scribe, pen in hand, listens patiently to the inhabitants’ explanations and then copies their words into the imperial survey that will find its way to the palace in Istanbul. But it is more than an image. This detail from the 1490 survey of the island of Limnos is an early example of what would prove to be an enduring imperial style that had two essential, and closely related, features. First, the empire possessed an extraordinary ability to find those few local residents who were willing and able to keep vast territories friendly to the House of Osman. Second, the Ottoman imperial administration had an uncanny knack for going into a newly conquered area and figuring out how things were done there. Having read the local landscape, it would adjust imperial rule accordingly.
In short, the extraordinary sensitivity of the Ottoman elite to local conditions allowed them to build an empire across three continents that endured for many centuries.
The Ottomans first emerge on the historical stage at the very end of the thirteenth century. In the royal myth, the dynasty stretches much further back, of course, but it was only under the leadership of Osman (1299–1326) that this small group of warriors managed to move out from its base in northwestern Anatolia and start conquering territory. Their first significant victories occurred in the Balkans, and these conquests allowed them to return to western Anatolia flush with men and money. By the middle of the fifteenth century they had surrounded the Byzantine capital Constantinople. Their capture of the great city in 1453 marked the beginning of the imperial phase of Ottoman history.
Over the course of the next century they pushed steadily eastward and then southward. First they defeated the remaining Turkish principalities in Anatolia and then, in 1516 and 1517, they conquered the heartlands of the Islamic world–Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. With these latter-day conquests they could now claim leadership of the Islamic world. The empire reached its greatest territorial extent under Suleyman (1520 –1566), who conquered Hungary in the north (1526), Iraq in the east (1534), and North Africa in the west–the last in a series of incremental gains dating from the earlier part of his reign.
Except for the loss of Hungary at the end of the seventeenth century, the territory of the empire remained relatively stable until the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Serbian (1804) and Greek (1821) insurrections were the beginning of what proved to be an unstoppable hemorrhaging of territory in the empire’s European heartland. A combination of nationalist aspirations and Great Power interference led to the end of the Ottoman Empire in Europe by the eve of World War I. The Ottoman entry into the war on the German side had fatal consequences for the survival of what remained of the empire. The victorious British and French armies took over the Middle East and carved it up into colonies, although these were called ‘mandates’ in deference to rising anticolonialist sentiment. Anatolia, which was all that remained, was also in danger of being parceled out to various contenders. It was only the unexpected military resistance of a group of disaffected Ottoman army officers–led by the remarkable Mustafa Kemal, later known as Atatürk–that saved the day.
But Kemal was not interested in saving the empire. Rather, he wanted to create a modern state that would replace a defeated empire whose leaders had proved unable to fashion a response to European imperialism. Thus it was a Turk, ironically enough, who brought about the end of the Ottoman Empire. Under Atatürk’s leadership, the Grand National Assembly abolished the sultanate in 1922 and declared the new Republic of Turkey in 1923.
In 1490, when Bali wrote to Istanbul about Limniot practices of animal husbandry, the Ottoman army was plowing through the Balkan Peninsula, subduing one city after another in rapid succession. The army would soon do the same in Anatolia and the Arab lands. Naturally enough, then, it is the janissary, and not the scribe, who figures prominently in conventional depictions of the empire during the golden age of conquest.
The janissary, with his crashing cymbals as he marched onto the battlefield, was the terror of Christendom. Compared to European military forces, the janissary corps was famously disciplined; it was said that when janissaries bowed their heads at the same time, they resembled a field of ripe corn rippling in the breeze. The janissary seemed to embody everything that was believed–and to a great extent is still believed–to account for the greatness of the Ottomans in their prime in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Plucked from his (Christian) mother’s breast at a young age, he proved the sultan’s ability to reach down into society and remake individuals at will. Once trained, the janissary was believed to possess unsurpassed martial virtue. At the same time, he, like the rest of the Ottoman bureaucracy, gave the sultan absolute obedience. The end result has often been described as a perfectly ordered machine.
It is not surprising that war and conquest, rather than the more mundane activities of scribes, are still at the center of our view of the Ottomans. We are the inheritors of a long tradition of European writings on the empire, and the Europeans wrote with their own concerns in mind. The Ottomans were the threat to European civilization. “This most powerful emperor’s forces are of two kinds, those of the sea and those of the land and both are terrifying,” wrote a Venetian diplomat in 1573. The Ottomans were the first state to maintain a standing army in Europe since Roman days, and this impressed the Europeans to no end. The Byzantine Chalcocondyle marveled that “there is no prince who has his armies and camps in better order, both in abundance of victuals and in the beautiful order they use in encamping without any confusion or embarrassment.”
But an undue emphasis on the Ottoman war machine has deflected our attention from an appreciation of how the Ottomans actually ruled their vast territories for over six hundred years. Military conquest created the empire, but it did not, and could not, sustain it. For that the Ottomans needed scribes, not janissaries. Limnos is one of the earliest examples of an imperial style that relied heavily on local people to run things for Istanbul. This example undermines the view that the empire was administered by a central bureaucracy whose dictates were enforced by military power.
Limnos was contested territory on the edge of the Ottoman Empire in 1490. Over the previous half century, the island had gone back and forth between Latin and Ottoman rule; the most recent exchange dated back only a decade to when the Venetians surrendered the island to Sultan Beyazit II. Yet a mere nineteen janissaries garrisoned the island (a number of them, recent converts to Islam, spoke Greek). The real work of securing the island’s defense was done by several hundred local Christian troops who enjoyed a reduced tax status in exchange for their military service, and who had been recruited by the Ottomans for the very reason that they had served a similar function under the Byzantines. The local nobility retained their holdings, and church and monastic property went undisturbed.
Even in this brief account we can see the Ottomans’ keen attentiveness to the local, in terms not just of accommodation, but also of an ability to size up the situation and turn it to Ottoman advantage. A predilection for co-optation had been evident from the very moment the Ottomans entered the historical record. In the case of Limnos, they were able to discern who had traditionally undertaken the defense of the island and to enlist them. We do not know who Bali was; he may have been a Greek by birth who converted to Islam and joined the bureaucracy. Or he could have been accompanied by a translator who communicated his queries to the Limniots. Whichever the case, the Ottomans were able to deploy adequately trained individuals who effectively turned conquests into tax-producing provinces.
If we turn to newly conquered, mid-sixteenth-century Palestine, the same method is on display. By now the Ottoman bureaucracy was fully developed and the Palestinian provinces received a full compliment of officials, many more than Limnos had in 1490. But these officials were quick to bring village leaders into the hierarchy of government, albeit informally. The office of village leader, known as rais, was already a very old one by the time the Ottomans arrived in the Fertile Crescent. They retained the rais as a useful liaison to the tax-paying population and rewarded him with robes (the traditional gift to officials from the earliest days of Islam), thereby integrating local leaders into the symbolic structure of the empire.
Local people also figured prominently in the proceedings of the Ottoman court, where many lines of authority converged. The kadi, or judge, routinely called upon local experts to assist him in investigating the cases that came before him, such as disputes over taxation. Impressed by the neat categories in Ottoman survey registers, we have failed to adequately appreciate that taxation was a complicated business. Palestinian olive trees, for example, were taxed differently depending on their age, which affected their fruit-bearing ability. It was unlikely that someone from Istanbul would have been able to determine the age of those trees.
Even those who officially served in the name of the sultan were a more heterogeneous group than has commonly been presented. Prior to the seventeenth century, the link between the military and provincial administration was an essential device of Ottoman governance. In return for their work, the sultan’s soldiers, known as timariots, were assigned one or multiple villages whose revenue they were entitled to collect. When they were not off on campaign, these soldiers resided in or near their holdings. In this way the state both supported an army and gained a class of provincial administrators who were charged with tax collection and the maintenance of law and order.
But rural administration did not rest in the hands of timariots alone. When the province of Aintab in southeastern Anatolia was wrested from the Mamluks and joined to the empire’s domains in 1517, not all the villages were assigned to the soldiers of the standing army. Some went to local Turkmen tribal chiefs, while others stayed in the hands of the urban magnates from Aintab or from nearby Aleppo who had privately owned them. For example, the village of Caǧdiǧin belonged to a very special family indeed, namely, the heirs of the last powerful Mamluk sultan, from whom the Ottomans had wrested Egypt and Greater Syria. The Ghawri family resided in Aleppo and employed a local agent to manage its estates and collect taxes. Over time the family was absorbed into the Ottoman elite; the governor-general of Aleppo in 1574 was one Mehmed Pasha al-Ghawri.
The cases of Palestine and Aintab that I have just discussed are particularly significant because they occurred in the middle of the sixteenth century, traditionally seen as the era when the Ottomans were at the very height of their power. As we have seen, an important part of this power was administrative; the Ottomans recruited, developed, and deployed a class of imperial bureaucrats across the empire. These bureaucrats, who ironed out and smoothed over local peculiarities, it is said, gave the empire its effectiveness and uniformity. In this story of the empire, local elites either failed to develop or were bypassed, and would only become important later on when the central bureaucracy was less effective.
This description overstates the case and misclassifies what was a rather fleeting moment as the classical juncture from which all future developments are said to have deviated. After all, the Ottomans only assigned a career officer to Palestine in 1520; by the end of the century the entire region was back under the control of Bedouin chiefs who were officially recognized by the Ottomans as local governors.
In a classic article written many years ago, Albert Hourani coined the phrase “the politics of notables” to characterize the constellation of forces that governed the empire as a whole in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He described a class of conservative notables who were firmly entrenched in local society and equipped with their own private militias, and who offered themselves as mediators between the Ottoman authorities and provincial society. The Ottomans were content to rely on these informal elites, bestowing tax-gathering privileges and political office on them in exchange for loyalty.
Rather than framing this development as decline, historians are now asking more open-ended questions about the experience of provincial life in the Ottoman Empire of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In one historian’s felicitous phrase, we would like to know more about “the meaning of autonomy.” Beshara Doumani’s recent study of Nablus and its hinterland– once again, in Palestine–provides us with a particularly vivid sense of place.
As was true across the Ottoman Empire, the Nablusis had a strong sense of local identity that was nurtured by the imperial style of rule. They were proud of the beauty of their city, whose twenty-two gushing springs fed the olive groves, vineyards, and fruit orchards that surrounded it. Localism was buttressed by the fact that the city was ruled by local sons, most of whom had descended from the same families for generations. Many of the patriarchs of the ruling families had originally come to the city as Ottoman soldiers, but they quickly melted into the local population, marrying into wealthy merchant and religious families. They vied with one another for appointment to political office, a process controlled and shrewdly exploited by the Ottoman governor of Damascus.
Their conservative rule endured even through the upheavals of the nineteenth century. While they were disinclined to fight for the sultan in faraway places, they were quick to defend themselves when threatened. In the course of Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, it was the Nablusis who handed the French emperor his first defeat in Palestine. Moneylending and trade networks, rather than military power and tax collection, tied the countryside to the city. Long-standing clientage relationships between peasants and urban merchants were passed from father to son, and the rootedness of these networks allowed trading activity to flourish across a wide area, despite an often unpredictable political environment. Even today, elderly Palestinians can remember how their grandfathers were expected to host their rural clients when they came into the city. The peasants had to be put up and fed well, lest their urban patrons suffer a loss of honor.
Besides stressing militarism, the tradition of European writing on the Ottoman Empire has also firmly fixed the empire’s Islamic identity in the mind of the general reader. The term ‘Muslim empire’ has been more than simply descriptive; it has been a sort of shorthand for what we think the Ottomans represented. Their successful military conquests, it is said, were driven by the religious obligation of holy war against the infidel. There is the standard nod to Suleyman the Magnificent, who brought the empire’s legal system into accordance with Islamic precepts. European scholarship also typically hauls in Islam to explain that old saw, the decline of the Ottoman Empire. According to this theory, the decline was brought about in part by the rise of an intolerant Islamic spirit that smothered creativity.
It is a mistake to describe the Ottomans in terms of some sort of essential Islamic mission. The impulse to do so is, I think, a reflection of the fact that any discussion of empire today is very hard to disentangle from the ideology of imperialism. We must separate the practice of empire from the ideology of imperialism if we wish to understand the Ottoman Empire. Empire as governance existed long before imperialism as ideology. Particularly in the Mediterranean world, which had been subject to imperial rule from the time of the Romans, the Ottomans were able to draw on a number of rich political and cultural traditions, only some of which were Islamic. The challenge was not to justify empire. What other aspiration could a potential ruler possibly have? The challenge was to justify themselves as the proper leaders of a new empire. It was the House of Osman, not empire, that was on trial as the new state slowly took shape.
Ottoman claims of legitimacy drew on several sources, of which the Islamic tradition was only one. In the words of one historian, “the Ottomans were highly flexible in their use of legitimizing ideologies.” One of the earliest tropes to emerge was the celebration of the early Ottomans as ghazis, or warriors for Islam, whose raids and wars were part of a divinely imposed obligation. This was a straightforward enough claim with regard to the Balkans, where the population was Christian. To get around the somewhat awkward fact that many of the early wars in Anatolia were fought against other Muslim rulers, two traditions developed. First, it was asserted that oftentimes territory was acquired through peaceful acquisition rather than force of arms. Second, rulers who had been vanquished were charged with having oppressed Muslims, thus justifying Ottoman intervention. Some historians have gone so far as to wonder whether the Ottomans saw themselves as Islamic warriors or if they adhered to a more general, and religiously nonspecific, ideal of heroism and honorable conduct.
The Ottomans also asserted a more illustrious genealogy than that of the other Turkish emirs in Anatolia. They claimed that their sultans descended from Oǧuz Khan, a legendary great ruler and ancestor of the Turks, while their Turkish neighbors were only distant relations.
Once Mehmet the Conqueror took Constantinople, the imperial capital par excellence, in 1453, he adopted many imperial motifs, including the Golden Apple, a commonly recognized symbol of universal sovereignty. Prior sultans in the former capitals of Bursa, then Edirne, had lived simply and prayed alongside fellow Muslims in the mosque. The palace that Mehmet had constructed for himself on the ancient acropolis of Byzantium was designed to ensure imperial seclusion, as was the dynastic law code he drew up toward the end of his reign. Among other things, it abolished the practice of eating in the presence of his courtiers and strictly limited the occasions on which petitions could be presented to him in person. Mehmet was famously inspired by the empires of the past and saw himself as the heir to the Roman Empire. His identification with Alexander the Great was so strong that he commissioned a biography of himself, in Greek, on the same paper and in the same format as his copy of Arrian’s The Life of Alexander the Great. The latter was read to him daily.
The beginning of the sixteenth century saw the rise of an enemy more formidable than the patchwork of Turkish emirates that the Ottomans had swept away in Anatolia. In Iran, the Safavid dynasty, established by the charismatic mystical leader Ismail Shah, proclaimed a militant Shiism that was presented as morally, religiously, and politically superior to the Sunni form of Islam observed in the Ottoman Empire. The consolidation of Spanish Hapsburg rule at the other end of the Mediterranean also contributed to an age of strenuous ideological competition.
In response, the Ottomans increasingly portrayed themselves as pious orthodox Muslims. Suleyman, assisted by his energetic and long-serving religious advisor, sought to reconcile sultanic with Islamic law in an ambitious program of legal reform that included the strengthening of Islamic courts and the extension of state purview over matters that had previously been of little official concern, such as marriage. In the 1540s, Suleyman added the Islamic term ‘caliph’ to his list of titles.
A lesser-known image of Suleyman is that of the Lawgiver as Messiah; the prophetic and messianic currents that were so strong in Europe and the Mediterranean in the sixteenth century had their counterpart in the Ottoman Empire. Those around him, and Suleyman himself, proclaimed him as the Emperor of the Last Age, who would soon establish universal dominion. The sultan’s geomancer wrote that the ultimate victory and establishment of the universal rule of Islam would be ensured by an army of invisible saints fighting by the sultan’s side.
Yet even before Suleyman’s death in 1566 there was a new emphasis on the institutional and judicial perfection of the sultan. No longer the restless world conqueror, he was lauded as the creator and quiet center of the perfect order; he was the Refuge of the World. As the Ottoman war machine wound down, seventeenth-century writers would further encourage the idea of consolidation. Citing the theories and biological metaphors of Ibn Khaldun, they stated that the empire was no longer in the heroic phase of expansion, but had entered the more mature stage of security and tranquility.
Throughout all the permutations of the imperial image, the provision of justice, to the peasantry in particular, remained absolutely central to sultanic legitimacy. This was not an empty rhetoric. It is clear that both the population and the sultan took the latter’s responsibility for justice seriously; the Ottoman archives are stuffed with thousands of petitions that were recorded in the registers, and responded to, year after year. The council hall in the palace where petitions were read was built with open walls to symbolize the free access of the empire’s subjects, Muslim and nonMuslim, to imperial justice. This duty of the ruler to provide justice, to embody imperial benevolence, was something the Ottomans shared with all premodern states. In the Near Eastern tradition, it was expressed through the Circle of Justice, which said that the ruler could not exist without the military, nor the military without the sword, nor the sword without money, nor money without the peasants, nor the peasants without justice. The Chinese also tied royal legitimacy to the provision of justice to the peasants. The right to petition the king was limited in Europe, but there too justice was the jewel in the crown of the Christian King.
The Circle of Justice represented a consensus on the proper ordering of society that was shared by both rulers and ruled. This consensus would come apart in the nineteenth century, and it was the state itself that would launch its dismantling.
Through the skillful co-optation of military and financial leaders, the Ottomans had achieved a form of rule that was extremely stable, even though its maintenance required constant bargaining. The other side of the coin, however, was that the government could attract only a low level of commitment from most of its subjects. Its ability to mobilize manpower and money was limited. The residents of Nablus, for example, were perfectly willing to battle Napoleon, but they undertook this in the defense of local interests and not on behalf of the sultan.
This was sufficient for a time. The last quarter of the eighteenth century, however, was marked by war, war, and more war. Russia, whose power had been growing steadily, managed to wrest the Crimea and the northern shores of the Black Sea from the Ottomans. The shock of these losses was great, since both were areas of dense Muslim settlement. The Ottomans also fought with the Hapsburgs. Then came the French occupation of Egypt in 1798, which signaled the return of Great Power conflict to the Mediterranean after a long hiatus. Turmoil continued throughout the Napoleonic Wars, including an internal uprising in Serbia that received external support, due to European designs on the Ottoman Empire.
Faced with these threats, the Ottoman sultans, beginning with Selim III, initiated a series of reforms that, at the most basic level, sought to mobilize the people and the resources of the empire in the service of the state. Military reform, naturally enough, was the initial priority, but initiatives soon spread to other areas such as education. A medical school was set up in 1827 to train doctors for the new army. In the 1830s, schools proliferated as Sultan Mahmud II, sometimes described as the Peter the Great of the Ottoman Empire, sought to create not just an officer corps but also a new civil service to implement and enforce his measures.
A famous decree of 1839, which was henceforth known as Tanzimat, laid down the essential themes of Ottoman reform. These themes would be modified, diluted, or strengthened over the course of the next eighty years or so, but they remained the basis for state policy nevertheless. Tanzimat declared the security of life, honor, and property for all Ottoman subjects. Tax farming was abolished and an elaborate centralized provincial administration–modeled on the French system–was laid down. Equality before the law for all subjects, for Muslim and non-Muslim, was decreed.
These measures, as well as an assortment of more minor reforms, were linked by the wish to mobilize society and to effectively direct it through a newly energized, centralized state. By making property rights more secure, it was hoped that a new class of private property owners would increase agriculture revenues. The proclamation of religious equality before the law sought to facilitate the creation of a new, secular elite–a group of ardent Ottoman citizens who would become loyal patriots, not unlike those in France, England, and the other ascendant European nation-states.
The Ottoman reforms were ambitious and wide-ranging. Not surprisingly, some were resisted and many others were only imperfectly or partially executed. In the Balkans, the Ottomans, hemmed in by Great Power competition and the territorial ambitions of the new nation-states on the peninsula, were racing against the clock. A bad harvest in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1874 led to a peasant revolt the following year. One hundred years earlier this would have been purely an internal matter, but it quickly turned into an international crisis that, through a long and convoluted series of events, ended with the creation of the new state of Bulgaria in 1878. By the eve of World War I, the Ottoman Empire had lost almost all its European territories.
Elsewhere, however, in Anatolia and the Arab lands, the Ottoman Empire in fact became more powerful, more rational, and more capable of imposing its will on society. Faced with European encroachment, it did not disintegrate, as did so many other non-Western empires–for example, in Iran and India. Bureaucrats managed not only to centralize many of the empire’s activities, but also to establish effective rule in places that had always been notoriously difficult to rule, such as the tribal areas of Arabia and Transjordan. Through the application of reformist land laws, Transjordan recovered a level of demographic and economic growth not seen since Byzantine times. In the last quarter of the century, the British, who were busy concluding local agreements with Arab sheikhs, were alarmed by the new influence of the Ottomans in the Arabian Gulf.
Yet the reforms, by launching such a determined attack on traditional powersharing arrangements, by their radical rethinking of the relationship between ruler and ruled, required the government to embark on an ambitious project of ideological legitimation. Its response was very similar to that of other modernizing empires, such as Austria, Russia, and Japan, in the pressure cooker of the nineteenth century. The ‘invention of tradition’ dramatically increased the pomp and circumstance surrounding the sultan and all activities of state. By the end of the nineteenth century, for example, curious onlookers lined the road to watch the Friday prayer ceremony as Abdulhamid and his entourage departed from the palace and headed for the Yıldız Mosque. Albanian house guards in livery, their spears glinting in the sun, escorted the imperial landau while a military band struck up the Hamidiye, the musical salute to the sultan. A sort of dais was built to accommodate foreign visitors who were permitted to watch the procession and to salute the monarch.
The state also tried to define a new basis for loyalty to the House of Osman. The novel concept of Ottoman patriotism, which declared the unity and equality of all Ottoman subjects, was favored at midcentury. As time wore on and the European provinces dropped away, Islamic and then Turkish nationalism rendered the earlier concept of an Ottoman citizenry increasingly problematic. Throughout this last century of the empire, the project of Ottoman subjecthood was fraught with tensions and contradictions that undermined formerly stable traditions of rule. The regime’s use of the Islamic heritage was complex and multifaceted. The Ottomans sought to exploit Islam for imperial advantage in a sort of ‘Islamic etatism,’ just as Catherine II had used Christian orthodoxy in Russia and Maria Theresa had turned to Catholicism in the Hapsburg lands. Among other things, Islam was used to try and enlist the empire’s Muslim subjects in the state’s modernizing goals. After the destruction of the janissaries, Mahmud II turned to the conscription of Ottoman Muslim subjects and dubbed his new army the “Trained Victorious Soldiers of Muhammad.” This is just one example. Again and again over the course of the next century, political leaders turned to Islam as a way of establishing a connection between them and their Muslim subjects.
At the same time, the Ottomans settled on Islam to articulate and proclaim their fundamental difference from the West in an era of rampant Westernization. It is ironic that the Europeans, too, saw Islam as the defining characteristic of the East, although the conclusions they drew from this fact were very different. And yet, as we have seen in the Tanzimat reforms, the Ottoman Empire relentlessly pursued a policy of secularization.
How can these seeming oppositions be reconciled? We must understand that there was a central tension in Ottoman reform. The goal was not just to strengthen the state; it was to strengthen it in a certain way, so that the state looked bureaucratic, tolerant, and, most of all, modern. The Tanzimat was, in this sense, an internalization of European representations of the Orient and its problems. But the Ottomans were also duty-bound to resist the West, because the West denied the possibility of progress for the Muslim world. The embrace of Islam was their way of defying the fate that was predicted for them.
It is ironic that Arab elites were never more Ottoman than at the moment of the empire’s dissolution. Abandoning the looser style of rule that had been typical of earlier centuries, nineteenth-century reforms succeeded in creating several generations of Arab bureaucrats who were closely tied to the imperial project. An Arab official in 1900 was more likely to speak Turkish, and to send his son to study in Istanbul at one of the new academies, than his predecessor would have been one hundred years prior. This helps explain why, the myth of Lawrence of Arabia notwithstanding, the vast majority of Arabs remained loyal to the empire till the very end.
This loyalty left the Arab world singularly ill-equipped to deal with the changes that were suddenly thrust upon it in the wake of World War I. Not only was it forcibly cut off from the state that had defined its political existence for the past four hundred years; it also had to contend with an unprecedented level of Great Power involvement in the region as the British and the French went about establishing their respective spheres of influence. In the critical days and months following the Ottoman defeat in 1918, the Arabs failed to produce a leader of Atatürk’s caliber. This could not have been simply a coincidence. The political class was, in the end, a provincial elite that did not have the same habits of leadership the Turks possessed. Even worse, draconian Ottoman policies against Arab nationalists during World War I had created tremendous polarization (some of those executed were the relatives of older, more conservative politicians who supported the empire), and this made solidarity against Western imperialism even harder to accomplish.
Finally, an effective response was hampered by the intense localism of Arab elites. Part of this was due to the opportunities presented by imperial rivalries in the region. The Syrian leadership, for example, was eager to cooperate with the British in the hope that they would pressure the French to leave Syria. But the Palestinians thought the Syrians should resolutely confront the British plan to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine. However, the localism ran deeper than the dilemmas of the moment.
This essay began with an Ottoman scribe explaining the conditions of animal husbandry on the island of Limnos to his superiors back in Istanbul. Even during the ambitious nineteenth century, when the state worked to create a more uni½ed society, the Ottomans were always very willing to accommodate local realities and to work with homegrown elites. This style of rule encouraged a corresponding provincialism on the part of the Arabs. The men who directed their societies in the waning decades of the empire knew how to mediate local concerns, but they found it very dif½cult to respond to broader crises, such as the imposition of European mandates throughout the Near East. Their inability to resist Western colonialism would have serious and fateful consequences that are still with us today. | |||
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"Cathy Moran Hajo"
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3581 | dbpedia | 0 | 2 | https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520228900.003.0002 | en | [] | [] | [] | [
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3581 | dbpedia | 1 | 32 | https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/armenians-and-the-fall-of-the-ottoman-empire/french-occupation-in-cilicia-and-the-turkisharmenian-war-in-the-caucasus/3DE178A3C0FDC0FF3210891B044BEBC1 | en | The French Occupation in Cilicia and the Turkish–Armenian War in the Caucasus (Chapter 3) | [
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"Ari Şekeryan",
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3581 | dbpedia | 0 | 44 | http://www.genocide-museum.am/eng/chronology.php | en | The Armenian Genocide Museum-institute | [
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During the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878 the Russian troops gained victories both on the Balkan and the Caucasian fronts. In the Balkans, the Russian troops occupied Bulgaria and advanced to the outskirts of Istanbul, while on the Caucasian war stage, they took Ardahan, Bayazet, Alashkert, Kars and Erzurum, i.e., a considerable segment of Western Armenia, as well as Batumi. The Turks had to terminate the war operations and seek for peace. The Peace Treaty between Russia and the Ottoman Empire was signed on March 3, 1878, in the township of San Stefano in the vicinity of Istanbul. It verified the victories, gained with the Russian weapon. In the Treaty of San Stefano a special Paragraph 16 was added about the application of reforms in Western Armenia. It read, âTaking into account that the withdrawal of the Russian troops from the territories of Armenia, occupied by them and bound to be returned to Turkey, may cause clashes and complications there, which may harm the good relations between the two states, the Sublime Porte undertakes to immediately carry out improvements and reforms in the provinces, inhabited by Armenians, proceeding from the local needs, as well as to ensure the Armeniansâ security from Kurds and Circassians.â The Treaty of San Stefano was the victory of the Russian diplomacy, and it seriously worried its European opponents, who feared that the Ottoman Empire would become totally dependent on Russia, and the strategic balance in the Eastern Question would change in favor of the Russian Empire. This contradicted their interests, and they would never let it happen. England and Austria-Hungary, which enjoyed Germanyâs and German chancellor Bismarckâs support, were particularly active in this matter. These forces managed to achieve an agreement on convening an ad hoc congress to revise the Treaty of San Stefano. The Congress met in Berlin on June 13, 1878, presided over by Bismarck. England and Austria-Hungary, supported by Germany, France and Italy, succeeded in that the decisions of San Stefano were revised, Russiaâs positions were weakened, while their own positions and influence on the Ottoman Empire, vice versa, was reinforced. By the decision of the Congress, Russia returned Alashkert with the valley and Bayazet (Erzurum had been returned before) to Turkey. Ardahan, Kars, as well as Batumi remained with Russia. The Treaty of Berlin contained a specific Paragraph 61, all dedicated to the Armenian Question. It, however, differed from Paragraph 16 of the Treaty of San Stefano in several very principal aspects, and this not to the benefit of Armenians. If, under the Treaty of San Stefano, the reforms in Western Armenia were to be carried out in the presence of the Russian troops, which presented a certain guarantee of said implementation, now, under the Treaty of Berlin, the Russian troops were withdrawn to leave everything to the discretion of the âbloodthursty Sultanâ. He only claimed responsibility to periodically report on his undertakings to the European Powers. The latter acquired supervising functions. In other words, by the Treaty of Berlin, the mechanisms for reforms in Western Armenia, suggested by San Stefano, were destroyed, and no other realistic offers put forward instead. After the Congress of Berlin, the Sultan and the ruling clique got reinforced in their conviction that the best solution for the Armenian Question was extermination of the Armenians. At that point they saw in this an actual means of precluding of the intervention of the European Powers in Empire's internal affairs. In their eyes, The Armenian Question, the reforms question in the Armenian regions was used by those Powers as a pretext to meddle in the internal affairs of Turkey. Therefore it was necessary to eliminate the pretext and deprive the Powers of the opportunity to extort concessions from the Empire.
1891
Paradoxical was the fact that the powers entrusted the Sultan âto ensure Armeniansâ security from Kurds and Circassiansââ, whereas the Sultan himself was the principal instigator of all the anti-Armenian deeds of the Kurds and Circassians. A perfect example of this is that, right after the Congress of Berlin of 1891, by the order of Abdul Hamid II, a cavalry, named âHamidieâ after the Sultan, in which only Kurds were enlisted, was set up and kept at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. It consisted of 30 regiments which were not integrated in the system of the Ottoman army and were kept as a separate military unit, located in the Armenian town of Erzinkan. The foremost goal of the âHamidieâ was to organize carnages of Armenians all throughout the Empire, which they executed perfectly in 1894-1896 and during the ensuing Armenian massacres
1894-1896
The apex of the Armenian massacres, committed by the Ottoman Empire at the end of the XIX century, were the slaughters of 1894-1896. The first blow struck Sasun, a province in the vilayet of Bitlis, which had long been known for its steadfast will to withstand Turkish tyranny. In August of 1894, the fourth Turkish Army marched on Sasun. The forces were unequal, and the regular Turkish army eventually won. Sasun was demolished, 40 villages were leveled, and 10 thousand people killed. In September 1895 Armenian massacres began in the capital city, and then also in Trabzon, Erzinka, Marash, Sebastia, Erzerum, Diyarbekir, Bayazid, Kharberd and elsewhere. The Sultanâs authorities tried unsuccessfully to organize pogroms in Zeytun too, but the local inhabitants had taken prior necessary measures to resist the threatening Turkish troops. Carnages started with new conviction in 1896. Massacres took place in Constantinople, Urfa, Shapin-Garahisar, Amasia, Mush, Marzvan and in other regions, towns and villages of the Empire During the 1894-1986 massacres, approximately 300,000 Armenians were killed. But the losses of Armenians were sadly not confined to this horror alone. In these unspeakably desperate times, around 100,000 Armenians were forcibly Islamized, while the same number were expelled from their native land
1908, July 10
Groupings emerged with the aim of unseating the Sultan and his authoritarian regime. Gradually uniting the groupings turned into a movement, receiving the name "Young Turks". Soon the "Young Turks" founded their own party - Ittihad ve Terakki, or "Union and Progress". The idea of overthrowing the bloodthirsty Sultan was growing in popularity; the Young Turks were the ones to effect it. On July 23, 1908, the Committee of Union and Progress organized a coup. Sultan Abdul Hamid II was deprived of power; and in 1909 he was dethroned. The Young Turks came onto the arena under the slogans of the French Revolution: âLiberty, Equality, Fraternityâ. All the nations in the Empire, Moslem or Christian, vigorously welcomed the overthrow of the âred Sultanâ. The people believed that a new era in the history of the Ottoman Empire had dawned. Armenians thought so, too. As evidenced by Moussa Prince, âArmenians, Turks, and Greeks were hugging each other in the streetsâ in euphoria. Yet, shortly after this, it turned out that the Young Turks were well disguised ardent nationalists, who continued the policy of oppressions and slaughters carried out by the preceding Sultans. They were advocates of the idea of assimilation of all the nations of the Empire to create a âpureâ Turkish nation, never even stopping at mass slaughters in order to achieve that goal.
April, 1909
Only a year after the Young Turk Revolution, in April 1909, Turkish chauvinist figures in the town of Adana, in Cilicia, incited a crowd/throng to commit wholesale atrocities against the local Armenian population. Only after a few days did the the Turkish army intervene. From Adana the massacre spread on to other Armenian settlements - from Marash to Kesab. In some regions Armenians turned to self-defense and managed to survive. The massacres raged on for a month, resulting in the death of over thirty thousand Armenians. Having initially supported the Young Turk Revolution with enthusiasm, Armenians for the first time faced serious doubts and fear for this new proto-fascist regime.
1910
Undertaking the construction and use of the railway that traversed the Ottoman Empire in the end of the XIX and in the beginning of XX century, Germany strived to assume control over the Ottoman Empire, in order to contain the position of England in India and Egypt, as well as weaken Russiaâs position in the Caucasus. Germany connected the construction of the Baghdad railway also with its economic and military-political ambitions in Western Armenia. Within the German political agenda it was thought that in order to establish Turkish homogeneity in North-Eastern Anatolia, it would be necessary to resettle Armenians in the are of the Baghdad railway construction, which then would achieve two important goals: the actual construction of the railway, which would be provided with skilful and qualified manpower, and the attenuation of Russian influence in Western Armenia. Particularly, the well-known German political scientist Paul Raurbach thought that âNative Armenians should be moved from Western Armenia, and in their place be settled Muslims brought from Trachea and Russia. In this case Armenia would be separated from Russia at once.â Raurbach suggested relocating Western Armenians to Mesopotamia, which in his mind would contribute to the âeconomic development of the roadâ. This viewpoint of Germans became a basis for the Young Turkish policy of annihilating the Armenians in their homeland.
1911
The Young Turkish decision to solve the Armenian Question through genocide was finally adopted in the beginning of 1910s at a number of secret sessions and conferences of the Union and Progress Partyâs Central Committee. In this regards the 1911 Salonika conference stood out,where the leadership explicitly decided to Turkify all the non-Turkish nations of the Empire. This most acutely impacted the Armenians throughout the Empireâs territories. The decisions made at the conference became the official strategy of the policy adopted by Young Turks. Secret orders were then signed by Talaat and sent to the Empireâs local authorities in order for them to take prior necessary measures for exterminating the Armenians.
1912-1913
The Balkan Wars (the first one from October 1912 through May 1913, and the second one from June 1913 through August 1913), waged between the Balkan Alliance and Turkey, resulted in the aggravation of international relations in the Balkans and in the whole of Europe, thus accelerating the unleashing of the World War. Ottoman Turkey's defeat during the first Balkan War prepared grounds for the revisiting of the Armenian Question, as a result of which the Reforms Question of Western Armenia was once again alive. Thanks to the efficient participation of Armenian public circles and the Russian government, this human rights issue became a discussion point of international diplomacy.
July 1914
The congress of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation was held in Erzerum. One could already feel the spirit of the imminent war in the air, and the Federation had convened to decide on its position in case war broke out. Learning of the congress, the Young Turk authorities sent two representatives- Naji Bey and Shakir Behaeddin, who occupied important positions in their party. At the congress they laid the following demands to Armenians on behalf of the Union and Progress party; first, the congress should declare on behalf of all Armenians that both the Armenians of Turkey and the Armenians of Russia would stay loyal to Turkey in case of war; second,that they were to form Armenians detachments to fight against Russians, third, they should foment a revolt in the Caucasus and behind the lines of the Russian army. At the same time they declared that âIf Armenians were to hold such positions, after the war they would be given the right to establish an independent state on certain territories of Turkey and Russiaâ. In response to the Young Turk demands, the congress declared that in case of war the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire and the Armenians of Russia would appear in two different camps, as they are the subjects of two different states and are loyal to them. Regarding the issue of raising a revolt in Caucasus, the congress emphasized in its decision that âthe congress cannot speak on behalf of the Armenians of Russia, as they are the subjects of another stateâ. Along with this, the congress explicitly stated in its decision that âin case the Turkish government decides to join the war, Armenians of Turkey would carry out their responsibilities put on them as Turkish subjects â to serve the country in the army, protect the country just like the other subjects of the Empireâ. It was not easy to make such a decision for it meant fraternal war for Armenians, as the Armenians of Russia would likewise tend to their duties. However, the Young Turk representatives were dissatisfied with the decisions of the congress, as they had rejected the Young Turk desires of the Armenians of Russia to rise in revolt against Russia . As such, the enraged Shakir Behaeddin, later to be remembered as one of the most active organizers and butchers during the Armenian Genocide, exclaimed at the congress âThis is high treason!â.
August - October 1914
On August 1, 1914, World War I broke out. It lasted for four years, and involved 33 states. The principal role-players, however, were two hostile military-political alliances, formed at the turn of the century: The Entente, with England, France and Russia representing the core nations, and the Central Powers â Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy, with Turkey to join later. 1.5 billion people, or 75% of the world population, was drawn into the war, with over 74 million people mobilized. The death toll amounted to 10 million, plus another 20 million injured in the military operations during various episodes of the war. The Ottoman Empire, ruled by the Young Turk triumvirate â Minister of Interior Talat, Minister of War Enver, and Minister of the Navy Jemal--officially joined in the war on October 29, 1914. Months later in an interview given to the American press Enver Pasha gave the following reasons for Turkeyâs participation: âItâs beyond doubt that the world has difficulties in perceiving that Turkey is no longer what it used to be. Itâs not the Turkish government, but the Turkish nation that is at war today. The newspapers of France, Great Britain and Russia write a lot that Turkey joined the war to help Germany. It is true for the moment, but is not for when we were recruiting our forces. Today Austria-Hungary and Germany help us and we help them. We joined the war, because there was no other way out. â¦Russia threatens to seize our territories in the Black Sea and in the Caucasus, while England started military operations against Messopotamia and has placed a navy at the mouth of the Dardanelles. We waited for another week and then we declared a war. Presently Turkey has a well-prepared and armed army of 2,000,000 soldiers. We have been so much doubted and insinuated, that now we wish to persuade the world by arms that ethnically we are not dead, as some insistâ. /Interview given to âAssociated Pressâ, 20 April, 1915/.
November 1914
When Turkey joined in the war and mobilization was announced, Western Armenians, like the other peoples of the Empire, were called to the army.
1915
First violent acts committed against Armenians under the guise of the War
January 2
After the withdrawal of Russian troops most of the Armenian and Assyrian refugees going from Urmia, Salmast and other surrounding settlements to Nor Jugha were attacked and killed by Turkish and Kurdish armed forces. January 12 Slaughter of 107 Armenians took place in the village of Avgharik.
February
For implementing the Armenian Genocide in an organized and merciless manner, the Union and Progress Partyâs Central Committee formed the âExecutive Committee of Threeâ in February 1914, comprised of Doctor Nazim, Shakir Behaeddin and Midhat Shyukri. The Young Turk Triumvirate â Talaat, Enver and Jemal - operated through this committee, which was responsible for the implementation of the deportation and massacre of all the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire. The committee, which had top-level authorization, had resolved all the technical problems connected with deporting and exterminating Armenians â the deportation dates according to regions, the deportation routes and places, the concentration camps for their ultimate annihilation, etc. Doctor Nazim, one of the most important Young Turk leaders and one of the organizers of the Armenian Genocide, made a speech at a secret session of the party, when the final decision to exterminate Armenians was made, stating, âThe Armenian nation should be entirely exterminated, so that no Armenian is left in our country and that their name be completely forgotten. Now we are at war and no other such occasion will ever occur. The intervention of the European Powers and the loud protests of the World Press will remain unnoticed, and if they learn about it, they will face a fait accompli and the question will disappear. This time our operations should be directed at total extermination of the Armenians. It is necessary to annihilate them all, till the very last man...I want the Turk and the Turk only to live and impartially rule over this country. Let all the non-Turkish elements go to hell, no matter what nationality or religion they may belong toâ. The so-called âTeshkilat mahsuseâ, or âSpecial Organizationâ that was established by the decision of the Young Turk party was put at the disposal of the âCommittee of Threeâ and was resposible for implementing the Armenian Genocide. The leader of the organization was Shakir Behaeddin. âTeshkilat mahsuseâ was formed from criminals freed from prisons for this very purpose, chetens â bands of robbers, bandits and other dregs of society that were capable of and called upon to commit the most hideous of crimes.
February 12
The beginning of the dismissal of Armenian officials, imprisonment of Armenian officers of the Ottoman army, and formation of labor detachments comprised of disarmed Armenian soldiers.
February 18
The Regional delagates of the party are informed about the decision and the plan to exterminate Armenians with letters signed by the plenipotentiary of the Young Turk Central Committee, Behaeddin Shakir.
February 19
The slaughtering agents were formed from murderers and criminals let out of prisons, with orders to kill the disarmed soldiers working on the Karin military line.
February
The Young Turk leadership began the practical phase of the plan of the Armenian Genocide by eliminated at first the enlisted Armenian soldiers. By doing that, they intended to deprive the Armenians of their potential armed support. By the decree of Turkeyâs minister of war Enver, issued in February, 1915 , all Armenian soldiers were disarmed, split into groups of 50-100, and killed. As a result, from the very beginning Armenians were deprived of any military force, capable to defend their lives, homes, property and settlements. As a result, only the old and sick, and women and children, were left in the towns where Armenians lived.
April 8
First mass deportations and massacres of the population of Western Armenia, in Zeitun
April-June
On this day in Constantinople, with no official charge leveled, the selected elite of the Western Armenians were arrested and deported â members of the Turkish Parliament (Mejlis), writers, lawyers, teachers, journalists, physicians, public figures, clergymen, men of art â approximately 800 people. They all were killed on the road to exile, or upon reaching the destination. Armenian party and political figures were arrested and killed as pre-designed. Such was the fate of Nazareth Chaush, the well known leader of Zeytun; Ishkhan, the prominent public figure of Van; the entire leadership of the Armenians of Urfa â close to one hundred people. In June, 1915, in one of the central squares of the capital of the Empire, twenty members of the Henchak Party, led by the prominent party leader Paramaz, were hanged. The orientation, as well as the importance given to this quick strike, were carefully chosen by the Ottoman government. The intention was to behead the Western Armenians, to leave them without military support and political and intellectual leadership, to disorganize and demoralize the general Armenian population, and to preclude every possibility for them to prepare or muster resistance. The slaughter of Armenian soldiers and the decapitation of the intelligentsia proved fatal for Western Armenians, who in fact lost their capacity to organize and resist. This accounts for the relative ease and the devastating scale of the perpetration of the Genocide. Having successfully carried out this first phase, the executioners embarked on a path to arrest, evict and slay Armenians in their ancestral homeland of Western Armenia, Cilicia, and throughout the regions and towns of Western Anatolia. The Armenian massacres and deportations were pervasive across the entire Ottoman Empire from east to west, and north to south.
April 15 â May 16
On April 15, around 500 Armenians were killed by the Turkish authorities in the village of Akants near Van. Massacres took place in 80 villages in the environs of Van resulting in the deaths of 24,000 Armenians over the course of 3 days. On April 20, having swept through the villages in the environs of Van, Turks reached the city and the heroic battle of Van began. It lasted until May 16, 1915.
May â June
Mass Deportations across the entire territory of Turkey
May 9
Deportations in Tokat
May 14
Deportations in Baberd
On May 14, 1915, by the Sultanâs decree, the Law on Deportation was endorsed, the implementation of which was entrusted to the Minister of War, Enver. The law allowed for the military command to expel and resettle the residents of villages and towns, individually or collectively. As such, the forcible eviction of the Armenians from their ancestral homeland and their deportation to the Arabian deserts was legalized.
May 15 â18
Exile of Karin valley Armenians and the massacre of 25,000 Armenians
May 19
Massacre of Khnus Armenians
May 22-25
In Nur Osmanie Center of Istanbul opened the mixed meeting of the Young Turk âSpecial Organizationâ, at which Talaat presented the extensive project of the ways and procedures of deporting Armenians, the control of the property left after the Armenians, the resettlement of Armenian villages and families, etc.
May 27
The Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire legalized the May 22 order of Talaat and charged the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry Defense with its implementation. The very same day Talaat promulgated the decree on the deportation and massacre of Armenians.
June 1
12,000 Armenian soldiers that had been working in labor camps since November 1914 were murdered on the Tigranakert â Kharberd roadway
June 3
Armenians of Hadjin deported
June 6 â end of July
Deportation and Massacre of Arabkir Armenians. The caravans coming from Arabkir were one by one shot on the bank of the Euphrates, thus leaving no Armenian in Arabkir by the end of July.
June 7
Deportations in Erzinka and Akn
June 10
Armenians of Mardin and Severak deported
June 11
Armenians of Khotorjur deported
June 11
Deportation and massacre of 1700 families from Khnus
June 14 â July 26
Armenians of Karin city deported Armenians of Mardin and Severak deported
June 22 â July 5
Deportation of Sebastia
June 24
Deportation of Shapin Garahisar started
June 26 - 27
Deportations started in Kharberd, Trabzon, Marzvan and Samson
June 25
Massacres in Baghesh
May 1915
The Allied Powers could not remain indifferent to what was going on in Turkey and thus sent a note of protest to the Turkish Cabinet, holding it responsible for the massacres of the Armenians. On May 13, 1915 in London, Paris and Petrograd the joint official declaration of England, France and Russia was issued simultaneously on the responsibility of the Ottoman Empire for the atrocities against the Armenians. In particular it stated: âDuring this whole month massacres of Armenians are implemented in Armenia by Turks and Kurds, with evident permission of the Ottoman authorities, and sometimes with their immediate help. In mid-April massacres of Armenians took place in Erzerum, Bitlis, Mush, Sasun, Zeitun and Cilicia. In the environs of Van inhabitants of hundreds of villages were annihilated and Kurds have captured the Armenian district of Van. At the same time the Turkish government of Constantinople imprisoned and unspeakably persecuted the peaceful Armenian inhabitants. The joint declaration of England-France-Russia was the first vital official document adopted in the XX century, which held responsible another government and its leadership taken together and individually for state-sponsored crimes.
July 1
Massacre of the Armenians of Kharbed-Mezire, Trabzon and Bayazet started
July 2
Massacre of the villages surrounding Yozghat started
July 10
Mush massacre started. From an initial population of 15,000 only 500 survived, and from 59,000 inhabitants of the district only 9000 survived.
July 15
Karinâs ruler Tahsi in his letter addressed to the central government wrote: âIn Karin, barbarism has overstepped all limits. The disgrace and outrage practiced for money and women are extremely shameful and are inhuman. An end should be put to all this and especially to the chetens operating under the name âTeshkilat Makhuseâ. The ruler of Kharberd writes that all the roads are covered with corpses of children and women and they donât have time to bury them. It would be better if we preserved our nobleness and national imageâ.
Mid July
Deportation and massacre of Tigranakert Armenians began
July 18
Self-defense of Sasun began, as Turkish troops attacked the inhabitants of the city. Realizing that annihilation was threatening them, the residents of the city turned to self-defense and three days later, on July 21, they climbed the mountain Andok.
July 24 â 28
Deportations started in the environs of Ankara and Istanbul Deportations started in Izmit, Partizak, Armash, Kesaria, in the Armenian villages near Ankara. The deportations continued in Cilicia involving new locales â Antioch, Aintap, Pehesni, Kilis, Ateaman, and Garaturan, then also Kesab and the other surrounding settlements.
July 30 â September 14
Commands of deportations in Setio region were given, but the locals met the troops with self-defense. The heroic battle known as the 40 days of Musa Dagh lasted until September 14. After fighting for 40 days, the 4000 Armenians that survived managed to break the Turkish blockade, get to the beach and board the English and French ships waiting for them there. Some days later they arrived at the city of Port-Said. Years later the Austrian writer Franz Werfel immortalized that tragic yet heroic episode of the Armenian nation in his novel "40 Days of Musa Dagh"
August 3- 11
Deportations started in Afion Garahisar, Kesaria, Sivr, Hisar, Mersin, Adabazar, Marash,and the villages near Eskishehire.
August 13-21
Deportation of the Armenians of Ankara, Brusa, Everik, Adana and the surrounding villages started
August â September
First official eyewitness accounts of mass extermination of Western Armenians
August
US Ambassador Morgenthau recounts the information from meetings and negotiations with Talaat
August 12
Enver reports that to date 200,000 Armenians slain.
August 19
Lord Bryce reports that 500,000 Armenians have been murdered in Turkey.
August 31
Talaat tells German ambassador, Prince Ernst Hohenlohe-Langenburg, that the Armenian Question no longer exists.
September 14
The New York Times reports the murder of 350,000 Armenians.
September 15
The Law on Abandoned Goods is ratified by the Turkish Senate
1916
March 7
Replying to the March 3 telegram of the Ministry Abdulhat Nuri informed the Ministry that through March 16 of 1916 in Pap and Meske 35,000 Armenians were exterminated; 10,000 in Karlk near Aleppo, 20,000 in Tipsi, Apuharrar and Hamam , and 35,000in Ral es Ain. In total 100,000.
March 17
Deportation of over 50,000 Armenians gathered in Ras el Ain began. Deportations were followed by massacres that lasted until June, when the massacre of 200,000 Armenians gathered in Der zor took place.
June 22 â July 13
Atrocities started in different locales, as a result of which in Sebastia 10 000 soldiers working in the labor camps were killed, in the West of Karin â 9000, in Zara â 1000, and in a place called Reshatie, in the region of Tokat --1000 Armenians. The massacres ended on July 13 with total of 21000 Armenians murdered.
August 10
By official note, the Young Turk government dissolved the Jerusalem and Istanbul patriarchates, leaving only the Cilicia patriarchate, which adopted jurisdiction over the Istanbul patriarchate.
October
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, acting on a resolution of the US Congress, proclaims October 8 and 9 as "Armenian Relief Days."
November 26
On the basis of the London treaty signed by the president of the Armenian national delegation Poghos Nubar Pasha, together with Mark Sax (England), and George Picot (France) on November 26, the Armenian Volunteer Detachment â the Eastern Legion within the French troops-- was formed to liberate Armenian lands from Turkish domination.
1917
January
Mr. Goppert, a German Embassy official, visits Enver, Talaat and Halil to convey that forced Islamization under the guise of military necessity or security must be stopped.
October 25
The Bolsheviks led by Lenin carried out a political revolution in Russia, taking control of the authority of the countryâs temporary government. Coming to power, the Bolsheviks ceased military operations, and in November Russian troops began abandoning their positions on the territories of Western Armenia. Seizing the occasion, the Turkish government set their sights not only on the control of Western Armenia, but also to seize all of Eastern Armenia.
1918
March 3
The Bolshevik leaders of Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the anti-Entente states - Germany, Turkey, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, by which in fact it withdrew from the Entente and joined its former antagonists. By this treaty the parties agreed on ceasing military operations and Russia guaranteed the withdrawal of its troops from Eastern Anatolia, particularly from the Kars, Ardahan and Batum regions. This treaty was the logical continuation of the decree âon peaceâ adopted by the Bolsheviks on November 8 of 1917. The Brest-Litovsk treaty put the Armenians living in the Caucasus in an extremely difficult situation. In fact, it invalidated the decision of December 29, 1917 on the right of self-determination of Eastern Armenian lands, instead adopting the decree on returning the same lands to Turkey. Months later, on September 20, the Russian government, by the note signed by the Foreign Affairs Minister Chicherin, invalidated the concession of Caucasus territories to Turkey. Regardless, even with the temporary treaty of Brest Litovsk, the Western Armenian territories, where only a few months before the Russian army presided, were ethnically cleansed and robbed of any near-term future as a part of Armenia. The Brest Treaty presented intriguing opportunities for the Turkish side with its continual expansionist policy. Using the occasion and breaking the Erzinka ceasefire agreement signed December 5, 1917, the Turkish army initiated fresh attacks with vastly superior forces, and one by one captured Erzinka, Karin, Sarighamish, Kars, and on May 15, Alexandropol. The very existence of Armenia was in jeopardy.
May
Turkish troops captured the Sardarapat station. The Armenian army of regular troops and militia men went to a last gasp battle of life and death against the Turkish regular army. General Silikyan was charged with the responsibility of leading the Sardarapat defense. After enduring heavy losses on May 27, the remnants of the Turkish army fled to Alexandropol. The next day, May 28, the Republic of Armenia was proclaimed. The newly-established Armenian state was to exist two and half short years, until the Sovietization of Armenia.
June-September
Ignoring the June 14, 1918 Batum treaty, the Turkish troops attacked Alexandropol on August 15. The 15-hour Armenian resistance gave an opportunity to the Armenian refugees gathered from Karin, Kars, Ardahan and Ardvin to once again flee the city. The Turkish army slaughtered the rest of the inhabitants and attacked the refugees, adding numerous victims. The âSavage detachmentâ Tatar regiment on September 15 carried out a similar carnage in Baku, where 30,000 Armenians were slain.
September 19
in Arara, in Palestine, the Armenian Legion of the French army clashed against the Turkish army. Thanks to the victory Armenians at this battle, the Armenian Legion greatly contributed to the victory of the Allied countries over the Turks.
October 30
In the city of Mudros an armistice was signed between the Entente states and Turkey. Thus Turkey accepted defeat in World War I. This document makes provisions for the return of the Armenian survivors to their homes. Later the Entente states did not do anything to enforce the implementation of the Mudros armistice, which could have assisted ravaged Armenia. Instead, the Turkish government of Ankara rejected the Mudros armistice, actually invalidating it.
November â December
On November 28 the Eastern Legion, later renamed the Armenian Legion, entered Alexandrette port of Cilicia and managed to capture a number of important militray locales from Dec. 17 through Dec. 19.
November
Talaat, Enver and Jemal flee Turkey
1919
February 28
After the consolidation of the Nationalist-Kemalist forces in Turkey, massacres of the Armenians of Aleppo took place on February 28.
July 23
Kyazim Karabekir and colonel Mustafa Kemal as president opened the Turkish Nationalist Congress in Karin, most of the participants of which were former Young Turks. On August 7, finishing its sessions, the congress adopted a decision on the integrity and immunity of Turkey.
1920
January 21 â February 12
The heroic battle Marash began against the Turkish nationalists, lasting until February 12, 1920. On February 11 the French forces withdrew from Marash, leaving the cityâs Armenian population to the mercy of the Turkish troops. Armenians followed the French army, but were attacked by Turks along the way. The Turks brutalized and slaughtered the Armenians and the French during their withdrawal. While retreating, Armenians endured 3-5000 victims, while the French lost 800-1200, the freezing conditions exacerbating the attacks by the Turks.
January 27
At the session of the Istanbul military Mustafa Kemal stated the following about the Young Turks, âThose pashas committed unprecedented, unspeakable and incomprehensible crimes and for their personal interest they brought the country to its present state. They have committed all kinds of violence, they have organized deportations and massacres, they have burnt infants with petroleum, they have raped women and girls in front of their husbands and parents, they have stolen children from their parents, they have confiscated the real estate and property of Armenians, they have exiled Armenians to Mosul in deplorable conditions, they have drowned thousands of innocent people in the sea, they forced people to change their religion, they made starving old men walk for months and work, and they have forced young women to submit to dreadful brothels never encountered in the history of any other nationâ.
March 23
The Turkish-Mustafa gang led by Khosrov bek Sultanov butchered over 30,000 Armenians of Shushi, and robbed, destroyed and burnt to the ground the Armenian district of the town.
March 23 - October 15
On March 23 the heroic battle of Hadjin started against the joined forces of Turkish nationalists and Young Turks, and ended on October 15, 1920.
1 April 1920 â 8 February 1921
The heroic battle of Aintap started on April 1 and ended on February 8, 1921.
July 5
The verdict of Young Turk leaders was issued, according to which 4 out of 31 criminals - Talaat, Jemal, Enver and Nazim - were condemned to death, while the remainder of the 27 were condemned to imprisonment for different terms. After World War I the trial of Young Turk leaders began in Turkey, with charges of war crimes. Among the accusations was the organization and implementation of massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. However, several were charged âin absentiaâ as they had managed to flee the country.
August 4
On August 4, 1920 the Autonomous Cilician Republic of Armenia, led by Mihran Tamatyan, was proclaimed in Adana under French patronage. However, it was declared a republic in name only, as due to a fallout of Anglo-French relations, the French military authories became inclined to defend Turkeyâs position, leading to the dissolution of the newly-formed Armenian government.
August 10
In the Paris suburb of Sevres the victorious states of World War I signed a treaty with Turkey, a document of 13 parts and 433 Articles. Articles 88 and 89 recognized the Republic of Armenia as a free and independent state. The Articles state: âTurkey and Armenia, as well as the higher powers agree on leaving the border determination of Erzerum, Van and Bitlis between Turkey and Armenia to the decision of the US President Woodrow Wilson and accept his decision, as well as all the means he can suggest for Armenia to have sea access and on the mentioned territory any demilitarization of the Ottoman territory⦠From the moment of adopting this resolution Turkey waives all rights to these territoriesâ.
September 14
The French authorities of Adana gave an order to the Armenians refugees in Cilicia to leave for Istanbul, America, Marseille, Beirut, Dort-Yol, Iskenderun or elsewhere. The order initially concerned those 14,000 Armenians that were under French patronage, but later was augmented to include all Armenians.
September 23
Without any declaration of war, the Turkish army attacked Armenia and captured Alexandropol. Around 30 villages in the Alexandropol and Akhalkalak regions were overrun, with the inhabitants being greeted with pillage and slaughter. The Turkish troops were merciless in the degree of their cruelty and horror.
November- December
While Woodrow Wilson expresses his frustrations about implementing the new borders of the Republic of Armenia, Soviet forces regained total control of the Caucasus. At the end of November the Red Army entered Armenia. The ruling government of the short-lived independent Armenia, in an effort to avoid still more bloodshed and fraternal civil war, relinquished authority to the Bolsheviks, and on December 2 Armenia was Sovietized.
1921
March 15 â July 1922
One of the organizers of Armenian Genocide, Talaat, was assassinated in Berlin by an Armenian student, Soghomon Tehlirian. This was the beginning of the âNemesisâ (named after the goddess of revenge in Greek mythology) operation, worked out at the 9th session of the ARF party in autumn, 1919, the aim of which was to execute the death sentence of Young Turk leaders in Turkey. âNemesisâ was a clear, thoroughly worked out operation, which with time was efficiently implemented by the Armenian avengers, pursuing only the aim of justice. A special committee was formed to discover the hiding-places of the criminals living in different corners of the world. In June, Tehleryanâs trial for killing Talaat began in Germany, which in fact became a trial against the organizers of the genocide. Given European acknowledgment of Talaatâs responsibility as chief architect of the genocide, Tehlirian was acquitted. In Rome, on December 6, a bullet from a gun wielded by another Armenian avenger Arshavir Shirakyan killed the leader of the first Young Turk government â Said Halim. In Berlin on April 7, 1922 Armenian avengers Arshavir Shirakyan and Aram Yerkanyan executed the death sentence of the former governor of Trabzon Jemal Azmi and the founder of âTeshkilateshi Makhsuseâ criminal organization â Behaeddin Shakir. In Tbilisi on July 25 Armenian avengers Stepan Tsaghikyan, Artashes Gevorgyan and Petros Ter-Poghosyan murdered one of the butchers of the Armenian Genocide â Jemal Pasha.
March 16
In Moscow on March 16 a treaty on Soviet-Turkish friendship and fraternity was signed. It was signed at a time when Soviet Russia supported Kemalist Turkey, disregarding the latterâs expansionist policy towards Armenia. Thus the open questions regarding Armenia were settled without heed to Armeniaâs interest or historical justice.
March 20
Turkish-French Treaty of London
October 13
A treaty was signed in Kars between Turkey and the newly-established Armenian Soviet Republic, Georgian Soviet Republic and the Azerbaijani Soviet Republic. This treaty restated the points of the Moscow treaty and regarding territorial matters in Armenia, it was strongly anti-Armenian.
October 20
On October 20 the Turkish-French treaty was signed in Ankara resulting in the French troop pullout from Cilicia, lasting from December of 1921 until January 4 of 1922. The threat of new massacres led to the migration of 160,000 Armenians to Syria, Lebanon and Greece.
1922
August 4
On August 4 during the clash between Soviet and anti-Soviet forces in Central Asia, the Armenian soldier Hakob Melkumov killed the Minister of War of the Ottoman Turkey â Enver.
September 9
The Turkish army entered Izmir and massacred 10,000 Armenians and 100,000 Greeks. Three days later Izmir was set afire.
November
An international conference commenced in Switzerland on the question of the Middle East, lasting until July 24, 1923. The participants of the conference were Great Britain, France, Italy, Greece, Japan, Romania, Yugoslavia, Turkey and the US as an observer country. The delegation of the Armenian Republic was not allowed to take part at the conference, as it no longer represented Armenia, which had been absorbed into the Soviet Union. The Lausanne Conference also discussed the Armenian Question, but the Turkish delegation led by Ismet Pasha and Riza Nur Bey decisively spoke against the idea of founding any Armenian state on the territory of Turkey. In the end Turkey managed to dictate its will to the Entente countries. As a result the treaty included no mention of Armenia or of Armenians whatsoever. Thus by the Lausanne Conference the Armenian Question was temporarily closed and the territories to be delivered to Armenia by the Treaty of Sevres disappeared within the ethnically cleansed newly-determined borders of Republic of Turkey.
March 31
Ankara announced a verdict of "not guilty" concerning all those Turks who had been condemned by military or other courts.
November 30
Deportation of Armenians and Greeks from Pontus
1923
September
According to a new Turkish law the return of Armenians to Turkey was once and for all prohibited
1939
June
Against the will of the local population and disregarding Syriaâs opposition, the region of Alexandrette was annexed to Turkey, as a consequence of which around 40,000 Armenians were forced to leave their homes and settle in Syria and Lebanon between July 16-23.
September
A week before the invasion of Poland and the start of World War II, Adolph Hitler spoke of his orders "to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish race or language," and concluded his remarks by asking, "Who, after all, speaks today of the extermination of the Armenians?â | ||||||||
3581 | dbpedia | 2 | 92 | https://www.nytimes.com/sitemap/1920/06/13/ | en | Site Map - June 13, 1920 | [] | [] | [] | [
""
] | null | [] | 1920-06-13T00:00:00 | All New York Times stories published on June 13, 1920. | en | /vi-assets/static-assets/favicon-d2483f10ef688e6f89e23806b9700298.ico | null | ||||||
3581 | dbpedia | 1 | 69 | https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/p/books-and-bibliographies.html | en | Bibliographies | [
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] | null | [
"Chris Gratien"
] | 2019-04-24T01:58:00+03:00 | Welcome to the Ottoman History Podcast books and bibliographies section, which features hand-crafted bibliographies on select themes and p... | en | https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/favicon.ico | https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/p/books-and-bibliographies.html | Heather Hughes holds an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies and an MSIS. She is currently Middle East Studies Librarian at UC Santa Barbara. She is interested in subject librarianship in Middle Eastern Studies and archival practice. | |||||
3581 | dbpedia | 1 | 12 | https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1921/5/11/describes-condition-of-turkey-since-war/ | en | DESCRIBES CONDITION OF TURKEY SINCE WAR | [
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] | null | [] | 1921-05-11T00:00:00 | This is the second of a series of articles on the American colleges in Turkey, by The Reverend John Ernest | /favicon.ico | https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1921/5/11/describes-condition-of-turkey-since-war/ | This is the second of a series of articles on the American colleges in Turkey, by The Reverend John Ernest Merrill, President of the Central Turkey College, Aintab, Turkey. Dr. Merrill, who is one of the educational leaders of the Near East, recently spoke at the University, at the time of the conference on the Christian Ministry.
Our Ford was spinning rapidly over the smooth road from Kilis on Aintab. A few minutes before, we had passed the turn in the road and the stone bridge where Perry and Johnson, the American "Y" secretaries, were killed in 1920, and our chauffeur had pointed out near the road the grave of the Nationalist Turkish leader, Shahin Bey, who had deplored the deed committed by his men, and bad himself been killed almost at the game place, during the French advance.
"Now you'll see the college;" said our interpreter. And sure enough, as we rounded the shoulder of a low hill, we caught sight of a group of buildings in the distance before us, standing on high ground, surrounded by a high wall, and silhouetted against the sky. As we drew nearer, we could see signs of what the buildings had suffered, during the Turkish bombardment, when the French held the college as a fortress. The north wall of one building had a place as large as a room blown out of it. On another building the windows met, because the intervening wall had been shot away.
We drove on past the college to the hospital on the edge of the city, and put up there with Dr. Shepard is the son of the famous "Shepard of Aintab," who died here of typhus in 1915 to take his father's place. he has been in the city all through the fighting. He has counselled and helped besieged Armenians, has tried to make peace between Armenians and Turks, and has received French and Armenian, and now Turkish wounded to the American, hospital, of which he is the head. He is just back from a trip to Beirut, where he was decorated by the French general. This shows the esteem in which he and the work of the Americans are held.
25,000 Armenians Deported
We have visited the city, and seen the destruction there. About 25,000 Armenians were deported from Aintab in 1915, and before the return of the survivors about three thousand houses belonging to Armenians had been destroyed. This devastation has been made good in part and the Armenian quarter rehabilitated during the last two years. But the Turks quarter has been shot to pieces by the French, and is a wreck. Last May, the French were determined to avoid shelling the Turkish quarter so destructively, but they were compelled to it finally by the obstinate resistance of the Nationalists, who surrendered only when they had nothing left to eat. The Turks said that Aintab was their Verdun, and they were determined to defend it at all hazards.
When we were taken to the college, we rode the half mile from the Hospital in our Ford and entered the campus though the college age. But we were cold that people had not been able to do this for nearly a year, and were shown the trenches by which the college had communicated with the city all through the siege. The campus is marked off by walls and trenches, the surrounding wall is pierced for rifle and for machine gun fire, and big guns are still in their places on the top of the hill, pointing in all directions.
We saw the great breaches in the walls of the buildings, and where a Turkish shell had come down through the three stories of College Hall and burst in the basement among the French provisions. They showed us the Professor' residence, where a number of officers and soldiers had been killed or wounded by Turkish cannon fire from a mountain six miles to the north, and where a few minutes later members of a relieving party had met the same fate. We saw the president's house, where there is not a whole pane of glass left, where the long back veranda has been blown away, and where a shell went through one of the bed-romms, but where they say "no serious damage has been done."
College Closed Since 1915
The college has been closed, so far as college work is concerned, since 1915, when the Armenians were deported from Aintab. Several of the teachers were sent into exile, where some of them, died of typhus or were murdered. Three were sent to courtmartial on trumped-up charges, but were finally acquitted--a miracle in Turkey. Several are still living, and are in Turkey or abroad, waiting for the college to re-open. About one-third of the students died during the war. Over fifty of the alumni were murdered or died of disease due to war conditions. More than forty who are physicians were complied to serve in the Turkish army as military, doctors. The college premises were occupied by the Turkish military in 1917 and again in 1918, with the design of securing permanent control of them for the army. In December, 1918, they were occupied by the British (E. E. F.) and in November, 1919, by the French.
Advertisement
The college is unique in a number of ways, and has carried to a high degree of development the share of the native people in its instruction and in native people in its instruction and in management. The professors were almost all of them natives of the country and graduates of the college, with postgraduate training abroad in France of England or Germany of America. There was a Licen en Droit from Pairs, an M.A. from Yale, a Ph.D. From Columbia and there had been a C.E. from Yale--all natives.
Similar to American Colleges
The curriculum has been along the lines of our American colleges, with eleven years of grade and secondary work required for entrance to the Freshman class, and the Junior and Senior classes have been recognized by the Turkish government as of university grade, in the French sense of the term, for the Turkish government schools are organized on the French model.
Just before the war, the faculty were working on the problem of the development of student initiative and responsibility. Their student organizations, Y. M. C. A., Athletic Association and literary societies were genuine student organizations, managed by the students and not by the faculty, with faculty advisory committees. The last step had been the successful inauguration of Self--Government, which many had thought impossible.
Take the example of athletics. In 1899 they had their first Field Day, and all the work was done by an American director. In 1904, the same responsibility was carried by a native instructor, without assistance. In 1914, Field--Day was conducted under the auspices of the Students' Athletic Association.
The students must be great readers, Most of the people of the country are illiterate or read very little. The college has a library of about 7500 volumes, English, Armenian and Turkish. Students are encouraged to read and library work is a required part of the language courses, with the result that the number of books drawn per student during the year has averaged over fifty. Back here in the interior of Turkey, they have had sixty or seventy periodicals regularly on the shelves in the college reading room!
Site Given by Moslem
The fine site on which the college is built was given by a wealthy Moslem, back in the '70s, when the college was founded. His granddaughter's husband, by the way, has just been made governor of the city, under the French. But the Moslems have never been free to benefit from the college without restrictions. In the days of Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid, they were forbidden to attend, and under the Young Turks a government lycee was opened to keep them from attending. But there is bound to be a great change, when the college re-opens. Even now the Moslems of the city have appealed to the Americans to take charge of their common schools, something unheard of and without parallel in Turkey.
The Armenians had expected that Aintab would be included in Greater Armenia, but since that hope has vanished, they have accepted the situation and have shown a wonderful spirit in making up with and conciliating the Turks. Last February, they found themselves between the Turks and the French, when the former wanted to attack the latter, and were compelled to fight in self-defence, but after seventy days of fighting they were able to resume relations with the Turks. And now after the year of siege, when they find themselves on the side of the French who finally have conquered, instead of seeking revenge from the Turks for all that they have suffered, they have decided to do all in their power to help their Turkish fellow-citizens!
Armenians Resourceful
Advertisement
I have been amazed, not only at this, but at the courage, resiliency and recuperative power of these Armenians and at their resourcefulness. I have listened to story after story of the siege that is just over, telling of their pluck and ability and self-control. Their persistence and their religiousness, too, have impressed me.
Another thing that I must mention is the influence which these American residents, who know the language and the people, have out here with all races and classes. I have seen evidences of it myself, and have heard the stories of how Turks, Armenians and French, all fighting to the death, would stop hostilities to let the Americans rescue a hundred or two orphans or start on a journey that involved crossing the firing lines. America has a tremendous prestige as the disinterested friend of all who are in distress. It is something for us to live up to at home! We think these Americans have given up their lives and buried themselves, but we are mistaken. They are doing a work and wielding an influence that any man might desire and covet. | ||||||
3581 | dbpedia | 3 | 32 | https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/195195 | en | Photographic Memories: The Field Hospital of Hafir-el-Auja and US- Ottoman Relations | [
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] | null | [] | null | en | Institute for Palestine Studies | https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/195195 | At the outset of World War I, an American Red Cross mission set up a field hospital in Hafir-el-Auja, an oasis just on the Palestinian side of the border with Egypt. Its purpose was to care for casualties suffered by the Turkish military during their first assault on British troops entrenched across the Suez Canal. Initial planning and preparations for the hospital originated in Beirut, but as the medical team travelled south towards the Sinai, Jerusalem, and in particular the American Colony, served as the staging ground for the hospital. In this paper I describe the background and activities of this rather unique American “wartime expedition” and clarify its motivation. I demonstrate that this isolated historical episode presents a complex view of US-Ottoman relations in the early twentieth century. In particular, I draw attention to the central role that American missionaries and the American Red Cross played in this relationship.
Introduction
My interest in the expedition begins with an old photograph of a medical team dressed in surgical garb, standing in front of a tent marked with both the Red Cross and the Red Crescent emblems. The photo used to hang in West Hall, the student center at the American University of Beirut (AUB), when I first saw it in 1942. My father, Dr. Vahan Kalbian (1887-1968), an Armenian born in Diyarbakir, Turkey, appears in that photo as part of the team. He had graduated from the medical school of the Syrian Protestant College (SPC, now the American University of Beirut) in 1914 and was appointed surgical resident at the adjoining American Hospital. Dr. Edwin St. John Ward (1880-1951), Professor of Surgery at the medical school, led the mission.
My father was always reluctant to talk about the photo, for reasons unknown to me, and I had forgotten it until recently, when it resurfaced among the American Colony photographic collections at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. I also found an original copy in a box of old photos recently salvaged from my family’s pre-1948 Talbiyeh home in West Jerusalem. Initially, my goal in pursuing research was to learn more about Dr. Ward’s mission so that I could better understand my father’s life and career. As my research progressed, however, I realized that this photograph, which held some personal meaning for me, might actually provide historians with important insights into US-Ottoman relations in the early years of World War I. Thus, I set out to learn more about why the American Red Cross (ARC) set up a field hospital in Palestine to take care of Turkish soldiers at a time when the Turks were fighting against the British, a US ally. I was able to find several archival sources that helped me recreate the expedition and the establishment of this field hospital. Dr. Ward, a graduate of Amherst College, donated his letters and papers to his alma mater, among which were two unpublished reports by Reverend George G. Doolittle, an American Presbyterian missionary based in Sidon who served as Assistant Director of this expedition. Rev. Doolittle had also published an article titled “With the Turkish Army in the Desert” about the hospital.2 I also located other photos of the expedition that were part of the American Colony collection at the Library of Congress. Of further help were the papers of John Whiting (1882-1951) of the American Colony in Jerusalem that included his description of setting up the tent hospital at Hafir-el-Auja.3
Background
In order to understand the significance of this photo, it is necessary to set the stage by briefly sketching the key features of US relations with the Ottoman Empire in the two centuries prior to the outbreak of World War I. The primary features of that relationship were trade, missionary activity, and humanitarian relief. Although these areas appear to fall outside the realm of official state diplomacy, it is clear that they played important roles in defining US-Ottoman relations, and thus must be taken seriously. Indeed, the field hospital came about as a collaborative effort by missionary and humanitarian relief groups, and most certainly played a role in diplomatic relations between the US and the Ottoman Empire.
The history of this relationship changed over time as different interests took precedence. For instance, starting in the eighteenth century the focal point of the relationship was trade.4 This was important to the US as it was attempting to assert its independence from Britain, since it could no longer count on the British Navy to protect important trade routes with the East. Pirates were based in Algeria and Tunisia, provinces of the Ottoman Empire. In its infancy, the US government was successful at developing an amicable relation with the Ottomans to ensure that the brisk trade between the two nations could go on unimpeded. By 1914 America accounted for 23 percent of all Turkish exports. In 1831, the first American envoy set foot in Istanbul to establish an official diplomatic presence, with David Porter as the first chargé d’affaires. Since then the US presence in Turkey has been almost uninterrupted.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, as these early concerns about maintaining safe and open trade routes dissipated, the burgeoning Protestant evangelical movement in the US took an increasing interest in missionizing the people of the Near East. The missionaries soon discovered that the Muslim and Jewish inhabitants of “the holy lands” were not eager postulants, so they turned their attention to the Christian minorities, mainly the Armenian communities scattered in eastern Turkey. Under the umbrella of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), established in 1812 out of Williams College and inspired by the Great Awakening movement, they opened schools for boys and girls, vocational institutions and churches. Despite initial Ottoman resentment and the antagonism of the Armenian Orthodox clerics, the missionaries were highly successful in their undertaking and the ensuing conversions led to the founding of the Armenian Protestant Church.5 Most importantly, with the help of ABCFM, missionaries established the Robert College in Istanbul and the Syrian Protestant College (SPC) in Beirut. Graduates of these institutions would eventually play pivotal roles in molding the political future of the entire Middle East. Hospitals staffed with American physicians and nurses were opened to treat Armenians in locations that had a substantial Armenian presence, like Van and Aintab in eastern Turkey. The Ottoman regime, far from begrudging these incursions, welcomed their efforts and became fully supportive.6 It also became an impetus for the Ottomans to start their own institutions.7
While initially focusing on evangelization and education, the missionaries found themselves in the unexpected role of tending to the thousands of homeless and displaced Armenian refugees who were fleeing the 1895 pogroms initiated by Sultan Abdul Hamid II in response to provocations by Armenian revolutionaries. As further persecution and displacement of Armenians continued into the early twentieth century, the missionaries intensified their commitment. Their relief work was widely publicized in the US, and served to expose the Turkish atrocities and the plight of the Armenians. Soon the phrase “the starving Armenians” became an ever-present part of the American idiom.
Coincidentally, the missionaries came to play a key role in shaping US foreign policy, on occasion substituting as an arm of the State Department. In fact in 1897, a Congregationalist missionary, Reverend James B. Angell, was appointed to the post of US envoy and minister plenipotentiary to Istanbul.8 Historians agree that by this point, the missionary presence in the Ottoman territories had become a major US concern that played a pivotal role in the total lack of US response to the Turkish atrocities of 1915, despite US Ambassador Morgenthau’s unrelenting and well publicized detailed reporting of the carnage. The American press led by the New York Times printed a total of 145 articles on the topic and was persistent in its photographic reporting of the atrocities. Yet there was no official condemnation from Washington. Moreover the strident public uproar expressed by a substantial group of lawmakers and concerned US citizenry, including President Theodore Roosevelt, failed to induce either the State Department or President Wilson to take any punitive measures against Turkey while the genocide continued unabated. Wilson had been president of Princeton University, a “school with strong Presbyterian ties.”9 Both his father and grandfather were Presbyterian ministers, and he kept a lifelong strong connection with the church. Peter Balakian argues that the reason the White House yielded to the missionaries and ignored punitive action was that any response by the US administration might have jeopardized the missions in Turkey.10 In 1913 there were 209 missionaries operating 120 different missions.11 There is a need for much more historical research and analysis in order to understand why the Armenian massacres did not provoke a strong reaction or even a condemnation from the US administration at that time. One wonders what the precise effect of such a condemnation and action might have been on future genocides, especially in light of Hitler’s well-known remark in a speech on August 22, 1939, when he asked “Who, after all, speaks to-day of the annihilation of the Armenians?”12
Whereas trade relations and missionary activity characterized US-Ottoman relations in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a new feature of this relationship that emerged in the last decade of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the increased presence of humanitarian groups in Ottoman territories, mainly the American Red Cross (ARC). The ARC was established in the US in 1882. It undertook its very first overseas expedition in 1897 to Turkey to tend to the victims of the Turkish massacres of the Armenians. Clara Barton, founder of the ARC, travelled to Istanbul to obtain the approval of the Supreme Porte for her agenda of humanitarian relief.13 Turkey was a member of the International Red Cross (which had been founded in Geneva, Switzerland in 1863) through its own Red Crescent Society, founded in 1868 as the Hilal al-Ahmar, but was unwilling to allow the ARC to operate in Ottoman territory as they resented the cross as an emblem. Barton, however, was able to convince Istanbul and received official approval for the ARC mission. Often working in tandem with the American missionaries, ARC’s presence in Turkey grew and gained a quasi-permanent status with chartered chapters in cities like Adana in 1909 and Beirut in 1910. By 1915 the Istanbul chapter of ARC was operating fifteen hospitals. Their hosts welcomed them openly; and this warm relationship continued during WWI, despite strong German protest, even after the US joined the Allies in April of 1917 by declaring war against Germany but not against its ally, Turkey. Despite congressional pressure President Wilson refused to declare war on Turkey.14 This enabled US citizens to move about freely as they pursued their mission work in Ottoman territories for the duration of the war.
In the US, the ARC had grown in size and influence. An indication of its stature was evidenced when in 1909 a former president of the ARC, William Taft, was elected to the White House. Consequently solid ties were cemented with the State Department so that of the twelve appointees on the board of the ARC, eleven were current or retired State Department functionaries. This led to it ostensibly acquiring a “quasi-governmental” status so that ARC activities appeared to be a component of US diplomacy.15
The Armenian genocide was clearly the starting point of what has now become routine American participation in global humanitarian relief. As we have seen, both the missionaries and the ARC interacted in significant ways with the Armenian communities throughout the Ottoman territories. The missionaries, motivated by their desire to protect their interests in the region, influenced the official US response to the Turkish atrocities. The ARC’s humanitarian relief efforts were often the only hope offered to the few Armenians who survived the genocide. This fact provides an important context for understanding the photograph that is the subject of this essay. For, as we shall see in what follows, the ARC and the missionaries at SPC worked together in numerous contexts including the establishment of the field hospital at Hafir-el-Auja.
The Syrian Protestant College and Jamal Pasha
American missionaries led by Daniel Bliss (Amherst College, Class of 1852) had established the SPC in Beirut, then part of Syria, in 1866. It soon became the most successful institution of higher learning in the Near East. Bliss, a staunch missionary, had no preferred church affiliation: “He described himself as born a Baptist, brought up a Methodist, ordained a Congregationalist, and laboring (in 1881) among Presbyterians.”16 The SPC was well received and supported by the Ras Beirut community and maintained an amicable relationship with the Turkish authorities through the years.
Lebanon in early 1915 was in the throes of a famine as a result of the British naval blockade of Lebanese waters and a disastrous crop failure. It has been estimated that half the population died of starvation and disease.17 The SPC, in synergy with the Beirut Chapter of ARC (American National Red Cross, Beirut, Syria Chapter), and the YMCA, (both housed close to the College) stepped in and played a crucial role in the humanitarian wartime relief and food distribution in Lebanon. The Ottomans, led by Jamal Pasha (who later, together with Enver Pasha and Talaat Pasha, was chiefly responsible for executing the Armenian Genocide), one of the leaders of the Young Turks and Commander-in- Chief of the 4th Army out of Damascus, appreciated the American efforts to ease the starvation. This resulted in a lasting friendship between the SPC and the Ottomans that lasted through the war. This friendly relationship between the SPC and the Ottomans is one clue to understanding why the hospital at Hafir-el-Auja was established. Jamal Pasha’s key contacts at the SPC were with President Howard Bliss (the son of Daniel Bliss who succeeded his father as president of the SPC in 1903), and his soon-to-be son-in-law, Bayard Dodge, the son of Cleveland Dodge, a financier and philanthropist, adviser and close friend of US President Woodrow Wilson. Joseph Grabill describes this friendship as follows: “During the Woodrow Wilson presidency, Cleveland Dodge had more influence than any individual upon American diplomacy toward the Near East.”18 The nature of Jamal Pasha’s relationship with the SPC was significant. As Behmardi notes, he “was reputed to have taken the College under his wing, and to have considered himself its ‘Patron.’ In fact, Jamal Pasha visited the College on numerous occasions, and repeatedly addressed the student and faculty body, stressing his high regard for the College’s academics, civic values, and its talented faculty ….”19 During one visit to the College, Jamal Pasha said, “The College represents an honorable Commission sent from America ... and as the majority of the students of this American University are Ottomans, this institution is an Ottoman University ... I am ready to give any help, which is in my power .... The Ottoman nation expects a great deal from you ...”.20
Even after the departure of Jamal Pasha from Syria and the end of the war in 1918, Howard Bliss stayed in touch with him, and the two exchanged some correspondence.21 Although his warm relationship with Jamal Pasha was unpopular with many Americans in the Lebanese and Beiruti community, Tylor Brand claims that it provided him with political capital which he used to protect members of the foreign community on a num- ber of occasions. Brand also argues that Bliss’s relationship with Jamal allowed him to mitigate any political fallout from the United States’ entry into the war in April 1917. In spite of the occasional tension, Bliss’s relationship with Jamal was apparently not all for show. For example, Brand notes that on 11 January 1917, Bliss wrote to thank Jamal for provisioning the college with flour, to which Jamal responded by stating that it was his duty to help those who were helping his country. As further evidence of the warm rela- tionship between the two men, Brand notes that upon learning of the Ottoman decision to retreat from the region, Bliss decided to send a warm letter expressing his gratitude for Jamal’s assistance during the war and his regret at his departure.22
The Beirut food relief effort and the ensuing warm relationship between the Americans and the Ottoman leadership can help to explain why the ARC medical expedition to the Sinai desert captured in the photograph was allowed to proceed. This relationship between Jamal Pasha and Bliss could be considered a prelude to an era of amicable relationship between the US and the Ottomans throughout the war and indeed to the present.
Jamal Pasha’s Plan to Attack the Suez Canal
In November of 1914, a month after France and Britain declared war on Turkey, as Jamal Pasha was leaving Istanbul for Damascus, leading officials and dignitaries hailed him as the “Savior of Egypt.”23 He had been charged by war minister Enver Pasha, to seize the Suez Canal, a crucial lifeline of the British Empire, with the hope that their incursion would engage a large force of the British Army stationed in Egypt, away from attacking mainland Turkey in the Dardanelles. Jamal knew that he needed to augment the Turkish Army medical services, which lacked qualified manpower. Thus, he promptly mobilized all military age Turkish citizens in the provinces under his command who were in the medical profession – doctors, dentists and pharmacists. This included the staff of the American Hospital in Beirut, associated with the SPC, a significant number of whom were Armenians (by 1918 a total of 134 Armenians had graduated from the medical school).24 At the request of Dr. Ward, the indispensable cadre of doctors at the AH were initially exempted from the draft and stayed at their posts in Beirut.25 By the end of the war, 32 SPC graduate doctors had died while serving in the Turkish army.26 Jamal needed the AH both as a vital public health asset to help control disease and famine in the region but also as a source of medical personnel as would-be draftees. In 1915 typhus was epidemic while typhoid fever and cholera were rampant in Beirut, thus the college and the hospital were by necessity kept open and running throughout the war years. Seemingly Jamal had reached a quid pro quo with the college to exempt the medical staff and in return the college of necessity would acquiesce to his requests. He reinforced this goodwill by assuring that the college received hard-to-get, scarce food supplies such as wheat, directly from the Turkish military and at reduced cost (standard military prices).27 Jamal’s grand plan to attack the Suez Canal was widely anticipated with an urgency to take advantage of the cooler winter desert climate and after the much-needed rains had replenished the oasis wells. The concept of having a crack battlefield hospital in the desert was eventually conceived. The question is, by whom?
The Origins of the Medical Mission at Hafir-el-Auja
There are conflicting accounts about the origins of this mission. Indeed, we can identify at least three different versions about who was responsible for initiating the field hospital. The historian Brand claims that it was Howard Bliss who came up with the idea. Brand writes, “Upon the outset of the war, Bliss decided to continue the SPC’s longstanding policy of accommodation with local authorities and political neutrality. The college used its ties to the Beirut chapter of the American Red Cross to court local authorities by sending a medical mission to the Ottoman front lines during the Suez campaign.”28 This account portrays Bliss as a tactful operator who was trying to maintain a favorable relationship with Jamal Pasha.
In contrast to Brand’s account, Ward states that it was the ARC that initiated the idea of a medical expedition to the Sinai and had approached Jamal with as yet another expression of US-Turkish friendship and cooperation in time of war. Ward wrote:
Although for several years the ARC society had a chapter in Beirut, there was no opportunity for it to help wounded soldiers in the Turkish army until Turkey entered the great war. Then it was learned that the Ottoman army was expected to march into Egyptian territory from Jerusalem south to the Suez Canal. An audience was sought with His Excellency Jamal Pasha, Commander of the IVth Army and the help of the ARC Society was offered. He gladly accepted the offer and asked that in one month’s time an expedition should be equipped and ready for service in the desert south of Beersheba. This would have been impossible but for the fact that the SPC eagerly took this opportunity of showing that its medical department was ready to serve the country to the best of its ability in such a time of need.29
His inference was that the ARC was offering this service within its stated wartime obligation of helping wounded soldiers. The ARC in Washington, the US consul in Beirut and the SPC were all involved in the final decision and fund raising for this hospital. The question of whether the State Department conceived the project or was implicitly involved remains unanswered, nor is there any mention in the written records I have consulted of its approval.
John Whiting of the Jerusalem American Colony provides us with a third alternative explanation for the hospital’s establishment.30 He implies that it was Jamal Pasha who had requested the SPC to man and equip the field hospital as his 4th Army lacked battlefield- ready medical support.31 While there is some overlap between all three accounts, it is clear that American personnel at the SPC and the ARC were more than willing to accommodate Jamal, despite what would appear to be a delicate diplomatic situation of providing assistance to forces who were attacking the British.
Preparing for the Expedition
A committee under the chairmanship of President Bliss was charged with collecting and packing the equipment provided by the SPC, ARC and the American and German hospitals in Beirut. The Rev. Doolittle was asked to come to Beirut from Sidon on 7 January 1915 to “take business and evangelical management of the expedition to minister to the sick and wounded soldiers.” He would become the associate director of the project but the SPC faculty remained in charge of the expedition. Ward describes the preparations as follows: “Tents for all the staff with necessary furnishings were bought or made: general food supplies and a well-stocked pharmacy were fortunately secured in Beirut: while the surgical instruments and outfit were loaned by the college faculty and friends. Sheets, clothes for the patients, towels were made by the poor women of Beirut under the direction of the American ladies.”32
Even more interesting than the collection of needed supplies was the selection of medical personnel to staff the field hospital. Dr. Ward (second from right) led the medical team. He was a graduate of Amherst College (1900), and Columbia Medical School (1904) and had volunteered as a medical missionary with the ABCFM from 1907-1911, where he was stationed at the American Hospital in Diyarbakir.33 He then moved to Beirut to head the Surgical Department at the AH and stayed as professor of surgery and eventually became dean of the medical school. He was also a member of the ARC and later for the duration of the war, served in Palestine, Turkey, and France in that capacity. He had an impeccable reputation both as a humanitarian and a surgeon. The team he put together was exclusively surgical, geared solely for battlefield casualties. It included the following doctors: Dr. Vahan Kalbian (first on the right) first surgical assistant, an Armenian, who later went on to practice in Jerusalem until his retirement from the Augusta Victoria Hospital in 1962; Dr. Joseph Attiyeh, (far left) second surgical assistant, a Lebanese Jew who later practiced urology in Beirut. His office was located across from the St. Charles Borrome Hospital, Dr. Nemeh Nucho, (third from right without surgical cap) an internist and Adjunct Professor of Medicine who later became the leading tuberculosis specialist in the Middle East and taught at the AUB medical school, working out of the Hamlin Sanatorium in Hammana, Lebanon. According to Schwake, Dr. Tewfic Canaan of Jerusalem, joined the expedition in Hafir- el- Auja as director of the laboratory.34 Dr. Canaan apparently stayed on after the ARC expedition disbanded and worked in the Turkish Red Crescent tent hospital as well as the German Hospital housed in a two- storied building in Hafir.
The nursing team consisted of four German deaconesses: Sophie, Louisa, Hannah and Lena. They were from the Prussian Kaiserwerth Hospital of the Knights of the Order of St John (a 60-bed hospital in Beirut that had recently affiliated with the medical school as its German doctors had been recalled home). Dr. Ward had taken over the surgical department at that hospital and had become used to working with its nursing staff. So he requested the German surgical nursing team to join the Sinai expedition. The Germans in return insisted that the field hospital should be established as a unit of the German Kaiserwerth hospital.35 Dr. Ward objected to the German request and insisted that it should be known as the American Red Cross hospital. The dispute was resolved by Jamal who sided with Dr Ward.36 The Red Crescent flag flew next to the Red Cross flag as a mere symbolic gesture, since there is no indication of significant material support from the Turkish Red Crescent. However, Reverend Doolittle did indicate in his communications with the ARC that “the American Red Cross worked harmoniously with the Turkish Red Crescent branch of the army service.”37
Sixteen volunteer graduating class medical students, including two from the pharmacy school and one from the dental school were also on the team – a total of twenty-five, not counting the cooks and servants, included in Fig. 3. It is noteworthy that there were only two Americans in the group – Dr. Ward and Reverend Doolittle!
A mere three weeks after Doolittle was called to Beirut, the team had packed and was ready to go. A public event to recognize the expedition held on the college athletic field was attended by the Turkish officials, by foreign and local friends, as well as by the captain of the American armored cruiser the USS North Carolina, which was on a prolonged visit to Beirut to deliver food and money to the missionaries, anchored off- shore within view of the campus and indeed all of Beirut. Team members of the medical mission were recognizable by their Red Cross armbands. After several speeches the rally ended with hurrahs and the entire student body singing the college anthem. The next day, Friday, 22 January, with much cheering, ceremony and flag-waving, the supplies and equipment were loaded and the expedition boarded a train for the 50-mile climb to Damascus where the US consul and Turkish dignitaries welcomed them at the station. Dr. Ward and the German sisters stayed at the consulate while the rest slept on the train. On Saturday, after a lavish reception for all at the US consulate, with the attendance of the Turkish governor, commander of the army, and other dignitaries, the train took off for Palestine with flying banners and cheering bystanders. The fanfare surrounding the launch of this mission served to bolster the image of America as a humanitarian nation. Indeed, it is hard to ignore the political and propaganda value accrued to the USA by the lead-up to the mission. The involvement of US State Department personnel in welcoming the mission team in Damascus can be seen as evidence of its support for this mission. Thus, although it was non-governmental entities (the SPC and the ARC) that were the active forces in establishing this hospital, the US government both supported and benefitted from this expedition.
The six-car train travelled south to Muzeirib, just west of Der‘a and on to ‘Affuleh in Palestine. The Reverend Doolittle complained about the fact that they were travelling on a Sunday, but he adds “we realized fully that we were living in war conditions.” The railroad in early 1915 extended south as far as Nablus, their final destination, but they had to disembark at Sileh, several miles to the north. The staff was moved by carriage but the freight was loaded onto camels to Nablus. From there most of the staff took carriages for the 30-mile ride to Jerusalem, but the equipment took several days to reach Jerusalem.38
The Central Role of the American Colony
On entering the city from the north on a cold January day, the convoy would have had no difficulty spotting the American Colony as it sits on the Nablus Road down from the Nashashibi quarter. This has been the only road into the city from the north since Roman times. It is still a familiar landmark next to the mosque named for Shaykh Jarrah, said to be Saladin’s physician who also treated King Richard the Lion Heart. Incidentally, the American Colony was also on the carriage route of Jamal Pasha as he was driven from his residence at Augusta Victoria Stiftung to the city on the very same road.39 He was particularly keen on the Colony photographic department as he had a penchant to be photographed and would often stop by to be photographed by Lewis Larson and Eric Matson.40
The American Colony Mission in Jerusalem was founded in 1881 inside the Old City. It moved to its current location in 1894 and started receiving guests after 1902. In 1915 it became the staging site for the deployment of the Sinai ARC hospital where the members of the Beirut contingent were warmly welcomed as free guests of the Colony for a week of rest and relaxation. The day after their arrival the whole group led by the genial Dr. Ward, who was fluent in Turkish, French, and German, walked down to the Old City, through Damascus Gate in a semi-triumphal march reminding him of the Crusaders. Writing in 1918, he says:
One is constantly reminded in Palestine of that great movement of the Middle Ages called Crusades. Though the impulse was a lofty one, to conquer by the sword, to pillage and plunder was so false to Christ’s teachings that the Christian Church is not very proud of that chapter of history. Much of the distress, hate and distrust of the Moslems for the Christians even to this day is the result. In December 1914 the green flag of Mohamed was again paraded through the streets of Jerusalem and the bold proclamation of the Holy War made all the Christian world shudder. Would there be a reputation of the same bitter, heartless strife? The answer came when a small band of young men marched through the Damascus Gate and up the Via Dolorosa bearing aloft the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, the Stars and Stripes and the Turkish crescent. On they went under the Ecce Homo arch to the Pool of Bethesda to attend the opening exercises of the Moslem University.41
The seized Muslim madrassa was just inside the Lions Gate.42
In the meantime, at the Colony, the all-important “giant” tents, which had been commandeered by Jamal from Thomas Cook and Sons, were being washed and cleaned.43 These would become the “hospital wards” for the casualties. They were plush, oversized tents that were strictly reserved for royalty and for celebrity visitors to the Holy Land.44 Whiting describes them as follows: “These were interior decorated canvas tents that had an outer umbrella in white which served as an air space in-between making them livable.”45 Every available tent in the country had already been commandeered to house the Turkish troops that had been amassed in Sinai. Throughout the expedition the American Colony remained the source of supplies as needed with urgent requests sent by letters from Rev. Doolittle to John Whiting in Jerusalem.46 As no official postal services existed, such correspondence must have been through couriers.
John Whiting was the skilled, knowledgeable and urbane co-manager of the American Colony. He was the first child to be born to the “congregation” in 1882 in Jerusalem. He had married Grace Spafford in 1909, younger daughter of the founders of the Colony, and in partnership with his German brother in law, Frederick Vester, who had married Bertha Spafford, (the celebrated Mrs. Vester) operated the Vester & Co. American Colony Store inside the Jaffa Gate. Whiting was fluent in Arabic and Turkish and had been asked in advance to take over the project so the colony became the center of operations of the ARC mission. Since 1908 he had also carried the diplomatic office of deputy US consul in Jerusalem. Here again we see the nature of the collaboration between missionaries, humanitarian relief agencies, and governmental entities. He organized the next phase of the operation and accompanied the expedition to Hafir-el-Auja to set up the hospital and became the contact in Jerusalem for resupplies. For weeks the grounds of the Colony had been turned into a warehouse for the tents. The additional freight arriving from Nablus was being dumped into the yard. It reminded him of more glorious days when they would prepare the trips of more celebrated visitors.47 He mourned that these tents would be lost forever in the hands of the Turks. He writes, “The conquering Turks had come to the Holy Land in tents: it is fitting that they should go out in tents thanks to Thos. Cook & Son.”48 What role did Whiting play in the Mission in addition to organizing the movement of supplies from Jerusalem to the field hospital? He wrote that it was Jamal Pasha who had requested the SPC to man and equip the field hospital as his 4th Army lacked battlefield- ready medical support.49 Jamal had asked headquarters in Istanbul for help and trained battlefield medics were on their way.50 From Whiting’s papers, we can see that not only was he skeptical about the success of an attack on Suez, but he also was cynical about the practicality of the whole expedition, noting that the hospital was 120 miles behind the battlefield. Whiting informed the US consul in Jerusalem, Dr. Otis Glazebrook, a onetime spiritual advisor to President Wilson, that “his team might be left stranded and that the consulate should prepare a rescue.”51 He scoffed at the fact that camels were going to be used to transport the wounded over that distance in the desert and he predicted the wholesale breakdown of the animal transport with the starving camels carrying crude stretchers slung on either side of the hump of the animal. He observed the total disarray of the camel caravans unloading the wounded and noted that the soldiers’ thirst was so severe that they were willing to pay a high price for a drink. The date of Jamal’s ill-fated attack was kept a secret but Whiting had an informant – “one of the interns.” He recounts that he gave the informant a postcard to mail back, along with the necessary postage stamp, which was to be stuck upside down in case of a Turkish defeat. After the attack on Suez, Turkish HQ proudly announced a great victory as expected, but a few days later the card arrived as agreed upon but with the stamp stuck upside down, indicating that the Ottomans had indeed been defeated.52 There had been victory celebrations in Jerusalem on 9 February based on false Turkish government claims of a triumph.53 Whiting relinquished his post as US consul after the war but promptly joined British intelligence. He was a long-time friend and a patient of my father’s. He suffered of chronic bronchial asthma and died in 1951 from a heart attack.
Destination and Set-Up of Hospital
The oasis of Hafir-el-Auja, situated on the border between Egypt and Palestine, was an important historic stopover on the ancient caravan route into Egypt from Beersheba. Though it was 120 miles east of the planned Suez Canal front, it had a dependable and sizable source of underground water. Over 2000 years ago the Nabateans had a settlement there, called Nitzana, which is the current designation of an Israeli town near the site. Prior to 1914 it had been a desolate and distant Turkish army outpost, but by 1915, as plans were made to attack the Suez Canal, it had become a “major forward base for the Ottoman army” with a water tower, housing, and administrative buildings, as well as a two-story hospital.54
By the time the Turks withdrew from it in 1917, the site had grown extensively with several more buildings, including a railway station for the rail extension from Beersheba. This was to be the “home” of the expedition.
The caravan of carriages left the American Colony on 4 February, heading south to Bethlehem, then via Hebron to their gathering point in Beersheba, a distance of 60 miles. The first group travelled on to Hafir on mules and camels for the next two days, but the second group arrived by carriage in one day on 7 February, led through the desert by camel- mounted Turkish soldiers. Whiting and additional nurses from the Colony were flown to Hafir.56 It took three days to set up the functioning hospital consisting of 46 tents “large and small,” each tent housing 15 to 23 cots with the patient tents set up in the center in long rows. The main path was known as Wilson Avenue in honor of the honorary president of the ARC. The two flags of the ARC and the Red Crescent were hoisted and Turkish soldiers stood on guard. Seventy-five folding iron bedsteads, and many floor mattresses were set up to accommodate up to 220 patients. A hospitality tent supplied with beverages and comfort needs was set up a mere five hours’ camel ride to the west in Wadi al-Arish with the Stars and Stripes draped over the entrance to the tent! The Red Crescent, which at the time had been incorporated into the Ottoman army, had a minimal role in the ARC expedition. It was however active in Jerusalem where it had a volunteer “Women’s Auxiliary,” judging from a 1915 group photo in my collection of Jerusalem ladies. In that photo I identify my mother, Satenig Torossian of Jerusalem, seated second from left.57 My father did not know her at the time, but later while stationed in Jerusalem in 1916-1917, they met and were married in 1919.
The presence of two Armenian women in the group reflects the vital role the small Armenian community played at the time. My grandfather, Artin Torossian, was the Austrian vice-consul and postmaster of the Austrian post office inside Jaffa gate, facing the Jerusalem Citadel (Tower of David).
The attack on the Suez Canal occurred on 3 February and lasted two days until it was repulsed by the British. The Turkish Army then withdrew back to Sinai. The first casualties arrived at the field hospital on 9 February after several days of arduous journeying from the front on makeshift stretchers mounted on camels. Most of the 220 casualties were Muslim Arabs from Palestine or Syria.58 Ironically, the very first patient to be operated on was a soldier who had developed an incarcerated hernia! Of the several hundred surgical procedures there were only two fatalities, one from gangrene and one from sepsis. The hospital had ample gasoline lights and water carried from the reservoir. Despite violent sandstorms that would blow the sand inside the tents, they managed to remain fully operational. Jamal Pasha visited the expedition with a retinue of twelve who all spent a night there. He was impressed by the high professional standards and efficiency of the mission. He cabled Istanbul to officially thank the American people through the US ambassador. My father started a cordial relationship with Jamal Pasha that flourished later on during the war when Jamal appointed him director of the Russian Hospital in Jerusalem with the rank of colonel.59 The desert hospital became a popular “watering” stop for many VIP guests, including high-ranking German officers, and gained the moniker of the “American Hotel.”60 Writing in 1918, Dr. Ward describes the strenuous work and concludes that “The soldiers were very grateful. They forgot their hatred of the ‘Cross,’ their suspicion of the ‘dog of a Christian’ melted before the sun of human kindness and after a few days they, in a truly oriental fashion, showered blessing on the heads of the nurses and the doctors. All the fatigue, discomfort, the danger, the fierce heat of the desert and the driving sandstorms were forgotten. The battle was won. ‘Which one of these- was neighbor to him who fell among thieves? The old Crusader or the modern Crusader?’”61
The expedition lasted five and a half weeks and was deemed a success by all parties. The remaining patients were transported to the Russian Hospital in Jerusalem. From what I am able to discern from the written accounts, a Red Crescent hospital staffed by Arab nursing nuns from the Sisters of Rosary in Jerusalem was established at the site of the ARC hospital utilizing the existing tents. Dr. Canaan apparently stayed on and worked in that hospital as well as the German Hospital housed in an adjacent two-storied building.62
The return of the ARC team to Beirut via Jerusalem, with all their weighty surgical equipment, was relatively uneventful, although Doolittle notes that the stretch from the camp to Jerusalem was arduous. They had to utilize camels until they reached Bersheeba, where they were able to procure carriages. Once in Jerusalem, they turned over the remaining patients to the Russian Hospital. After a brief rest at the American Colony they then retraced their route back by train via Damascus, reaching Beirut on in two groups on the 20 and 27 March, 1915.
Conclusion
I have described the shared influence of the vibrant US missionaries and the ARC on the US-Turkish relationship through the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries, above and beyond standard State Department diplomacy. I believe that such a role came about inadvertently as a result of the plight of the Armenians in Turkey. As I noted earlier, the Armenians were central in helping define both the missionaries’ and the ARC’s roles in the region. A personal photograph depicting my Armenian father inspired this research. The 1915 ARC/SPC expedition to Sinai to aid the Turkish army was a colorful example of the authority that the missionary and humanitarian players in the region commanded. Although in fact it may have been an altruistic mission, it certainly was a diplomatic “tour de force.”
Vicken V. Kalbian, born in Jerusalem in 1925, is a graduate of the American University of Beirut Medical School. He was on the staff of the Augusta Victoria Hospital in Jerusalem from 1952-1968, where he was Chief of Medicine from 1962 to 1968. He immigrated to the US in 1968 and had a successful private practice in Winchester, VA. Now retired, he resides in Winchester and pursues his passionate interest in the history of Palestine.
Endnotes
I am grateful to George Hintlian in Jerusalem who encouraged me to write this essay and was a valuable source of information.
George C. Doolittle, “With the Turkish Army in the Desert: An American Red Cross Relief Caravan Journeys Across Syria Towards Egypt,” American Red Cross Magazine 10 (1915): 315- 319.
John D. Whiting, Papers, 1890-1970 (bulk1904- 64), box 6, John Whiting Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. Many of Whiting’s papers are not paginated, so in what follows, I often simply refer to the box number.
The historical account in this section is taken from Michael Oren, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 2007).
For more on the American Missionary interventions in Eastern Anatolia, see Devrim Ümit, “The American Protestant Missionary Network,” International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 4 (2014): 16-51.
Çağrı Erhan, “Ottoman Official Attitudes Towards American Missionaries,” The United States and the Middle East: Cultural Encounters (2000): 315-341.
Leila Tarazi Fawaz, A Land of Aching Hearts: The Middle East in the Great War (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014): 18.
Ümit “The American Protestant Missionary Network,” 16.
Eleanor Tejirian and Reeva Spector Simon, Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion: Two Thousand Years of Christian Missions in the Middle East (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 178.
This description of the US reaction to the Armenian Genocide is drawn primarily from Peter Balakian, The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response, (New York: Harper & Collins, 2003).
Balakian, 10. See also Erhan, “Ottoman Official Attitudes,” 317.
Louis P. Lochner, What About Germany? (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1942).
Mabel T. Boardman, Under The Red Cross Flag (Philadelphia: J B Lippincott Co., 1915).
David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2009), 250.
Marian Moser Jones, The American Red Cross: from Clara Barton to the New Deal (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), xi.
David M. Stowe, “Bliss, Daniel,” in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1998), 69.
Whiting, box 6, 306.
Joseph L. Grabill, “Cleveland H. Dodge, Woodrow Wilson, and the Near East,” Journal of Presbyterian History 48 (1970); 249-264.
Vahid Behmardi, “Djamal Pasha and the Syrian Protestant College,”Al Abhath ( 2002-2003):135-159. Accessed July 17, 2015. http://www.aub. edu.lb/ulibraries/asc/online-exhibits/exhibits/ show/wwi/1918/spc-pulls-through/relations- with-jemal-pasha
“Translation of Jamal Pasha Address to SPC Students, 1917,” AUB Libraries Online Exhibits, accessed July 17, 2015, http://www.aub.edu.lb/ ulibraries/asc/online-exhibits/exhibits/show/ wwi/item/324.
Behmardi, 135-159.
Tylor Brand, Tylor, “Bliss, Howard S.”, in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War s.v. “Bliss, Howard S.”, in: 1914-1918-online., ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2014.
He boasted “I shall not return to Constantinople until I have conquered Egypt.” Quoted in Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story 1918 (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2003), 171.
Hratch Kestebian, “In Memory of AUB Medical Alumni in WWI,” The Armenian Mirror Spectator, December 22, 2012: 4.
My father was among them and in September 1914 he had to report to Damascus headquarters for his captain’s commission in the Turkish Army but was allowed to return to Beirut as assistant to Dr. Ward.
Kestebian, “In Memory of Medical Alumni,” 4.
Brand.
Brand.
Edwin St. John Ward, “Report of the American Red Cross Mission to the Turkish Army in Palestine, January 22 to March 27th, 1915.” Amherst College Archives and Special Collections Edwin St. John Ward (AC 1900) Papers, Box 1, Folder 3
The American Colony was established by a group of Chicago millennialist evangelists in 1888. See Jane Fletcher Geniese, American Priestess: The Extraordinary Story of Anna Spafford and the American Colony in Jerusalem (New York: Doubleday, 2008).
Whiting, box 6, 304
Edwin St. John Ward, “The Modern Crusader in Palestine,” Amherst Graduates’ Quarterly 5 (1916): 169.
Dr Ward and my father had the Diyarbakir link and became lifelong friends.
Norbert Schwake, “The Great War in Palestine,” Jerusalem Quarterly 56 & 57 (2014): 140-156.
Frederick L. Rushton, “Medical Mercy for the Near East During the Last War,” Worcester Sunday Telegram, March 16, 1941, 8, section 5.
Rushton, 8, section 5.
Doolittle, 316.
The preceding account of the expedition’s departure from Beirut and travels toward Jerusalem is taken from George Doolittle, “New Work for a Sidon Missionary,” Amherst College Archives and Special Collections Edwin St. John Ward (AC 1900) Papers, Box 1, Folder 3.
Whiting, box 6.
Whiting, box 6.
Ward, “The Modern Crusader in Palestine,” 169.
The site of St Anne’s Convent.
Dimitri Salameh, an Arab-Greek Orthodox notable, was Thos. Cook & Son’s manager.
Both Doolittle and Whiting ponder the fact that these tents had sheltered royalty and celebrities from the Prince of Wales to Mark Twain.
Whiting, box 6, 303.
American Colony in Jerusalem Collection, Library of Congress. Part I, Box 3, Folder 16.
Whiting, box 6, 303.
Whiting, box 6, 303.
Whiting writes, “because of the helplessness with respect to medical services, Jamal was impressed by Dr. Ward’s assignment.” Whiting, box 6, 302.
Geniese, 248.
“The US consuls were now on intimate terms with the Colony.” Whiting, box 6, p. 287
The preceding account is taken from Whiting’s papers in the Library of Congress, box 6.
Conde de Ballobar, Jerusalem in World War I: The Palestine Diary of a European Diplomat (London: I.B.Tauris, 2011), 50.
Michael Talbot, “Life and Death in an Ottoman Desert Hospital in World War I”. Accessed 17 July 2015. http://www.stambouline.com/2013/11/life- and-death-in-ottoman-desert.html
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Map_3_Sinai_detail_Keogh_p.26.jpeg#/ media/File:Map_3_Sinai_detail_Keogh_p.26. jpeg. Accessed 17 July 2015.
Geniese, 248.
Seated third from the right is Miss Araxi Kevorkian (Tabourian) of Jerusalem.
Dr. Ward commented on the fact that Muslims were being cared for by Christians. Ward, “The Modern Crusader in Palestine,” 171.
This was an exceptional appointment of an Armenian to oversee a staff of Turkish doctors.
Ward, “Report”.
Ward, “The Modern Crusader,” 171.
Schwake, “The Great War in Palestine,”148-153. | ||||||
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Title: The Destruction of the Greek Empire and the Story of the Capture of Constantinople by the Turks
Author: Edwin Pears
Release date: October 17, 2018 [eBook #58119]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DESTRUCTION OF THE GREEK EMPIRE AND THE STORY OF THE CAPTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE BY THE TURKS ***
THE DESTRUCTION
OF
THE GREEK EMPIRE
The Destruction of the Greek
Empire and the Story of the
Capture of Constantinople by
the Turks
BY
EDWIN PEARS, LL.B.
Knight of the Greek Order of the Saviour and Commander of
the Bulgarian Order of Merit
Author of ‘The Fall of Constantinople: being the
Story of the Fourth Crusade’
WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1903
All rights reserved
PREFACE
My object in writing this book is to give an account of the capture of Constantinople and the destruction of the Greek empire. In order to make the story intelligible and to explain its significance I have given a summary of the history of the empire between the Latin conquest in 1204 and the capture of the city in 1453, and have traced the progress during the same period of the race which succeeded in destroying the empire and in replacing the Greeks as the possessors of New Rome.
It may be objected that the task which I have set before me has already been accomplished by Gibbon, and that, as his chapter on the last siege of the city is carefully compiled and written with a brilliancy of style which he has nowhere surpassed, there is no need for any further study of the subject. My answer is twofold: first, that an important mass of new material is now at the disposal of any one who wishes to retell the story, and second, that Gibbon told it with a bias which makes it desirable that it should be retold.
The historian of the ‘Decline and Fall’ had less than half the material before him which is now available, and the story of the siege deserves telling with more accuracy and completeness than either the authorities available to him or the scope of his monumental work permitted. It is true that Professor J. B. Bury, the latest editor of Gibbon, has, by the aid of scholarly notes and of careful research, enabled the reader to become possessed of many of the details vi regarding the siege which have recently become known, but he would be the first to admit that there is ample room for a fuller history of the siege than that given in the ‘Decline and Fall’ even with the aid of his valuable notes.1 Gibbon himself regretted the poverty of his materials and especially that he had not been able to obtain any Turkish accounts of the siege.2 The only eye-witnesses whose narratives were before him were Phrantzes, Archbishop Leonard, and Cardinal Isidore. If we add to their narratives the accounts given by Ducas and Chalcondylas together with what Gibbon himself calls ‘short hints of Cantemir and Leunclavius,’ we have substantially all the sources of information which were available when the ‘Decline and Fall’ was written.
The new sources of information regarding the siege brought to light since Gibbon’s day enable us to gain a much more complete view of that event and of the character of its principal actors than was possible at the time when he wrote. Several Continental writers have taken advantage of some at least of the new stores of information to rewrite its story,3 but I may be allowed to claim the good fortune of being the first Englishman who has even attempted to write a narrative of that event with the whole or even with any considerable portion of the new material before him.
viiBefore, however, proceeding to indicate what the new sources of information are, I must say something regarding the second reason I have assigned why those interested in the account of an event which marks the end of an epoch of great traditions and of a civilisation on ancient rather than on modern lines should not remain satisfied with Gibbon’s account of it. Though he claimed to examine the authorities before him with philosophical impartiality, the writers known to him belonged to the Roman Church, and he was influenced unconsciously by their representations. These writers wrote under the influence of the most bitter theological controversies. They are imbued with a spirit of rancour towards those Greeks (that is, towards the great majority of the population) who had not accepted the Union with the Church of Rome which had been decreed at Florence. Their testimony throughout their narratives is for the most part that of violent partisans. But even if Gibbon, when dealing with the disputes between the great historical Churches, had been in possession of statements of the Greek case, his contempt for both Churches was too great to allow him to do justice to the questions which divided them, questions which nevertheless, as they prevented the united action of Europe to resist the Turkish invasion, were among the most important of the time. His habit of thought as an eighteenth century theist did not allow him to attach sufficient weight to the theological aspect of the struggle between the East and the West. Everything that smelt of the cloister was hateful. The theological questions themselves were not worth discussion. The disputants were in his view narrow-minded, ignorant, and superstitious. The refinements of the definitions of the Double Procession were useless, trivial, or ridiculous. Religious zeal or enthusiasm was a thing to be condemned—was the mark of fanaticism and always mischievous. In this attitude of mind Gibbon was neither better nor worse than the majority of his viii philosophical contemporaries. He differed from them in being able to bequeath to future generations a work of monumental learning, in which his and their reading of the progress of Christianity in the Eastern empire was destined to have a long and deservedly great reputation. His research and eloquence, his keen sarcasm, his judicial manner, and the powerful influence of the ‘Decline and Fall’ were employed to discredit Christianity rather than to try to discover amid the fierce wranglings of theologians over insoluble problems what was their signification for the history of the time of which he was treating and in the development of the human mind. He began with a period in which the emperor is worshipped as Divinity and traced the establishment of Christianity as a national faith among Pagan subjects until in a diversified form it became accepted by all; but he did this without affording us any help to see how the human mind could accept the first position or what were the movements of thought which led to the evolution of the questions which agitated men’s minds in the later period.
The century in which he and his contemporaries lived was for them one of hostility to Christianity rather than of investigation, the period of Voltaire, who could only see in Byzantine history ‘a worthless repertory of declamation and miracles, disgraceful to the human mind’ rather than of the Continental and English writers of the modern historical school. Happily, in the twentieth century those who look upon Christianity with an independence as complete as that of Gibbon recognise that insight can only be obtained by sympathetic investigation, that for the right understanding of history it is essential to put oneself in the place of men who have attached importance to a religious controversy, to consider their environment and examine their conduct and motives from their point of view, if we would comprehend either the causes which have led such ix controversy to be regarded as important or the conduct of the controversialists themselves. The absence in Gibbon of any sympathetic attempt to understand the controversies which play so large a part in his great drama of human history renders him as unsatisfactory a guide in regard to them as a writer of English history during the period of Charles the First would be who should merely treat with contempt the half religious, half political questions which divided Englishmen. While the objection I have suggested to Gibbon’s attitude would apply generally to his treatment of religious questions, I have only to deal with it in reference to the period of which I am treating. When writing of this period Gibbon did not realise that the religious question was nearly always a political one, and that union with Rome meant subjection to Rome. But unless it be realised how completely the citizens of Constantinople and the other great cities of the empire were engrossed with semi-religious and semi-political questions, no true conception of the life of the empire can be formed; for these questions were of interest not merely to Churchmen but to all.
Among the documents brought to light during the last fifty or sixty years which have contributed to our better knowledge of the siege the most important are the ‘Diary’ of Nicolo Barbaro and the ‘Life of Mahomet’ by Critobulus.
Barbaro belonged to a noble Venetian family. He was present in Constantinople throughout the siege, kept a journal4 of what he saw and heard, and, though full of prejudices against Genoese, Greeks, and Turks, contrives to tell his story in a manner which carries conviction of its truthfulness. His narrative conveys the impression of an independent observer who had no object in writing except to relate what he knew about the siege. While probably written from day to day, the diary bears internal evidence x of having been revised after he had left the city. Its language is old-fashioned colloquial Venetian and has often puzzled Italians whom I have called in to my aid.
The original manuscript of the diary was preserved in Venice by members of the Barbaro family until 1829. After various adventures it came in 1837 into the possession of the Imperial and Royal Marciana Library in Venice. In 1854 it was entrusted to Enrico Cornet, and was published by him for the first time in 1856.
Critobulus, the author of the ‘Life of Mahomet the Second,’ was a man of a different type. Nothing is known of him beyond what is contained in his Life of Mahomet.5 He describes himself as ‘Critobulus the Islander.’ After the capture of Constantinople, when the archons of Imbros, Lemnos, and Thasos feared that the Turkish admiral would shortly approach to annex these islands, messengers were sent to the admiral and succeeded, by offering voluntary submission and by paying him a large bribe, in avoiding the general pillage which usually followed a Turkish conquest. Shortly afterwards, Critobulus took service under the sultan and was made archon of Imbros. In this capacity he received the submission of Lemnos and other places. He continued to hold this office for at least four years. Book III. of his history contains (inter alia) an account of what he himself did as the servant of Mahomet. Probably he went to reside in Constantinople in 1460. His history covers the first seventeen years of Mahomet’s reign. It is dedicated to the sultan and is followed by an apology to his fellow Greeks for having written it. While open to the charge of not allowing himself an altogether free hand in revealing the faults and cruelties of his master, Critobulus claims that he has taken great pains to know the truth of what he relates. As he wrote a few years after the siege and at leisure, his narrative does not show the signs of haste xi which mark many of the shorter narratives of that event: such, for example, as those of Leonard, of the Podestà of Pera, of Cardinal Isidore in the ‘Lamentatio,’ and of others. As he continued to belong to the Orthodox Church and to the Greek as opposed to the Roman party in that Church, his history is free from the denunciations of his fellow Christians for having refused the union agreed to at Florence. The writer’s characteristics as a Greek, but also as a servant of the sultan, show themselves in his work. He expresses sympathy with his own people, extols their courage, and laments their misfortunes. But in places his biography of the sultan reads like the report of an able and courageous official. His training and experience in the work of government, his service under Mahomet, and perhaps something in the nature of the man, make his narrative sober and methodical and impress the reader with the idea that the author felt a sense of responsibility for the truthfulness of what he was writing. While the narratives of Phrantzes, Chalcondylas, and Ducas recount some of the incidents of the siege more fully than that of Critobulus, the latter gives more details on others and supplies valuable information which none of them have given. His Life of Mahomet is by far the most valuable of the recently discovered documents, and, as will be seen, I have made use of it as the nucleus of my narrative of the siege.
The manuscript of Critobulus was discovered by the late Dr. Dethier less than forty years ago in the Seraglio Library at Constantinople. It was transcribed by him and also by Herr Karl Müller and was published by the latter in 1883 with valuable notes.6
Two other works of importance unknown to Gibbon xii were due respectively to Tetaldi and Pusculus. Each of these authors took part in the defence of the city. Tetaldi, who was a Florentine soldier, tells us of his escape from the slaughter immediately following the capture, and of his being picked up out of the water by a Venetian ship.7
Pusculus was a citizen of Brescia. Though his account of the siege is given in Latin verse, it contains many details of value of what he himself saw which are not to be found elsewhere. His poem was never altogether lost sight of, but until its publication by Ellisen,8 in 1857, with a useful introduction, its historical value had not been recognised. The MS. from which Ellisen made his copy is dated 1470.
The late Dr. Dethier, who devoted much time and intelligent study to the topography and archæology of Constantinople, compiled four volumes of documents relating to the siege, many of which were previously unknown. Two of them were printed about 1870, but they can hardly be said to have been published, and are only to be procured with difficulty. The remaining two contain, besides Critobulus, the ‘Threnos,’ Hypsilantes, an Italian and a Latin version of the ‘Lamentatio’ by Cardinal Isidore, an Italian version of Leonard’s report to the Pope, and other documents of interest to which I refer in my pages. These volumes were printed by the Buda-Pest Academy but never published. I am indebted, however, to that learned body for a copy.
I append a list of documents (other than the four principal xiii which I have described) relating to the siege now available to the historical student which were unknown to Gibbon:
1. Zorzo (or Zorsi) Dolphin (or Zorsi Dolfin), ‘Assedio e presa di Constantinopoli nell’ anno 1453.’ This is mainly a translation from Leonard, but the author claims to have added what he heard from other eye-witnesses of the siege. It was published by G. M. Thomas in the ‘Sitzungsberichte’ of the Bavarian Academy in 1868. Another version is given by Dethier in his collection of documents relating to the siege, a collection which I refer to simply as Dethier’s ‘Siege.’
2. ‘Rapporto del Superiore dei Franciscani presente all’ assedio e alla presa di Constantinopoli.’ This report was made immediately after the siege and has long been published, but apparently was not known to Gibbon. Dethier also published it in his ‘Siege.’
3. ‘Epistola Ang. Johannis Zacchariae,’ Podestà of Pera, written within a month of the capture of the city, was first published in 1827. The version revised by Edward Hopf and Dr. Dethier is the one used by me.
4. Montaldo’s ‘De Constantinopolitano excidio’ is reproduced in Dethier’s ‘Siege,’ and contains useful hints by an eye-witness.
5. Christoforo Riccherio, ‘La Presa de Constantinopoli,’ first published in Sansovino’s ‘Dell’ Historia Universale,’ was republished with notes in Dethier’s ‘Siege,’ and is a valuable and brightly written narrative.
6. Θρῆνος τῆς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, was first published by Ellisen in ‘Analekten,’ Leipzig, 1857. If the author was in Constantinople during the siege, he has not given a single item of information which is of value to the historian. His long wail is curious and interesting, but otherwise useless.
7. The Θρῆνος of Hierax the Grand Logothetes, or ‘History of the Turkish Empire,’ though only written near the end of the sixteenth century, has valuable topographical hints. It was translated by H. E. Aristarchi Bey, the present Grand Logothetes, from a MS. existing in the Monastery of the Holy Sepulchre at the Phanar, and edited by Dethier.
8. ‘Libro d’ Andrea Cambini Florentino della Origine de’ Turchi et Imperio delli Ottomanni.’ I am not aware whether xiv this has been published at a later date than the copy in my possession, which was printed in Florence in 1529. It was then published by the son of the writer, and Book II., which treats of the siege, suggests that the author has gained his information from spectators of the siege. It contains many useful statements.
9. ‘A Slavic Account of the Siege,’ published by Streznevski, is judged by Monsieur Mijatovich, on account of its peculiar idioms, to have been written by a Serbian or Bulgarian. He speaks of it as the ‘Slavonic Chronicle.’ A translation and a slightly different version was published by Dethier as the ‘Muscovite Chronicle.’ Though the narrative has been largely added to by subsequent hands, there is reason to believe that it was written by an eye-witness of the siege.
10. Another Slavic version is conveniently spoken of as the ‘Memoirs of the Polish Janissary.’ Its author, after serving with the Turks and, according to his own statement, being present at the siege, withdrew to Poland. The original MS. was first published in 1828.
The Turkish authors available who speak of the siege are:
11. Sad-ud-din, ‘The Capture of Constantinople from the Tajut-Tevarikh (1590),’ translated into English by E. J. W. Gibb (Glasgow, 1879). This work professes to be based on the accounts of earlier Turkish historians.
12. ‘Tarich Muntechebati Evliya Chelibi,’ a translation of which is given in the elder Mordtmann’s ‘Eroberung.’
13. Ahmed Muktar Pasha’s ‘Conquest of Constantinople and the Establishment of the Ottomans in Europe,’ brought out only in 1902, on the anniversary of the present sultan’s accession.
14. An Armenian ‘Mélodie Élégiaque,’ written by a monk named Philip, who was present at the siege. This was printed in Lebeau’s ‘Histoire du Bas-Empire.’ Dethier published the original version in Armenian.
I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. Mordtmann’s studies of the archæology and topography of Constantinople,9 and to Professor A. van Millingen’s ‘Byzantine Constantinople’10 a work which is the most careful study of xv the history of those parts of the walls and other portions of the city treated of which has yet been published. I must also tender him sincere thanks for many suggestions made in the course of friendly intercourse and in the discussion of matters of mutual archæological interest, and for permission to reproduce his map of Constantinople. All future writers on the topography and archaeology of Constantinople will be under obligations to Dr. Mordtmann and Professor van Millingen, who have worthily continued the work of Gyllius and Du Cange.
A few words must be added as to the title of this book. Why, it may be asked, should it be the ‘Destruction of the Greek Empire’? Why not follow the example of the late Mr. Freeman, and of his distinguished successor, Professor J. B. Bury, and speak of the ‘Later Roman Empire’? My plea is one of confession and avoidance.
I admit that when Charles the Great, in 800, became Roman Emperor in the West the imperial territory of which the capital was Constantinople may correctly be spoken of as the Eastern Roman Empire. But I avoid condemnation for not adopting this name and for not calling the empire Roman by pleading that I am reverting to the practice of our fathers in the West during many centuries, and by defending their practice. The Empire has sometimes been described as Byzantine and sometimes as the Lower Empire. But these names are undesirable, because the first has a vague and doubtful meaning, since no two writers who employ it use it to cover the same period; and the second has a derogatory signification which the researches of Freeman and Professor Bury, Krumbacher, Schlumberger, and other modern writers, have shown to be undeserved. The name ‘Roman’ has more to recommend it. The Persians and the Arabs knew the empire simply as Roman, and the overwhelming reputation of Rome led them to speak even of Alexander the Great as ‘Iskender al Roumy.’ The name xvi of Rome, or Roum, given to Roumelia, and found in other places as far east as Erzeroum, had been applied when the Latin element dominated the empire. The tradition of Rome passed on to the Turks, and the inhabitants of the empire were and are to them I-roum or Romans. The Byzantine writers usually called themselves Romans. But the term Roman can hardly be applied to the empire without distinguishing it as Eastern, and while it is true that down to 1453 the empire was Roman in name, there is some danger in employing the term of forgetting how far the New Rome and its territory had become Hellenised, and that a large portion of the population preferred the name Greek. There had been a long struggle within the empire itself between those who wished to adopt the latter designation and those who desired to call it Roman. The inhabitants of Greece were indeed for centuries preceding and during the Crusades disloyal subjects of Constantinople. Even during the reign of Heraclius (610 to 641), they insisted upon being called Hellenes rather than Romans. From that time onwards a contest was continued as to whether the name of Greek or Roman should be applied to the population. The influence of the Greeks henceforth was constantly working to Hellenise the empire. In the reign of Irene, at the time when the Western Roman Empire commenced to have a separate existence, Greek influence was especially strong. Lascaris, four centuries later, when he made his stand at Nicaea after the Latin conquest, spoke of the empire as that of Hellas. On the recovery of the city under Michael, the Church generally employed the term Roman, but declared that Greek and Roman might be employed indifferently. Various writers speak of the Latins as Romans and of the Byzantines as Hellenes.11 Manuel Bryennius represents the preacher in St. Sophia as calling upon his hearers to remember their Greek ancestors xvii and to defend their country as they had done. At times the people were appealed to as the descendants alike of Greeks and Romans.
As being a continuation of the Roman Empire whose capital was New Rome, the empire is correctly called Roman, and the name has the advantage of always keeping in view the continuity of Roman history. It was the Eastern Roman Empire which declined and fell in 1453. But if we admit that the empire continued to be Roman till 1453, it must be remembered, not only that its characteristics had considerably changed, but that to the men of the West it had come to be known as the Greek Empire. Latin had been as completely forgotten as Norman French was by English nobles in the time of Edward III. Greek had become the official language, as did English in our own country. The inscriptions on the coins since the time of Heraclius are in Greek. The Orthodox Church, which aided as much as even law in binding the inhabitants of the country together, employed Greek, and Greek almost exclusively, as its language, and, although the great defenders of the term Roman as applied to the population are found among its dignitaries, the Church was essentially Greek as opposed to Roman, both in the character of its thought and teaching and in the language it employed. Hence it is not surprising that to the West during all the middle ages, the Empire was the Greek Empire, just as the Orthodox Church was the Greek Church.12 The Empire and the Church were each alike called Greek to distinguish them from the Empire and Church of the West. It is in this general use of the word Greek that I find my justification for speaking of the capture of Constantinople, and the xviii events connected with it, as the Destruction of the Greek Empire.13
I have only in conclusion to call the attention of the reader to one or two matters connected with the authorities which I quote. I must plead that my residence in Constantinople has not allowed me to refer to the uniform series of Byzantine authors available in the great public libraries of Western Europe. My edition of Phrantzes is that published in the Bonn series; Pachymer, Cantacuzenus, Chalcondylas, Ducas, and their contemporaries, are quoted from the Venetian edition of the Byzantine writers edited by Du Cange. My references to Archbishop Leonard are almost always to the version in the collection of Lonicerus. Dr Dethier, however, published a contemporary Italian version which has certain important variations, and to this I have occasionally referred. The editors of other authorities are mentioned in the notes to the text.
I have sometimes abstained from discussing the trustworthiness of my authorities, but have said once for all that their statements, especially in regard to the numbers they represent as engaged in battle, of victims slaughtered or captured, and the like, can rarely be regarded as satisfactory. The means of controlling them seldom exist. Even in the case of Sir John Maundeville, I have quoted him without hinting that a doubt of his very existence has been uttered. Whether he lived and was or was not a traveller, or whether his book was, as has been suggested, a kind of mediæval Murray’s Guide, does not in the least affect the statements which I have reproduced from it. The work of sifting the evidence, new and old, to ascertain its value has been long and tedious, and I must leave to other students of the same period to say whether I have succeeded in selecting what is of use and xix in rejecting only what is valueless. To have attempted a critical examination of every important statement which I quote would have extended my book to an inordinate length, and in regard to most of them the reader will not find much difficulty in arriving at his own conclusions as to their trustworthiness.
Edwin Pears.
Constantinople, February 1903.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I PAGE
The Latin empire (1204–1261) and its struggles with and final overthrow by the Greeks of Nicaea
1 CHAPTER II
Condition of and difficulties in reconstructing the empire: difficulties arising (a) from attempts by Latins to recover the empire, (b) from Catalan Grand Company
22 CHAPTER III
The Turks: their entry into Asia Minor: not at first exclusively Mahometan: their characteristics: Othman founds a dynasty: progress of Moslems in Europe and Asia Minor: capture of Brousa in 1326
52 CHAPTER IV
Dynastic struggles in empire: appeals to Pope for aid; reigns of Andronicus the Second, John Cantacuzenus, and John; repeated failure of efforts by Popes to induce Western Powers to assist in checking Moslem advance
65 CHAPTER V
Reign of Orchan: struggles with empire; its successes and reverses; invasions of Tartars. Reign of Murad: defeat of Serbians and Bulgarians by Turks; battle of Cossovo-Pol and assassination of Murad
97 CHAPTER VI
Reign of Manuel: encroachments of Turks; Manuel visits West, Sultan Bajazed summoned by Timour; friendly relations between Manuel and Mahomet the First; John associated with Manuel. Siege of Constantinople by Murad; its failure. Efforts at union; misconceptions in West regarding Greek Church; constancy of attempts at union; negotiations for meeting of Council of Church. Internal struggles in Latin Church. Emperor invited by both parties; accepts Pope’s invitation; meeting of Council at Ferrara and Florence; union accomplished; John returns to capital; divisions in Greek Church
109 xxii CHAPTER VII
Progress of Turks between 1391 and 1425: Sultan Bajazed’s reign: conquests in Europe: Bulgarian kingdom ended: Western armies defeated at Nicopolis: Anatolia-Hissar built: capital threatened: summons by Timour to Bajazed: Timour’s progress: reply of Bajazed: battle of Angora and crushing defeat of Turks: further progress of Timour: death of Bajazed, 1403: alarm in Western Europe: departure of Timour: struggle between the sons of Bajazed: ultimate success of Mahomet: his good understanding with Manuel: death of Mahomet, 1420: accession of Murad: war with empire: siege of Constantinople, 1422: death of Manuel, 1425: triumphal progress of Murad: he besieges and takes Salonica: besieges Belgrade but fails: combined movement under Hunyadi against Murad: battle of Slivnitza, 1443, and defeat of Turks: Murad sues for peace: treaty made with Ladislaus: violated by Christians: battle of Varna, 1444: Murad ravages Morea: Iskender Bey, his origin: captures Croia: Hunyadi again attacks Murad: defeated at Cossovo-pol, 1448: reasons for failure of Christian attempts: John has to forego joining Western combination against Turks: death of Murad, 1451: Mahomet the Second becomes Sultan
131 CHAPTER VIII
Causes leading to decay of empire: not due to demoralisation of Court; internal and external causes; Latin conquest and form of government had produced internal dissensions and checked assimilation of hostile races; method of Turkish conquest and its fatal consequences; ravages of black death; population of capital in 1453; its commerce; relations of people with government; resemblance to Russia; difficulty of obtaining idea of domestic life
180 CHAPTER IX
Accession of Constantine Dragases; Patriarch Gregory deposed; renewed attempt to obtain aid from the West; emperor meets with little success; arrival of Cardinal Isidore; reconciliation service December 12, 1452, in Hagia Sophia; dissensions regarding it
201 CHAPTER X
Character of Mahomet the Second; receives deputation from city; returns to Adrianople from Asia Minor; his reforms; builds Roumelia-Hissar; rejects overtures from emperor; castle completed, August 1452; war declared; Mahomet returns to Adrianople; he discloses his designs for siege of city. Constantine’s preparations for defence; arrival of six Venetian ships; aid requested from Venice; Justiniani arrives, January 1453; boom across harbour placed in position. Turkish army, estimate of; notice of Janissaries; mobility of army; religious spirit of; casting of great cannon; Turkish fleet arrives in Bosporus; description of vessels composing it. Mahomet’s army marches to city; offer of peace
206 CHAPTER XIxxiii
Topography of Constantinople; disposition of Mahomet’s forces and cannon; estimate of fighting men under emperor; Venetians and Genoese: disparity in numbers: arms and equipment: attacks on Therapia and Prinkipo
237 CHAPTER XII THE SIEGE
Investment by Turks; first assault fails; attempt to force boom; attempt to capture ships bringing aid; gallant fight and defeat of Turkish fleet; Turkish admiral degraded; transport of Turkish ships across Pera into the Golden Horn
254 CHAPTER XIII
Constantine alleged to have sued for peace; attempt to destroy Turkish ships in the Golden Horn; postponed; made and fails; murder of captives; reprisals; operations in Lycus valley; bridge built over Golden Horn; sending to seek Venetian fleet; proposal that emperor should leave city; attacks on boom; jealousy between Venetians and Genoese; new assaults fail both at walls and boom; attempts to undermine walls; construction of a turret; destroyed by besieged; failure of vessel sent to find Venetian fleet; unlucky omens
277 CHAPTER XIV
Dissensions in city: between Greeks themselves; between Greeks and Italians; between Genoese and Venetians; charge of treachery against Genoese examined; failure of Serbia and Hungary to render aid; preparations for a general assault; damages done to the landward walls; construction of stockade
300 CHAPTER XV
Last days of empire: sultan again hesitates; message inviting surrender; Turkish council called; decides against raising siege; proclamation granting three days’ plunder; sultan’s final preparations; his address to the pashas and last orders to generals. Preparations in city: religious processions: Constantine’s address to leaders and to Venetians and Genoese; last Christian service in St. Sophia: defenders take up their final stations at walls, and close gates behind them: emperor’s last inspection of his forces
313 CHAPTER XVI
General assault: commenced by Bashi-Bazouks; they are defeated; Anatolians attack—are also driven back; attacks in other places fail; xxiv Janissaries attack; Kerkoporta incident; Justiniani wounded and retires; emperor’s alarm; stockade captured; death of Constantine: his character; capture of Constantinople
334 CHAPTER XVII
Attacks in other parts of the city: by Zagan and Caraja; by fleet; the brothers Bocchiardi hold their own; panic when entry of Turks became known; incident of Saint Theodosia’s church; massacre and subsequent pillage; crowd in Saint Sophia captured; horrors of sack; numbers killed or captured; endeavours to escape from city; panic in Galata; Mahomet’s entry; Saint Sophia becomes a mosque; fate of leading prisoners: attempts to repeople capital
358 CHAPTER XVIII
Capture of Constantinople a surprise to Europe; conquest of Trebizond; summary of its history. Character and conduct of Mahomet: as conqueror; he increases Turkish fleet; as administrator; as legislator; his recklessness of human life; as student; was he a religious fanatic? summary
386 CHAPTER XIX
Dispersion of Greek scholars, and their influence upon revival of learning; Greek a bond of union among peoples of empire; disappearance of books after Latin conquest; departure of scholars to Italy begins after 1204; their presence stimulates revival of learning; enthusiasm aroused in Italy for study of Greek; students from Constantinople everywhere welcomed; increased numbers leave after Moslem conquest; Renaissance largely aided by Greek studies; movement passes into Northern Europe; MSS. taken from Constantinople
399 CHAPTER XX
Conclusion; the capture epoch-marking; alarm in Europe; disastrous results; upon Christian subjects and on Eastern Churches; demoralisation of both; poverty the principal result; degradation of Churches: two great services rendered by the Churches; results on Turks: powerless to assimilate conquered peoples or their civilisation
414 APPENDICES I.Note on Romanus Gate and chief place of final assault429 II.Where did the sea-fight of April 20, 1453, take place?436 III.Note on transport of Mahomet’s ships. What was the route adopted?443 IV.The influence of religion on Greeks and Moslems respectively447 INDEX459
ILLUSTRATIONS
Approximate Restoration of the Land Walls of Theodosius the Second between the Golden and Second Military Gates
Between
pages 240–1 Present Condition of a Portion of the Landward Walls
from photograph by M. Irenian of Constantinople. Mahomet the Conqueror
from painting by Bellini. Between
pages 388–1 Mahomet the Conqueror
from medallion by Bellini in the British Museum.
MAPS
Map illustrating Progress of Turks during Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Centuries
Facing p. 1 Map of Byzantine Constantinople237
Sketch Map showing the Disposition of Turkish Troops during the Last Days of Siege; May 1453
335
Map illustrating Progress of Turks during 13th., 14th., & 15th. Centuries.
1
DESTRUCTION
OF
THE GREEK EMPIRE
THE LATIN EMPIRE (1204–1261) AND ITS STRUGGLES WITH AND FINAL OVERTHROW BY THE GREEKS OF NICAEA
The later Roman Empire and its capital Constantinople never recovered from the blow inflicted by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. A huge filibustering expedition had been gathered together at Venice under pretext of making an attack upon the Saracens in Egypt. Under the leadership of Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, and Dandolo, the famous doge of Venice, the expedition had been diverted from its purpose, and, in spite of the strongest possible protests by Innocent the Third, had attacked Constantinople. The strength of the empire had been weakened by a hundred and fifty years’ resistance to the hordes of Asia, during which it had served as the bulwark of Europe. Its reputation had been lessened by thirty years of dynastic wars, during which the government had allowed its fleet to decay so that it was unable to resist the Venetians and Crusaders. The result was that, for the first time in its long history, the city was captured. There then followed the plunder and division of its enormous wealth—a large part of which found its way to the West, while perhaps a still larger portion2 was destroyed—the appointment of a Latin emperor in Constantinople, and the partition of such portions of the empire as could be occupied among the conquerors.
Baldwin, 1204–1205.
Baldwin, a Belgian, was elected emperor. An arrangement for the division of the spoil had been made by the leaders before the attack on the city, and this seems to have been fairly carried out. To Baldwin were assigned the two imperial palaces in Constantinople and one fourth of all that should be captured within the city and throughout the empire. The remaining three fourths were to be divided equally between the Crusaders and the Venetians. The difficulties of the conquerors began with this further division of the spoil. The task of parcelling out the empire was almost hopeless.Difficulties regarding division of empire. It was next to impossible to accomplish such a partition, even on paper, because of the ignorance of the Western conquerors of the empire they had destroyed. Its extent was so great, the difficulty of communication so extreme, and ignorance of geography so profound, that the conquerors did not know what there was to divide. They sent into the provinces to obtain information as to the revenues and general condition of the country so that the partition might be fairly made; but, without waiting for the information, they proceeded to divide up the countries and provinces which they imagined to be within the empire. In their happy ignorance they drew lots for Alexandria and for the various countries along the north shore of the Mediterranean as well as for Georgia, Persia, and Assyria. They competed for the possession of Konia itself, the capital of the Seljukian Turks.
It was still more difficult to make a partition which should represent territory which could come at once into the occupation of the Crusaders. The one system of land tenure with which they were acquainted was the feudal. The lands of the empire must therefore be divided into fiefs and the barons and persons of higher and of lower degree must have grants according to their rank. But though Constantinople was in the possession of the men of the West, they held no more of the remainder of the empire3 than was within the actual sight of the barons and the comparatively small bodies of retainers who were under them. The Greeks—or, as the subjects of the later empire still generally called themselves, the Romans—had no intention of recognising either the lordship of the barons who had become their feudal superiors or the overlordship of Baldwin. They knew nothing of a feudal system, and recognised the representatives of the late empire as having a first claim to their service. They were ready to follow almost any leader against men whom they knew only as invaders, belonging to a different race, speaking a different language, and professing a form of Christianity which was hateful to them because the conquerors tried to impose it upon them.
The difficulties of the Latin empire were both internal and external.
Dissensions among leaders.
The men from the West soon found that they were too few to hold the country. Some of the Crusaders had insisted upon leaving the city in order to proceed to the Holy Land in fulfilment of their vows and to avoid the censure of Innocent. Others were anxious to return home with their share of the spoils. ‘Never since the world was created,’ says Villehardouin the historian, who took an active part in the capture of the city, ‘was there so much booty gained in one city. Each man took the house which pleased him, and there were enough for all. Those who were poor found themselves suddenly rich.’ If they remained they had hardships to face which as the possessors of newly obtained wealth they would rather avoid. As soon as new dangers appeared the numbers of those who wished to get away increased. During the very first year of Baldwin’s reign, his army on its retreat from an expedition against the Bulgarians found at Rodosto seven thousand men at arms who had quitted the capital and were leaving the country. It was in vain that a cardinal and the leaders sent by the army, among whom was Villehardouin himself, implored them even with tears to remain, for ‘Never,’ said these leaders, ‘would they be able to succour a country in so4 great a need.’14 The most favourable answer that they could obtain was that a reply would be given on the morrow. The deserters set sail in the night without even giving the promised response to the prayer made to them.
The internal difficulties were increased by the jealousy which existed between the leaders of the Latins themselves. All through the journey to Constantinople before the capture of the city, the Crusaders and Venetians had mistrusted each other. Boniface, the leader of the Crusade, considered himself ill treated because he had not been named emperor. Though defeated, he had a large number of adherents. To him had been assigned territory in Asia Minor. He applied to exchange it for the kingdom of Salonica, alleging that as he had married the widow of the Emperor Isaac, who was the sister of the King of Hungary, he would be at Salonica in a better position to aid the emperor. His request was granted. Baldwin, however, did not trust him, and, apparently under the impression that it was the intention of Boniface to establish an independent sovereignty, insisted on accompanying him to his newly acquired capital. To this course Boniface objected so strongly that when the emperor started for Salonica, Boniface not only refused to accompany him but went off towards Adrianople, captured Didymotica, and laid siege to the former city. The Greeks flocked to his standard, possibly being induced to do so by the belief that as he had married the widow of Isaac he was entitled to their allegiance.
As soon as Dandolo, Count Louis, and the other nobles who had remained in Constantinople heard what Marquis Boniface was doing, they at once took counsel in ‘parlement’ as to the measures to be adopted: ‘for,’ says Villehardouin, ‘they thought that they would lose all the conquests they had made.’ They decided to send a knight to Boniface without delay, and the historian was himself chosen for the mission. He went at once to Adrianople and succeeded in persuading the marquis to submit the questions between him and the emperor to the arbitration of Dandolo and Count 5 Louis, and for the present to cease hostilities. Meantime the emperor had occupied Salonica. As soon as he heard of the siege of Adrianople he at once hastened to its relief and ‘pour faire tout le mal qu’il pourrait au marquis.’ On the way he met the messengers from the city, who besought him to submit his case, as Boniface had consented to do, to arbitration, at the same time plainly telling him that Dandolo, Count Louis of Blois, and the other barons would not tolerate war between him and Boniface. The emperor hesitated and consulted his council. Some of the members urged that the message was an outrage and advised resistance. Violent language (‘grosses paroles’) was used, but the emperor, who was unwilling to risk the hostility of so strong a combination as Dandolo and Louis, gave way to the extent of stating that he would undertake not to attack Boniface until he went to Constantinople, although he would not pledge himself to refer the questions between them to arbitration. Shortly after, when a peace was patched up between them, it was under conditions which show that neither party trusted the other. Villehardouin undertook to hold Didymotica until he knew by a trusted messenger that Salonica had been handed over to Boniface.
Nor were the external differences which at once presented themselves less serious. The history of Constantinople and the Latin empire during the period between 1204 and 1260 is indeed that of a series of struggles between Baldwin and his successors on the imperial throne, on the one side, and the leaders of the Greek race who had refused to recognise the authority of the invaders, on the other.
Opposition of Greek population.
The Western barons seemed to have thought that with the conquest of the capital the whole empire would fall to their lot. They were soon undeceived. In Macedonia and in Epirus Greek leaders appeared, who rallied to them all who were indisposed to accept new rulers. At Trebizond on the Black Sea, and at Nicaea, the once famous city of the Creed, the Greeks flocked from the capital and its neighbourhood, and soon there were rulers of these cities who assumed the title of emperor.
6
Empire of Nicaea. Theodore Lascaris, 1204–1222.
The most important of those who refused to accept the Latin rule was Theodore Lascaris. He had been the last of the Greek nobles to leave the city when the invaders captured it. He made his way to Nicaea, and was followed by many Greeks. Able, courageous, and patriotic, he was soon recognised by the notables as the fittest man to have rule among them, and, though without hereditary claim to the imperial throne, he aspired to be emperor and was accepted as best suited to receive that dignity. Two years after the capture of Constantinople, a new patriarch was elected, who consented to live at Nicaea and who amid as much ceremony as if the coronation had taken place in St. Sophia placed the crown on the head of Theodore in the church of the same name at Nicaea. The prudence and judgment of the new emperor did much to rally the best of his countrymen around him, and justified the choice made in electing him to the imperial throne. The Greek priests flocked to the city from all parts of Western Asia Minor as well as from Thrace.
Nevertheless, his task was beset with difficulties. He had enemies on all sides, pretenders of his own race, the Latin emperor and the sultan of the Seljukian Turks. The latter, whose capital was at Konia, had no idea of allowing any neighbour to become formidable. A Greek pretender held the country to the west of Nicaea. The Latin emperor and barons chose to regard Theodore as a rebel because he would not make submission. After unsuccessful attempts against him by Baldwin and his successor, Theodore was allowed in 1207 to remain in possession of Ismidt (the ancient Nicomedia) and Cyzicus for a period of two years. He employed the period in strengthening and extending his empire. At the end of it, Henry the brother of Baldwin, whom he succeeded as emperor, made an alliance with the sultan of the Seljukian Turks: that is to say, the Crusaders who had justified themselves to Innocent the Third for attacking a Christian city on the ground that the Greek emperors had allowed the Moslems to have a mosque7 within the city, now found themselves under the necessity of joining forces with the infidel to attack a Christian prince.
Upon the declaration of war by the sultan, Theodore pushed forward into the valley of the Meander, and a battle was fought which, if the Byzantine authorities are to be trusted, was decided in single combat between the two sovereigns. The sultan was killed, and the empire of Nicaea was saved. The Emperor Henry, however, when he heard of the extent of the loss in Theodore’s army exclaimed, ‘The Greek is not conqueror: he is ruined.’
So far from being ruined, his success caused many Greeks to flock into his empire from Constantinople. When, in 1214, the Emperor Henry again declared war, Theodore was ready for him; and as the Greeks in Epirus had commenced a vigorous attack on the crusading barons in Macedonia, Henry was glad to make a peace which left Theodore undisputed master of a territory bounded on the west by a line from Heraclea on the Black Sea to Ismidt, thence to Cyzicus and to the coast just north of Pergamos. The fruitful valleys of the Meander, the Cayster, and the Hermus marked his boundaries on the south-west.
Theodore died in 1222. The first duty of the Greeks when driven out of Constantinople was to make themselves secure against the conquerors and to prevent the progress of the crusading armies into Asia Minor. This duty had been effectually done by Theodore. During the eighteen years of his reign he had made his capital and its beautiful neighbourhood the rallying-place of what was best in the Greek-speaking populations of Asia Minor and of Thrace. He had checked the progress of the crusaders into Asia Minor and had left to his successors the task of working for the recovery of Constantinople.
Henry succeeds Baldwin, 1205–1216.
Meantime, the history of the Latin conquerors of Constantinople had been one of almost continuous disaster. The first Emperor Baldwin had been lost in an encounter with the Bulgarians near Adrianople in April 1205, and was probably killed. As his fate remained doubtful, his8 brother Henry acted as regent for a year and was then crowned emperor. Shortly after the commencement of his reign in 1207, Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat and King of Salonica, was killed in a skirmish. Henry seems to have realised that in a policy of conciliation towards the Greeks lay the only hope of the continuance of his empire. He made peace with the Bulgarians and concluded an arrangement with both the emperor of Nicaea and the Greek prince who had made himself recognised as despot in Epirus. He employed Greeks in the public service. He refused to take part in the persecution of the Greeks who would not obey the decrees of the pope’s legate. He allowed them to employ the Greek language in their services, and restrained the pretensions of the Roman priests. Unfortunately for the Latin empire, the reign of the chivalrous Henry lasted only ten years.
Peter succeeds, 1217–1219.
He was succeeded by Peter of Courtenay, who was invited by the barons to occupy the throne in the absence of male heirs of Baldwin and his brother Henry. Peter left France with 140 knights and 5,500 men at arms, whom he had obtained with the aid of his royal kinsman, Philip Augustus. The reports of the rich plunder which had been obtained in the capture of the city had already induced many French knights to leave their native lands to take service in the empire, but the detachment with which Peter crossed the Alps was the largest which had left the West for such purpose.
The Venetians bargained to transport them across the Adriatic on condition that they would assist in recovering Durazzo from Theodore, the Greek despot of Epirus. After a useless assault on that city, Peter started with his followers on a journey across the peninsula to Salonica. He and his host were soon lost amid the mountains of Epirus. Their provisions were exhausted. They found the passes fortified, and their only chance of life was to surrender to Theodore, who had held the country in defiance of the regent who was governing in the name of the son of Boniface. Peter was detained in captivity, and his death is as mysterious as that9 of the first Latin emperor. He probably perished in prison in 1218.
Robert, 1219–1228.
Peter’s successor, Robert of Courtenay, succeeded in finding his way to Constantinople, though not across Macedonia, accompanied by a number of troops furnished at the request of Pope Honorius the Third. His reign was a series of disasters. He made a treaty of peace with Theodore of Nicaea in order that he might devote all his attention to the defeat of the other Theodore, the despot of Epirus. The latter had been denounced by the pope for his detention of Peter and of the legate who accompanied him. Honorius indeed had invited the princes of the West to undertake a crusade for their deliverance. When, however, the legate was released, Peter seems to have been forgotten. The despot Theodore made a well-concerted attack upon Salonica, captured it, and was proclaimed emperor in 1222. Robert led all his forces against this new claimant for the imperial title and was badly beaten. Theodore pushed on to Adrianople and hoisted his standard on the walls of that city almost without opposition.
There were thus in 1222 four persons claiming to be emperors, and occupying separate portions of what had been twenty years earlier the Roman Empire in the East. These were Robert at Constantinople, Theodore at Nicaea, another Theodore at Salonica, and Alexis at Trebizond.
Nicaea, success of John Ducas Vataces, 1222–1254.
The history of the next forty years (1222–1261) is that of the strengthening of the Greek empire at Nicaea and the decadence and downfall of the other so-called empires, and especially of that of the Latin Crusaders in Constantinople. The successor of Theodore Lascaris was John Ducas Vataces, who during a reign of thirty-three years fortified his position at Nicaea and increased the prosperity of his empire. He restricted the boundaries of the Latin territory in Asia Minor to the peninsula formed by a line parallel to the Bosporus from Ismidt to the Black Sea. He rendered property and life safe, and in consequence the Greek population continued to flock into his territory. Even French soldiers in considerable numbers quietly slipped away from10 Constantinople to take service with Vataces. At the commencement of his reign he was attacked by the newly appointed emperor, Robert of Courtenay, and in the combat which ensued not only was Vataces successful, but the last of the knights who had taken part in the capture of the city were left dead on the field. Until Robert’s death in 1228, Nicaea had few troubles with the Latin empire.
Latin empire. John of Brienne, 1228–1237. Baldwin II., 1237–1261.
Robert’s successor was a boy of eleven, who continued nominally emperor under the title of Baldwin the Second for upwards of thirty years, but the Latin knights wisely placed power in the hands of John de Brienne. Indeed, the crusading leaders seem throughout the whole Latin occupation to have assumed a large measure of the imperial authority. The period is contemporary with that of the barons who resisted King John in England, and who continued to assert their independence under the reign of Henry the Third. The French barons in Constantinople had much of the same spirit, with the additional incentive to independence that, as the emperors were of recent creation, the glamour which had already gathered about the kingly office in England and France was absent. The emperor was indeed nothing more than primus inter pares, and his own designs were often set aside for those of his associates. No one can doubt that they acted wisely in appointing John de Brienne, but even he, with all his experience and caution, failed as his predecessor had done when he attacked Nicaea.
The courage and ability of the old Crusader, who was already eighty years of age, hardly retarded the decay of the Latin empire. Its needs were great, and accordingly Baldwin the Second was sent on a visit to the pope and to the Western courts to obtain further supplies of men and money. Indeed, the greater part of his reign was Baldwin visits France, occupied by three of such journeys. His first visit to France was in 1237. Hardly had he arrived in Paris when he learned the death of John de Brienne. The messenger who brought the tidings told a terrible story of11 the distress in the imperial city. The barons and soldiers15 dared not venture outside the walls. The supply of food had run so short that many of the gentlemen of France who were charged with its defence disguised themselves and escaped by sea or, notwithstanding that the country was full of dangers, endeavoured to make their way by land to their own country. The peril was so great that Baldwin was assured that if aid were not sent the city could not resist an attack. Upon these tidings Baldwin did his utmost to obtain aid. He was received with honour wherever he went, but he received little else. In 1238, he paid a visit to England. On his landing at Dover he was asked and England. how he presumed to enter the country without the permission of its independent sovereign, Henry the Third. Henry had had enough trouble with Crusaders. John de Brienne, who had been in England, had obtained aid from the king and had been honourably received. On his return to France he had joined with Philip Augustus against England. Henry, however, sent word to Baldwin that as he had arrived without troops he might come on to London. After receiving this permission he paid a visit to the king and finally left England with the miserable sum of seven hundred marks.
Pope supports Latin empire.
The pope had taken Baldwin’s cause greatly to heart. He enjoined all Christian princes to give him aid. He ordered the leading archbishops of the West to publish a new Crusade against the Greek schismatics. He directed part of the Peter’s pence to be given for the furtherance of the Crusade and ordered that the money which St. Louis with pious zeal had extorted from the Jews as obtained by usury should be employed for the same purpose. He begged the king to direct that one third of the revenues of the churches should be thus employed, and he wrote to the king of England with a similar request. In 1238 John de Bethune started from France with men and money. The expedition, however, came to grief. Its leader died at 12 Venice and the army melted away, very few ever arriving at the Bosporus.
Decay of Latin empire.
The character of the news from Constantinople continued constantly to be more and more distressing. The revenue was yearly decreasing. The money obtained in Europe was already spent, and the knights were driven to desperate expedients to obtain more. Copper was torn from the domes of the churches and other public buildings to be converted into coin. Empty houses were pulled down to supply fuel. The sacred relics, which in the eyes of the Crusaders constituted not only the most valuable treasures of the city but the talisman of its safety, were sold to meet pressing needs.Sale of relics. The Sacred Crown of Thorns had been pledged for a sum of about seven thousand pounds, and when the time came for redeeming it, the Latins were not able to find the money. A Venetian endeavoured to obtain it in order to add to the prosperity of the Bride of the Seas, but Baldwin, possibly out of gratitude to Saint Louis of France, and with the object of obtaining a larger sum, preferred that it should be sent to France. After considerable difficulty and many negotiations, the sacred relic was redeemed and taken with solemn procession from Venice to Paris, where the king himself, clothed in penitential garments and barefoot, went out to meet it and to accompany it to its temporary resting-place. This was in 1239. Baldwin received from Louis, in recompense of his labour to obtain so valuable a prize, the sum of ten thousand marks.
Nor was this the only relic which the crusading empire was obliged to convert into money. A large portion of the true cross, the lance, the sponge, and other objects, the parting with which must have cost Baldwin and his barons many a regret, were also sent to France in order to raise money.16
By July 1239 Baldwin had collected in the West all the money and forces available and started for Constantinople. The number of his army was greatly exaggerated by the rumours which preceded it and greatly alarmed the Greeks at Nicaea. He arrived at Constantinople at the end of Prosperity of Nicene empire. 13December. John Vataces, in consequence of these rumours and as a precaution, allied himself with the Bulgarians. The armies of the two states attacked Constantinople. The Venetians saved the city by arriving in time to make it necessary to raise the siege. Then the Bulgarians made friends with the Latins and allowed a band of Comans (or Tur-comans) who had been driven over the Danube by the Mongols to pass through Bulgaria and take service with the Latins. The emperor of Nicaea could, however, play a similar game, and he induced a band of the same race, who formed excellent light cavalry, to settle on the banks of the Meander and in Phrygia.
John Vataces succeeded, partly by force, partly by persuasion, in inducing the despot of Salonica to abandon the title of emperor and to recognise Nicaea as the true representative of the former empire of Constantine. Vataces thereupon became acknowledged ruler of the kingdom of Salonica from the Aegean to the Adriatic.
Decay of Constantinople.
Meantime the wealth and population of Constantinople were diminishing every day. Its commerce had almost gone. What was left was in the hands of the Venetians. No taxes could be levied on the poverty-stricken population. The Greeks of the country around Constantinople, who had been the food-producers and the source of revenue to the merchants of the capital, fled from the constant harass of war and invasions, now by Latins, now by Bulgarians, and now by Greeks, into Asia Minor, where they could labour in the fields or trade in peace and quietness.
The population in other parts of the country were in like straits. The continual money difficulties among the Latin knights and the Crusaders generally caused a widespread spirit of lawlessness. Necessity compelled them to live on the country they were passing through, and wherever they were under the command of a weak ruler, pillage was common and almost unchecked. Before men thus lawless, poor peasants fled in alarm across the Marmora to be not only among their own people but where life and property were secure.
14
As illustrating the lawlessness among the Latin nobles, a story told of the Emperor Robert himself is significant. He was engaged to marry the daughter of Vataces, a marriage which promised obvious advantages to the Latin empire. He preferred, however, a lady who was affianced to a knight of Burgundy. Her mother had acquiesced in her throwing over her fiancé in favour of the young emperor. The Burgundian and his friends forced their way into the palace, threw the mother into the sea, and brutally disfigured the face of the girl. The barons approved of the deed, and the king went whining to the pope to condemn the wrong-doers, since he himself was powerless to avenge the insult offered to him.
Under such conditions of lawlessness, capital fled the country. The Latin government had once more to resort to every possible device for raising money, and the ornaments of the churches and other public buildings were sent to the melting-pot or to auction.
While disaster and decay marked the condition of things in Constantinople, Nicaea continued to increase in prosperity. The city itself, in a healthy situation on the beautiful lake of Ascanius, had under the rule of John Vataces already become wealthy. Taxes were light because the revenue was not squandered, and the emperor had carried into the public expenditure the same habits of carefulness which he displayed in the management of his own private estates. It is recorded of him, as an illustration of his thrift, that on presenting the empress with a coronet decked with jewels he explained to her that it had been bought with money exclusively obtained from the sale of eggs produced on his own estates. He paid especial attention to agriculture, and, though distinguished as a warrior, set the example of attending personally to his farm, his flocks and herds, the cultivation of his fields, and the welfare of his labourers. We may excuse his sumptuary laws for the reason that the object was to check the luxury of the nobles and to encourage home manufactures. When he died, in 1254, after a reign of thirty-three years, Nicaea had deservedly obtained15 the reputation of being the chief city of all Greek-speaking people, whether in Europe or in Asia, the city to which the people lifted up their eyes in confidence of a speedy return to the queen city on the shores of the Bosporus.
Theodore II. of Nicaea, 1254–1258.
The reign of Theodore Lascaris the Second, son of John Vataces, lasted only four years, and though he lacked the ability of his father, and was a sufferer from epilepsy, the empire of Nicaea continued to prosper. His military administration was able and successful. He continued the policy of Vataces in endeavouring to induce or to compel all the Greeks in the Balkan peninsula to come under his rule. It may be fairly said of him that on his death, in 1258, the position of Nicaea was stronger than on his accession.
During these two prosperous reigns in the Greek empire that of the Crusaders had continued to go from bad to worse. In spite of the anathemas of the popes against those who should attack Constantinople, the Bulgarians and the Greeks made war upon it whenever they thought the opportunity favourable. In spite of the exhortation of the popes to Western Europe to furnish men and money, and of the fact that both were furnished, the empire grew weaker in men and its financial situation became worse.
We have seen that Baldwin returned to Constantinople with an army which is said to have numbered 30,000 men, and which in any case was sufficiently large to alarm the Nicene emperor. But these reinforcements seem to have been a burden rather than an advantage, and the chief of the crusading empire had to shock Christian Europe by consenting to give his niece in marriage to the sultan of Konia in order to secure an alliance with him against the Greek emperor. Second visit of Baldwin to West.Baldwin’s necessities again compelled him to visit France. He was once more received with honour, and at the Council of Lyons, in 1245, he was given the position of supreme honour, and was placed on the right hand of the pope. All, indeed, that the sovereign pontiff could accomplish in favour of his guest in this Council was done. An alliance which the Emperor Frederick had made with John Vataces was denounced, and the head of the16 Holy Roman Empire was solemnly excommunicated. While nothing was said about the alliance with the Seljukian Turk, Frederick was condemned for allowing his daughter to be married to a schismatic Greek. Large sums were ordered to be contributed by the dignitaries of the Church and by the religious orders for the succour of the empire. St. Louis again gave Baldwin a welcome, and entertained him at his court during nearly two years while aid was being collected. The pope gave power to absolve from sins those who should join the Crusade or contribute to the support of the empire. But, as Matthew Paris says, his empire nevertheless daily decayed. It was not till 1248 that Baldwin returned to his impoverished capital. Perhaps the lowest depth of degradation was attained by him when in 1259 his necessity was so great that he was obliged to put his only son in pledge to certain Venetian nobles as security for the payment of what he had borrowed. The unfortunate lad was taken to Venice, and his father was unable to redeem him until after the recapture of Constantinople.
Before the death, in 1258, of Theodore Lascaris the Second, the ruler of Nicaea was acknowledged emperor, not merely throughout the northern part of Asia Minor, but in the kingdom of Macedonia, and even in a considerable portion of Thrace.John Ducas Emperor of Nicaea, 1258–1260. His successor, John, was a boy. John’s guardian was Michael Palaeologus, who was proclaimed emperor in January 1259–60. Seeing that there was some disorder in Nicaea, occasioned by the disputes between those in favour of the boy, who, in the ordinary course of succession, would have been emperor, and those who had recognised that the times were too critical to allow him to reign, and had Michael Palaeologus.consequently followed Michael, the Latin emperor, Baldwin, judged the moment opportune to stipulate for concessions. Accordingly he sent a mission to Nicaea to learn what Michael would give in order to avoid war. The historian Acropolitas, who was at Nicaea at the time, records what passed. The emperor mocked the ambassadors. They asked that he should surrender Salonica. The reply was that that city was the emperor’s birthplace; how could he17 part with it? They suggested Seres. The emperor responded that what they were asking was neither just nor decent, since he had received it from his father. ‘Give us, then, Bolero.’ But that was the emperor’s hunting-ground, and could not be spared. ‘What, then, will you give us?’ ‘Nothing whatever,’ replied the emperor. ‘But if you want peace with me, it is well, because you know me, and that I can fight. Pay me part of the tribute collected at Constantinople, and we shall be at peace.’ No better terms were to be had, and the ambassadors left.
Michael probably understood that his refusal would be followed by war. He therefore visited the fortifications already gained in Thrace by the Greeks, strengthened them, and within a few months the Latin empire was reduced to the occupation of Constantinople and a small strip around it. In the following year, 1260, Michael’s general, Strategopulus, was entrusted with the command in Thrace. He stormed Selymbria (the modern Silivria), and tried but failed to capture Galata, which was already in the occupation of the Genoese. Thereupon a truce was made for one year.
Seeing that the Venetians, whose great power in the Levant dates from the fall of Constantinople in 1204, in which they had played so important a part, still maintained their connection with the empire on the Bosporus and, indeed, continued to be the principal source of such strength as it possessed, Michael, to the great indignation of the pope and the West, made an alliance with their rivals, the Genoese, an alliance which was the foundation of their supremacy in trade in the Black Sea.
Capture of Constantinople by the Greeks.
It is not impossible that Strategopulus had been sent into Thrace in 1260 rather to form a judgment of the chances of capturing the city than of making war. It is quite possible, as suggested even by Pachymer, that the attempt on Galata was a mere feint in order that he might get into communication with friends in the capital. In consenting to give a year’s truce, however, Michael seems to have been sincere. Accordingly, when, in 1261, he again sent18 Strategopulus into Thrace it was with instructions that he was not to attack the city. He had with him only 800 men, but as he passed through the country behind Constantinople the Greek settlers (Volunteers, as they are called, (Θεληματάριοι), who had friends in the city, flocked to him, and urged that he would never have a better chance of capturing it than at that time. The last detachment of troops which had come from France had left the city, with the Venetian fleet, upon an expedition into the Black Sea to capture Daphnusia. Constantinople might be surprised in their absence. In spite of the imperial orders, the chance was too good to be missed. He brought his men to the neighbourhood of the capital, and hid them near the Holy Well of Baloukli, situated at about half a mile from the Gate of the Fountain,17 one of the important entrances into the city through the landward walls. His volunteers had not deceived him when they stated that they had friends in the city. Probably every Greek was a secret sympathiser.
George Acropolitas, who died in 1282, and whose account, therefore, must have been written while the events were fresh in his memory, gives the most trustworthy version of what happened. He says: ‘But as Strategopulus had some men near him who had come from the city and were well acquainted with all that had passed there, from whom he learned that there was a hole in the walls of the city through which an armed man could easily pass, he lost no time and set to work. A man passed through this hole; another followed, then others, until fifteen, and perhaps more, had got into the city. But, as they found a man on the walls on guard, some of them mounted the wall and, taking him by the feet, threw him over. Others having axes in their hands broke the locks and bolts of the gates, and thus rendered the entry easy for the army. This is how the Cæsar Strategopulus, and all the men he had with him, Romans and Scythians (for his army was composed of these 19two peoples), made their entry into the city.’18 Probably there were few inhabitants in that quarter, and the advance to the principal part of the city might be made in the dark. At dawn the invaders pushed on boldly, met with a brave resistance from a few—a resistance which they soon overcame—and the rest of the French19 defenders were seized with panic and fled. While the city was thus passing once more into the hands of the Greeks, the French and Venetian ships were coming straggling down the Bosporus, on their return from Daphnusia, which they had failed to capture. Accordingly, the army of Strategopulus and his volunteers set fire to the dwellings in the French and Venetian quarters in the city and to their villas on the European shore of the Bosporus near Galata. While the foreigners were occupied in saving their own property and their women and children from the fire, Strategopulus strengthened his position in the city.
Flight of Baldwin II.
The weak and incapable Baldwin was at the palace of Blachern when the Greeks entered the city. Afraid to pass through the streets where the fighting was going on, he entered a boat, made his way down the Golden Horn, and took refuge among other fugitives with the Venetian fleet.
End of Latin empire.
His flight was on July 25, 1261, and with it ends the history of the Latin empire in Constantinople. It had been established by perjured Crusaders and filibustering Venetians who were justly anathematised by Innocent the 20Third. It had always been a sickly plant in a foreign and uncongenial soil, and, though popes and kings had made quite remarkable exertions to make it grow, it never even gave a sign of taking root. The empire had succeeded, as Innocent predicted that it would, in making the Greeks loathe the members of the Latin Church like dogs, and in rendering the union of the two Churches impossible. The Crusaders, as Innocent had likewise foretold, had seized an empire which they could not defend.20 Their expedition had broken up the great machine of Roman government which had been working steadily and, in the main, well for nearly a thousand years. It had done irreparable mischief unaccompanied by any compensatory good. In the course of two generations, the barons who had taken part in the capture had died, and though among those who, at the bidding of successive popes and of St. Louis, replaced them there must have been many actuated by worthy motives, none among them have left any evidence whatever of statesmanship or of those qualities which have enabled nations to conciliate or to assimilate the people whom they have conquered. In sixty years the peasants might have become content to acknowledge a change of rulers had they been allowed to till their fields in peace: the traders might have forgotten the hostility of their fathers if they had been permitted to exercise their industry in security; but the continued and ever increasing exactions of their masters forbade them to forget that they were under alien rulers. All that were worthy in the city had sought refuge elsewhere: the priests, the students with their priceless manuscripts, and the traders had escaped to Nicaea or to Trebizond. The oppressors had seen themselves deserted and the limits of the empire restricted almost to the boundaries of the city. The Latin empire, which had never been formidable, had become an object of contempt. When, however, its last emperor slunk away as a fugitive from his imperial city, he was hardly more contemptible than when 21he was present as a mendicant at the court of St. Louis or of Henry the Third. His empire deserves only to be remembered as a gigantic failure, a check to the progress of European civilisation, a mischievous episode, an abortion among states, born in sin, shapen in iniquity, and dying amid ignominy.
22
CONDITION OF AND DIFFICULTIES IN RECONSTRUCTING THE EMPIRE: DIFFICULTIES ARISING (A) FROM ATTEMPTS BY LATINS TO RECOVER THE EMPIRE, (B) FROM CATALAN GRAND COMPANY.
Condition of capital on Baldwin’s flight.
When Constantinople was captured by the Crusaders and Venetians it was adorned with the accumulated wealth of centuries and decorated with art treasures for which not only Greece but the whole Roman Empire had been ransacked. When the city was recaptured by the Greeks it was a desolation. Houses, churches, and monasteries were in ruins; whole quarters were deserted. Heaps of rubbish marked where extensive fires had consumed houses which no one cared to rebuild. The imperial palace itself was in so disorderly and filthy a condition that it was some time before it could be occupied. In place of a large population of the most educated and highly civilised people in Europe, was a miserably small number of Greeks who had been reduced to poverty with a number of foreign and principally French colonists. While the foreign captors had plundered the city and carried off the bronze horses of Lysippus and innumerable other objects of art and value to Western Europe, they and their successors during the fifty-eight years of occupation had, in their contemptuous ignorance of the art of a conquered people, destroyed probably more than had been taken away as plunder.
The Queen City, which during many centuries had preserved her inviolability and had largely for that reason become the treasure-house of the empire and even of a large part of the Western world, had lost her reputation as23 a place of safety. Amid the devastation in Egypt, in Syria, and in Asia Minor, marked and mainly caused by the advances of the Saracens and Seljukian Turks, by the struggles of the Crusaders, and the destruction of the ancient civilisations of Eastern Asia Minor occasioned by the westward movements of Asiatic hordes, the merchant had known only of one city where his merchandise was safe and where he could trade in security.
Loss of its commerce.
The stream of commerce between the East and the West which had flowed through the Bosporus had been diverted into other channels, and the great emboloi and warehouses were lying empty or in ruins. Tana or the Azof, which had been the starting-point of a great caravan route through Bokhara, Samarcand, and Balkh, now no longer contributed largely to the commerce of Constantinople. Such of its trade as was not sent overland to Western Europe was held by the Venetians, and at a somewhat later period by the Genoese or other Italians, and scarcely contributed at all to the wealth of the capital. The Danube became during the thirteenth century the highway between the Black and the North Seas. The city which had been the great centre for the collection and distribution of the furs, the hides, the caviare and dried fish, the honey, wax, and other produce which the Russian merchants collected and stored for the use of the West, was now studiously avoided. The Western traders who had met those from Novgorod, Tchernigov, and Kief at Constantinople now found their way to the mouth of the Dnieper and arranged for the transit of their goods so as to avoid the pirates whom the Latin rulers of Constantinople were unable to suppress, or the exactions levied upon their merchandise if they came within the power of the ancient capital. Trade which had come to Constantinople along the ancient roads through Asia Minor had either ceased to exist or had been diverted into other channels. The confidence arising from a sense of security which through a long series of years had attracted commerce could not be restored and in fact was never regained. The loss of her trade took from Constantinople the only external source of24 revenue. The restored empire had thus to depend almost exclusively upon the contributions which it could levy upon the long harassed and impoverished peoples who recognised its rule.
The recapture of the capital, though an epoch-marking event, was only one step towards the restoration of the empire. It never really was restored. It never recovered the commanding position which it had occupied during even the worst periods of its history since Constantine. Its existence from 1261 to its capture by the Turks in 1453 is one long struggle.
Difficulties of restored empire.
The capital had been a centre which had kept well in touch with even the remote corners of the empire. In it had been the seat of government, the highest law courts presided over by the ablest jurists, the continuators of the work of Justinian, whose labour had formulated the law of all continental Europe. There also was the centre of the theological and religious life of the empire and the seat of the administration. Unhappily, during the sixty years of Latin rule the whole framework of this administration had been broken up. A new plan of government had to be devised. The new officials of the emperors were called upon to govern without rules, without experience, and without traditions. The forms of provincial and municipal government were hardly remembered, and there were no men trained in affairs to breathe life into them.
The influences at work in the capital had bound the empire together, but they had been exercised through local administrations. The result now was that the government became centralised: that is, that matters which previously would have been dealt with in the provinces by men with local knowledge had to be dealt with in the capital by men who were necessarily under many disadvantages. The effort of its rulers after the city was recaptured was not merely to restore to it the territory which had acknowledged its sway, but to administer good government directly from its capital.
Unfortunately, the desolation wrought in Constantinople was reproduced throughout every portion of what had been25 the empire before the Latin conquest. The country had been everywhere impoverished and the population diminished by successive raids of Crusaders or pretenders.
From foreign states.
Nor were the external difficulties of the restored empire less alarming. When Michael the Eighth entered the recaptured city he found anarchy throughout his European territory and neighbouring states eager to enlarge their boundaries at his expense. The Bulgarians were a formidable power, whose dominions were not divided from his own by any natural boundary. The Serbians had utilised the period of the Latin occupation to gather strength and were rising once again to importance. The crusading families who had obtained fiefs in Greece and the southern portion of Macedonia still retained their independence. Genoese and Venetians, while struggling against each other for the favour of the emperor, were each on the alert to obtain territory as well as trading privileges at his expense.
From hostility towards Roman Church.
One of the most serious evils inflicted on the empire by the Latin occupation was the fierce antagonism it had created in the Orthodox Church towards that of the elder Rome. We have seen that Innocent had foreseen this result, but even he, great statesman though he was, could hardly have anticipated that the hatred aroused would be of so long a duration. When the city had been captured a Latin patriarch had been appointed, the union of the Churches had been forced upon clergy and people, and the Church, which had always considered itself the equal if not the superior of Rome, was relegated to a position of inferiority. All attempts at reunion were henceforward regarded not merely from the point of view of religion, but from that of patriotism. Union was part of the heritage of bondage. Union meant voluntary submission to the foreign Church which had been able to impose its rule during two generations. Union, therefore, in the minds of a majority of both clergy and laity had to be resisted as a badge of slavery.
Though the Latin empire had perished, there still remained a Latin emperor or pretender, and he and his descendants, with the support of successive popes and aided by26 adventurers from France, Italy, and Spain, made many and constant attempts to regain the position which had been lost. For upwards of a century after the city’s recapture there was a general scramble by the European neighbours of the empire and Western powers for adjacent territory. The dominions of the emperor were large and sparsely populated, and offered an irresistible temptation to neighbouring states. More formidable, however, than all other enemies were the Turks. Though they had been attacked in the rear and were for a while rent by internal dissensions, they were steadily increasing: adding constantly by conquests to the territory over which their emirs ruled, and increasing in numbers by the never-failing stream of immigrants and born warriors coming into Asia Minor from Central Asia.
From Michael’s usurpation.
Among the first difficulties encountered in the reconstruction of the empire must be noted that arising from the irregularity of Michael’s own position. It is worthy of note, not merely as a difficulty, but as showing the independent spirit of the Orthodox Church. The reader will have ample evidence of the inflexibility of its resistance on questions of dogma, but the very commencement of the reign of Michael illustrates how it was prepared to make a vigorous stand even against the deliverer of the empire on the simple ground of righteousness. We have seen that Michael had no legal claim to the throne. The de jure heir was John, a child of eight years when his father, Theodore Lascaris, died. His guardians were Michael, who had been made Grand Duke, and Arsenius the Patriarch. When a year afterwards, in 1261, the city was recaptured, it was expected by some persons of influence that Michael would either simply act as regent or associate John with him as co-emperor as soon as he became of age. Michael, however, in the same year, blinded the boy, so as to render him incapable of ascending the throne.21 Arsenius the Patriarch, as soon as the cruel deed became known, called a meeting of the bishops and boldly pronounced against the 27emperor a formal sentence of excommunication. None of the bishops opposed. They did not attempt to depose him. One can only conjecture why they hesitated. Possibly it was because they considered it expedient that he should remain on the throne, or it may be that they regarded such a step as beyond their jurisdiction. The emperor was alarmed, feared the consequences of excommunication among the troops, but feared probably still more the spiritual penalties which would follow the sentence. He preferred, says Pachymer,22 to die rather than to live burdened with the anathemas of the Church. He sought out friends of the patriarch and begged them to use all their influence to have the penalties removed. He urged that penance should be imposed, and professed himself ready to undergo any which might be deemed necessary to atone for his fault. The patriarch replied that, even if he were threatened with death, he would never remove the excommunication. The emperor went himself to visit Arsenius, and in the conversation asked whether it was his wish that he should abdicate, unbuckling his sword as he did so. When, however, the patriarch stretched out his hand to receive it, the emperor put it back. The patriarch remained firm. The emperor complained bitterly to his friends of the conduct of Arsenius, and threatened that, as his own Church would not grant him absolution, he would have recourse to the pope, who would be more conciliatory. Years passed and Arsenius constantly refused to give way. Every means thought of by the emperor of conciliating him had failed, and he at length determined to have him deposed. But threats and promises were equally unavailable. He had called together the bishops on several occasions and complained that it was impossible for him to govern the country unless he was relieved of so heavy a burden.23 On the last of these occasions he claimed that by the law of the Church every Christian had a right to absolution on doing penance, and he asked whether such laws were to be construed less favourably for princes than for other sinners. He submitted that the patriarch had treated him not only 28unjustly but illegally, and concluded by inviting the bishops to depose Arsenius.
Once more he sent to ask the patriarch whether or not he would grant absolution, and once more Arsenius refused. Upon this, as the bishops would not consent to declare that he was not justified in maintaining the anathema, the emperor had Articles of Accusation drawn against him. The charges were not altogether of a trivial character. He accused him of having shortened the prayer for the emperor in matins; of having ordered the omission of the Trisagion; of having conversed in a friendly manner with the sultan of the Seljukian Turks; of having allowed him and other Mahometan companions to bathe in a bath belonging to the Church, where there were crosses; of having ordered a monk to administer the Sacrament to the sultan’s children, although he was not certain that they had been baptised.
An assembly of bishops was convoked to examine the charges. The patriarch replied by objecting to the meeting of the court in the palace, refused to appear, and promised to send his answer to the charges in writing. Pachymer recounts in some detail how the emperor endeavoured to obtain absolution by a trick, and how Arsenius on discovering it asked him if he thought he could deceive God. The emperor in reply insisted that some of the charges should be pressed on to hearing and obtained a majority of votes condemning the patriarch.24
The patriarch was thereupon exiled.
His successor, Germanus, removed the anathema, but doubts arose in the emperor’s mind whether the removal was valid. After a few months Germanus was persuaded by the emperor to retire, and in his place the nominee of Michael, a certain Joseph, was named. The new patriarch was a courtier, and probably knew that the principal reason for his election was that absolution might be effectively and publicly given. The emperor allowed Joseph a month within which to consider the best means of granting him 29absolution, and then all was arranged. On the great feast of Candlemas, February 2, 1267, there was a notable function in Hagia Sophia for the removal of the anathema. The ceremony was a long and solemn one, the patriarch and the bishops, and probably the emperor and his suite, having had to pass the whole night in the church. The great church was crowded with worshippers or spectators. When the liturgy was completed the emperor, who had thus far remained standing surrounded by his guards and senators, drew near the Holy Gates25 behind which stood the bishops. Then, uncovered, he prostrated himself to the ground at the feet of the patriarch, publicly confessed his sin, and humbly demanded pardon. While he was thus prostrate, the patriarch, and after him each of the bishops, read the formula by which he was absolved from the crime committed against the young emperor. When all had thus given absolution, the emperor rose, was admitted to Holy Communion, and, says Pachymer, henceforward treated John with every kindness. The point, however, to be noted is that even the emperor, strong-willed usurper as he was, was not merely afraid of the terrors of the Church, but found it extremely difficult to bend it to his will so as to obtain the removal of its sentence for an unjust act, although there were many obvious advantages to the state in complying with the emperor’s wish.
Difficulties arising from attempts by Latins to recover the Empire.
From the first year of his accession Michael the Eighth set himself the task of diverting from the empire the attacks of Western states. It was not to be expected that Baldwin and the statesmen of the West would settle down resignedly to the loss of a Latin empire. During many years their attempts to regain the city constituted the most pressing danger to the empire and contributed more than any other cause during Michael’s reign to render it unable to hold its own against the encroachments of the Turks. To Michael, as to all other statesmen in Europe, the representative of the 30West was the pope. To satisfy the pope was to appease Western Europe, to divert attacks from the empire, and to cause aid to be sent against the Moslems. But the pope, on the accession of Michael, was doubly offended: first, because the Latin empire had been overthrown, and second, because the prospect of union between the two Churches was put back. Several years had to pass and many struggles had to be borne before the pontiffs reconciled themselves to the final disappearance of that Latin empire the foundation of which the great statesman Pope Innocent the Third had dreaded.
Attempts at reconciliation with Roman Church.
Michael, while resisting all attacks made or favoured by the pope, saw the desirability of being reconciled with him so as, if possible, to induce him not to lend his support to the efforts of Baldwin to recover the city. With this object he never lost an opportunity, even at the cost of alienating the sympathies of his own people and being denounced by his own ecclesiastics, of endeavouring to gain the pontifical favour by attempting to bring about the Union of the Churches.
It is remarkable that from his accession until the end of his reign these attempts fill a part of all contemporary histories quite disproportionate to what at first sight appears their importance. It is even more remarkable that during the whole period between the capture of the city by Michael and the Moslem siege in 1453 the dominant question of interest was that of the Union of the Churches. The fact that the representative of Western Europe was the sovereign pontiff accounts to a great extent, though not altogether, for the prominent part played by the religious question in nearly all the negotiations between the later emperors and the West. Not even the constant and almost unceasing struggle with the Turks occupies so much attention as do the negotiations with Rome, the embassies, the Councils, and the ever-varying tentatives to bring the two Churches into reconciliation. No true conception of the life of the empire can be formed unless it is realised how completely its citizens were occupied with these semi-religious, semi-political questions. On one side the popes were almost constant in their31 attempts, now to compel the Eastern Church to come in, now to persuade it; on the other, the emperors, while fully cognisant of the importance of diverting Western attacks and, at a later period, of receiving aid against the common enemy of Christendom, had constantly to meet with the dogged and unceasing opposition and bitter hostility of the great mass of their subjects to purchasing help at the price of union with the Latin Church.
A struggle began immediately on the accession of Michael and soon became a curiously complicated strife. The pope in 1262 proclaimed a Crusade against him and against the Genoese, who still remained allied with him. The pontiff characterised Michael as a usurper and a schismatic, and granted the same indulgences to those who took up arms or contributed to the expenses of the expedition against him as to those who fought for the deliverance of the Holy Land. He urged St. Louis to collect tithes for the same purpose.26 Michael, on the other hand, while preparing to resist invasion and strengthening the city walls, increasing his fleet, and raising new levies, yet sought to satisfy the pope by offering to do his utmost to bring about the Union of the Churches. Possibly owing to the emperor’s representations, Urban the Fourth countermanded the proposed expedition, diverting it against the Tartars who were then invading Palestine. He sent friars to Constantinople to exhort the emperor to carry out his proposal for reunion. His successor, Clement, was, however, a man of a different spirit and replied to the promises of Michael that they were only fair words intended to prevent him from aiding the dethroned Baldwin. While Michael had undoubtedly this object in view, he seems to have been sincere in his desire for Union. One of his objections to the patriarch Arsenius was that he would have nothing to do with the Latins. The Greek priests clamoured to such an extent against the patriarch who succeeded Arsenius, because he was believed to be willing to follow the emperor’s example in working for Union, that he was compelled to resign.
32
As time went on, the Venetians, whose influence in the city had fallen with the Latin empire, began to lose hope of seeing Baldwin re-established on the throne, and in 1267 sent to make peace with Michael. Gregory the Tenth threatened the doge with anathema if he even made a truce with him. The emperor endeavoured, though in vain, to appease the wrath of the pope by obtaining the intervention of Louis of France. Gregory, whom Michael had congratulated on his accession upon the death of Clement, was more conciliatory. He sent legates to the capital to treat once more on Union. Pachymer gives a vivid account of the negotiations which followed, an account from which it is difficult to doubt the sincerity of the emperor’s wish for reconciliation or the persistence of the opposition which he had to encounter. He states27 that the emperor followed the example of John Ducas of Nicaea, that he sent many embassies to Rome, and that his real object was to obtain from the popes protection for the Greeks. Gregory assured him that no time was so favourable as the present for putting an end to the Greek schism. The emperor on his side did his utmost to persuade the patriarch and the bishops to aid him. The Latin delegates themselves were men of piety who showed every possible respect for the Greek rite. They were invited to discuss the differences between the dogmas of the two Churches. In their interviews with the bishops they claimed that the Filioque clause which constituted the great point of discussion was a divine mystery which was impenetrable, that while the difference between the Latin formula which declared that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father | ||||||
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UP TO AND INCLUDING
THE YEAR 1915.
I. THE EUROPEAN WAR AND ARMENIA.
The War has brought us into a new relation with Armenia and the Armenian people. We knew them before as the name of an ancient civilisation, a stubborn rearguard of Christendom in the East, a scene of mission work and massacres and international rivalry ; but only a few of us---missionaries, geographers, travellers and an occasional newspaper correspondent---were personally acquainted with the country and its inhabitants. To most people they remained a name, and when we read of their sufferings or traditions or achievements they made little more impression than the doings of the Hittites and Assyrians, who moved across the same Near Eastern amphitheatre several millenniums ago. We had no living contact, no natural relation, with Armenia in our personal or even in our political life.
Such a relation has suddenly been created between us by the War, and it is one of the strangest ironies of war that it fuses together and illuminates the very fabric it destroys. The civilisation in which we lived was like a labyrinth, so huge and intricate that none of the dwellers in it could altogether grasp its structure, while most of them were barely conscious that it had any structural design at all. But now that the War has caught it and it is all aflame, the unity and symmetry of the building are revealed to the common eye. As the glare lights it up from end to end, it stands out in its glory, in matchless outline and perspective ; for the first time (and possibly for the last) we see its parts simultaneously and in proper relation, and realise for one moment the marvel and mystery of this civilisation that is perishing---the subtle, immemorial, unrelaxing effort that raised it up and maintained it, and the impossibility of improvising any equivalent structure in its place. Then the fire masters its prey ; the various parts of the labyrinth fall in one by one, the light goes out of them, and nothing is left but smoke and ashes. This is the catastrophe that we are witnessing now, and we do not yet know whether it will be possible to repair it. But if the future is not so dark as it appears, and what has perished can in some measure be restored, our best guide and inspiration in the task will be that momentary, tragic, unique vision snatched out of the catastrophe itself.
The Armenians are not protagonists in the War ; they bear none of the guilt for its outbreak and can have little share in the responsibility of building up a better future. But they have been seared more cruelly than any of us by the flames, and, under this fiery ordeal, their individual character as a nation and their part in the community of the civilised world have been thrown into their true relief.
For the first time, England and the Armenians are genuinely in touch with one another. In this desperate struggle between freedom and reaction we are fighting on the same side, striving for the same end. Our lot in the struggle has not, indeed, been the same, for while England is able to act as well as to suffer, the Armenians have suffered with hardly the power to strike a blow. But this difference of external fortune only strengthens the inward moral bond; for we, who are strong, are fighting not merely for this or that political advantage, this or that territorial change, but for a principle. The Powers of the Entente have undertaken the championship of small nationalities that cannot champion themselves. We have solemnly acknowledged our obligation to fulfil our vow in the case of Belgium and Serbia, and now that the Armenians have been overtaken by a still worse fate than the Serbians and the Belgians, their cause, too, has been taken up into the general cause of the Allies. We cannot limit our field in doing battle for our ideal.
It is easier, of course, for the people of France, Great Britain and America to sympathise with Belgium than with a more unfamiliar nation in a distant zone of the War. It needs little imagination to realise acutely that the Belgians are "people like ourselves," suffering all that we should suffer if the same atrocities were committed upon us; and this realisation was made doubly easy by the speedy publication of minute, abundant, first-hand testimony. The Armenians have no such immediate access to our sympathies, and the initial unfamiliarity can only be overcome by a personal effort on the part of those who give ear to their case; but the evidence on which that case rests has been steadily accumulating, until now it is scarcely less complete or less authoritative than the evidence relating to Belgium. The object of the present volume has been to present the documents to English and American readers in as accurate and orderly a form as possible.
Armenia has not been without witness in her agony. Intense suffering means intense emotional experience, and this emotion has found relief in written records of the intolerable events which obsessed the witnesses' memories. Some of the writers are Armenians, a larger number are Americans and Europeans who were on the spot, and who were as poignantly affected as the victims themselves. There are a hundred and forty-nine of these documents, and many of them are of considerable length; but in their total effect they are something more than an exhaustive catalogue of the horrors they set out to describe. The flames of war illuminate the structure of the building as well as the destruction of it, and the testimony extorted under this fiery ordeal gives an extraordinarily vivid impression of Armenian life---the life of plain and mountain, town and village, intelligenzia and bourgeoisie and peasantry---at the moment when it was overwhelmed by the European catastrophe.
In Armenia, though not in Europe, the flames have almost burnt themselves out, and, for the moment, we can see nothing beyond smoke and ashes. Life will assuredly spring up again when the ashes are cleared away, for attempts to exterminate nations by atrocity, though certain of producing almost infinite human suffering, have seldom succeeded in their ulterior aim. But in whatever shape the new Armenia arises, it will be something utterly different from the old. The Armenians have been a very typical element in that group of humanity which Europeans call the "Near East," but which might equally well be called the "Near West" from the Indian or the Chinese point of view(189). There has been something pathological about the history of this Near Eastern World. It has had an undue share of political misfortunes, and had lain for centuries in a kind of spiritual paralysis between East and West-belonging to neither, partaking paradoxically of both, and wholly unable to rally itself decidedly to one or the other, when it was involved with Europe in the European War. The shock of that crowning catastrophe seems to have brought the spiritual neutrality of the Near East to a violent end, and however dubious the future of Europe may be, it is almost certain that it will be shared henceforth by all that lies between the walls of Vienna and the walls of Aleppo and Tabriz(190). This final gravitation towards Europe may be a benefit to the Near East or another chapter in its misfortunes---that depends on the condition in which Europe emerges from the War; but, in either case, it will be a new departure in its history. It has been drawn at last into a stronger orbit, and will travel on its own paralytic, paradoxical course no more. This gives a historical interest to any record of Near Eastern life in the last moments of the Ancient Régime, and these Armenian documents supply a record of a very intimate and characteristic kind. The Near East has never been more true to itself than in its lurid dissolution; past and present are fused together in the flare.
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II. AN OUTLINE OF ARMENIAN HISTORY.
The documents in this volume tell their own story, and a reader might be ignorant of the places with which they deal and the points of history to which they refer, and yet learn from them more about human life in the Near East than from any study of text-books and atlases. At the same time a general acquaintance with the geographical setting and historical antecedents is clearly an assistance in understanding the full significance of the events recorded here. and as this information is not widely spread or very easily accessible, it has seemed well to publish an outline of it, for the reader's convenience, in the same volume as the documents themselves. As many as possible of the places referred to are marked on the map at the end of the book, while here, in this historical summary, a brief account may be given of who the Armenians are and where they live.
Like the English, the French and most other nations, the Armenians have developed a specific type of countenance, and yet it would not always be easy to tell them by sight, for they are as hybrid in their physical stock as every other European or Near Eastern people. There are marked differences of pigmentation, feature and build between the Armenians of the East, West and South, and between the mountaineers, plain-dwellers and people of the towns, and it would be rash to speculate when these various strains came in, or to lay it down that they were not all present already at the date at which we first begin to know something about the inhabitants of the country(191).
We hear of them first in the annals of Assyria, where the Armenian plateau appears as the land of Nairi---a no-man's-land, raided constantly but ineffectually by Assyrian armies from the lowlands of Mosul. But in the ninth century B.C. the petty cantons of Nairi coalesced into the Kingdom of Urartu(192), which fought Assyria on equal terms for more than two hundred years and has left a native record of its own. The Kings of Urartu made their dwelling on the citadel of Van(193). The face of the rock is covered with their inscriptions, which are also found as far afield as the neighbourhood of Malatia, Erzeroum and Alexandropol. They borrowed from Assyria the cuneiform script, and the earliest inscriptions at Van are written in the Assyrian language; but they quickly adapted the foreign script to their native tongue, which has been deciphered by English and German scholars, and is considered by them to be neither Semitic nor Indo-European, nor yet to have any discernible affinity with the still obscurer language of the Hittites further west. We can only assume that the people who spoke it were indigenous in the land. Probably they were of one blood with their neighbours in the direction of the Caucasus and the Black Sea, Saspeires(194) and Chalybes and others ; and if, as ethnology seems to show, an indigenous stock is practically ineradicable, these primitive peoples of the plateau are probably the chief ancestors, in the physical sense, of the present Armenian race(195).
The modern Armenian language, on the other hand, is not descended from the language of Urartu, but is an Indo-European tongue. There is a large non-Indo-European element in it---larger than in most known branches of the Indo-European family---and this has modified its syntax as well as its vocabulary. It has also borrowed freely and intimately from the Persian language in all its phases---a natural consequence of the political supremacy which Iran asserted over Armenia again and again, from the sixth century B.C. to the nineteenth century A.D. But when all these accretions have been analysed and discarded, the philologists pronounce the basis of modern Armenian to be a genuine Indo-European idiom---either a dialect of the Iranian branch or an independent variant, holding an intermediate, position between Iranian and Slavonic.
This language is a much more important factor in the national consciousness of the modern Armenians than their ultimate physical ancestry, but its origin is also more difficult to trace. Its Indo-European character proves that, at some date or other, it must have been introduced into the country from without(196), and the fact that a non-Indo-European language held the field under the Kings of Urartu suggests that it only established itself after the Kingdom of Urartu fell. But the earliest literary monuments of the modern tongue only date from the fifth century A.D., a thousand years later than the last inscription in the Urartian language, so that, as far as the linguistic evidence is concerned, the change may have occurred at any time within this period. One language, however, does not usually supplant another without considerable displacements of population, and the only historical event of this kind sufficient in scale to produce such a result seems to be the migration of the Cimmerians and Scythians in the seventh century B.C. These were nomadic tribes from the Russian steppes, who made their way round the eastern end of the Caucasus, burst through into the Moghan plains and the basin of Lake Urmia, and terrorised Western Asia for several generations, till they were broken by the power of the Medes and absorbed in the native population. It was they who made an end of the Kingdom of Urartu, and the language they brought with them was probably an Indo-European dialect answering to the basic element in modern Armenian. Probability thus points to these seventh century invaders as being the source of the present language, and perhaps also of the equally mysterious names of "Hai(k)" and "Haiasdan," by which the speakers of this language seem always to have called themselves and their country. But this is a conjecture, and nothing more(197), and we are left with the bare fact that Armenian(198) was the established language of the land by the fifth century A.D.
The Armenian language might easily have perished and left less record of its existence than the Urartian. It is a vigorous language enough, yet it would never have survived in virtue of its mere vitality. The native Anatolian dialects of Lydia and Cilicia, and the speech of the Cappadocians(199), the Armenians' immediate neighbours on the west, were extinguished one by one by the irresistible advance of Greek, and Armenian would assuredly have shared their fate if it had not become the canonical language of a national church before Greek had time to penetrate so far eastward. Armenia lay within the radius of Antioch and Edessa (Ourfa), two of the earliest and strongest centres of Christian propaganda. King Tiridates (Drdat) of Armenia was converted to Christianity some time during the latter half of the third century A.D.(200) and was the first ruler in the world to establish the Christian Faith as his State religion. Christianity in Armenia adopted a national garb from the first. In 410 A.D. the Bible was translated into the Armenian language, in a new native script specially invented for the purpose, and this achievement was followed by a great outburst of national literature during the course of the fifth century. These fifth century works are, as has been said, the earliest monuments of the Armenian language. Most of them, it is true, are simply rather painstaking translations of Greek and Syriac theology, and the bulk of the creative literature was theological too. But there was also a notable school of historical writers (Moses of Khorene is its most famous representative), and the really important result of the stimulus that Christianity brought was the permanent preservation of the language's existence and its development into a medium for a national literature of a varied kind.
Thus the conversion of Armenia to Christianity, which took place at a more or less ascertainable date, was an even more important factor in the evolution of Armenian nationality than the original introduction of the national language, and the Armenians have done well to make St. Gregory the Illuminator, the Cappadocian Missionary to whom the conversion was due, their supreme national hero(201). Henceforth, church and language mutually sustained each other, to the great enhancement of the vital power of both. They were, in fact, merely complementary aspects of the same national consciousness, and the national character of the church was further emphasised when it diverged in doctrine from the main body of Christendom---not by the formulation of any new or heretical dogma, but by omission to ratify the modifications of the primitive creed which were introduced by the (Ecumenical Councils of the fifth century A.D.(202)
This nationalisation of the church was the decisive process by which the Armenians became a nation, and it was also this that made them an integral part of the Near Eastern world. Christianity linked the country with the West as intimately as the cuneiform script of Urartu had linked it with the civilisation of Mesopotamia ; and the Near Eastern phenomenon consists essentially in the paradox that a series of populations on the borderland of Europe and Asia developed a national life that was thoroughly European in its religion and culture, without ever succeeding in extricating themselves politically from that continual round of despotism and anarchy which seems to be the political dispensation of genuinely Oriental countries.
No communities in the world have had a more troubled political history than these Near Eastern nationalities, and none have known how to preserve their church and their language so doggedly through the most appalling vicissitudes of conquest and oppression. In this regard the history of Armenia is profoundly characteristic of the Near East as a whole.
The strong, compact Kingdom of Urartu lies at the dawn of Armenian history like a golden age. It had only existed two centuries when it was shattered by the invaders from the Russian steppes, and the anarchy into which they plunged the country had to be cured by the imposition of a foreign rule. In 585 B.C. the nomads were cowed and the plateau annexed by Cyaxares, the Mede, and, after the Persians had taken over the Medes' inheritance, the great organiser Darius divided this portion of it into two governments or satrapies. One of these seems to have included the basins of Urmia and Van, and part of the valley of the Aras(203); the other corresponded approximately to the modern Vilayets of Bitlis, Mamouret-ul-Aziz and Diyarbekir, and covered the upper valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates(204). They were called respectively the satrapies of Eastern and Western Armenia, and this is the origin of the name by which the Haik and their Haiasdan are now almost universally known to their neighbours. The word "Armenia" (Armina) (205) first appears in Darius' inscriptions ; the Greeks adopted it from the Persian official usage, and from the Greeks it has spread to the rest of the world, including the Osmanli Turks(206)
Under the Persian Dynasty of the Achæmenids and their Macedonian successors, the two Armenian satrapies remained mere administrative divisions. Subject to the payment of tribute the satraps were practically independent and probably hereditary, but the rulers' autonomy did not enable their subjects to develop any distinctive national life. In religion and culture the country took on a strong Persian veneer ; and the situation was not essentially changed when, early in the second century B.C., the two reigning satraps revolted simultaneously from their overlord, the Seleucid King of Western Asia(207), and each founded a royal dynasty of their own. The decisive change was accomplished by Tigranes (Dikran) the Great (94 to 56 B.C.), a scion of the Eastern Dynasty, who welded the two principalities into one kingdom, and so created the first strong native sovereignty that the country had known since the fall of Urartu five centuries before.
If Gregory the Illuminator is the ecclesiastical hero of Armenia, King Tigranes is his political forerunner and counterpart. He was connected by marriage with Mithradates, the still more famous King of Pontic Cappadocia, who may be taken as the first exponent of the Near Eastern idea. Mithradates attempted to build an empire that should be at once cosmopolitan and national, Hellenic and Iranian, of the West and of the East, and Tigranes was profoundly influenced by his brilliant neighbour and ally. He set himself the parallel ambition of reconstructing round his own person the kingdom of the Seleucids, which had been shaken a century before by a rude encounter with Rome, weakened still further by the defection of Tigranes' own predecessors, and was now in the actual throes of dissolution. He laid himself out a new capital on the northern rim of the Mesopotamian steppe, somewhere near the site of Ibrahim Pasha's Viran Shehr, and peopled it with masses of exiles deported from the Greek cities he devastated in Syria and Cilicia. It was to be the Hellenistic world-centre for an Oriental King of Kings ; but all his dreams, like Mithradates', were shattered by the methodical progress of the Roman power. A Roman army ignominiously turned Tigranes out of Tigranokerta, and sent back his Greek exiles rejoicing to their homes. The new Armenian kingdom failed to establish its position as a great power, and had to accept the position of a buffer state between Rome on the west and the Parthian rulers of Iran. Nevertheless, Tigranes' work is of supreme political importance in Armenian history. He had consolidated the two satrapies of Darius into a united kingdom, powerful enough to preserve its unity and independence for nearly five hundred years. It was within this chrysalis that the interaction of religion and language produced the new germ of modern Armenian nationality; and when the chrysalis was rent at last, the nation emerged so strongly grown that it could brave the buffets of the outer world.
Before Tigranes, Armenia had belonged wholly to the East. Tigranes loosened these links and knit certain new links with the West. The period that followed was marked by a perpetual struggle between the Roman and Parthian Governments for political influence over the kingdom, which was really a battle over Armenia's soul. Was Armenia to be wrested away altogether from Oriental influences and rallied to the European world, or was it to sink back into being a spiritual and political appanage of Iran ? It seemed a clear issue, but it was not destined to be decided in either sense. Armenia was to be caught for two millenniums in the uncertain eddy of the Nearer East.
In this opposition of forces, the political balance inclined from the first in favour of the Oriental Power. The Parthians succeeded in replacing the descendants of Tigranes by a junior branch of their own Arsacid Dynasty; and when, in 387 A.D., the rivals agreed to settle the Armenian question by the drastic expedient of partition, the Sassanid kings of Persia (who had superseded the Parthians in the Empire of Iran) secured the lion's share of the spoils, while the Romans only received a strip of country on the western border which gave them Erzeroum and Diyarbekir for their frontier fortresses. In the cultural sphere, on the other hand, the West was constantly increasing its ascendancy. King Tiridates was an Arsacid, but he accepted Christianity as the religion of the State he ruled ; and when, less than a century after his death, his kingdom fell and the greater part of the country and the people came directly under Persian rule, the Persian propaganda failed to make any impression. No amount of preaching or persecution could persuade the Armenians to accept Zoroastrianism, which was the established religion of the Sassanian State. They clung to their national church in despite of their political annihilation, and showed thereby that their spiritual allegiance was given irrevocably to the West.
The partition of 387 A.D. produced as long a political interregnum in Armenian history as the fall of Urartu in the seventh century B.C. In the second quarter of the seventh century A.D., the mastery of Western Asia passed from the Persians to the Arabs, and the Armenian provinces changed masters with the rest. Persian governors appointed by the Sassanid King of Kings were superseded by Arab governors appointed by the Omayyad and Abbasid Caliphs, and the intolerance of Zoroastrianism was replaced by the far stronger and hardly less intolerant force of Islam. Then, in the ninth century, the political power of the Abbasid Caliphate at Baghdad began to decline, the outlying provinces were able to detach themselves, and three independent dynasties emerged on Armenian soil:
(a) The Bagratids founded a Christian principality in the north. Their capital was at Ani, in the upper basin of the Aras, and their rule in this district lasted nearly two centuries, from 885 to 1079 A.D.
(b) The Ardzrounids founded a similar Christian principality in the basin of Van. They reigned here from 908 to 1021 A.D.
(c) The Merwanids, a Kurdish dynasty, founded a Moslem principality in the upper basin of the Tigris. Their capital was at Diyarbekir, but their power extended northward over the mountains into the valley of the Mourad Su (Eastern Euphrates), which they controlled as far upwards as Melazkerd. They maintained themselves for a century, from 984 to 1085 A.D.
The imposing remains of churches and palaces at Ani and elsewhere have cast an undue glamour over the Bagratid House, which has been extended, again, to all the independent principalities of early medieval Armenia. In reality, this phase of Armenian history was hardly more happy than that which preceded it, and only appeared a Golden Age by comparison with the cataclysms that followed. From the national point of view it was almost as barren as the century of satrapial independence which preceded the reign of Tigranes, and in the politics of this period parochialism was never transcended. Bagratids and Ardzrounids were bitter rivals for the leadership of the nation, and did not scruple to call in Moslem allies against one another in their constant wars. The south-western part of the country remained under the rule of an alien Moslem dynasty, without any attempt being made to cast them out. Armenia had no second Tigranes in the Middle Ages, and the local renewals of political independence came and went without profit to the nation as a whole, which still depended for its unity upon the ecclesiastical tradition of the national Gregorian Church.
In the eleventh century A.D., a new power appeared in the East. The Arab Empire of the Caliphs had long been receiving an influx of Turks from Central Asia as slaves and professional soldiers, and the Turkish bodyguard had assumed control of politics at Baghdad. But this individual infiltration was now succeeded by the migration of whole tribes, and the tribes were organised into a political power by the clan of Seljuk. The new Turkish dynasty constituted itself the temporal representative of the Abbasid Caliphate, and the dominion of Mohammedan Asia was suddenly transferred from the devitalised Arabs to a vigorous barbaric horde of nomadic Turks.
These Turkish reinforcements brutalised and at the same time stimulated the Islamic world, and the result was a new impetus of conquest towards the borderlands. The brunt of this movement fell upon the unprepared and disunited Armenian principalities. In the first quarter of the eleventh century the Seljuks began their incursions on to the Armenian Plateau. The Armenian princes turned for protection to the East Roman Empire, accepted its suzerainty, or even surrendered their territory directly into its hands. But the Imperial Government brought little comfort to the Armenian people. Centred at Constantinople and cut off from the Latin West, it had lost its Roman universality and become transformed into a Greek national state, while the established Orthodox Church had developed the specifically Near Eastern character of a nationalist ecclesiastical organisation. The Armenians found that incorporation in the Empire exposed them to temporal and spiritual Hellenisation, without protecting them against the common enemy on the east. The Seljuk invasions increased in intensity, and culminated, in 1071 A.D., in the decisive battle of Melazkerd, in which the Imperial Army was destroyed and the Emperor Romanos II. taken prisoner on the field. Melazkerd placed the whole of Armenia at the Seljuk's mercy---and not only Armenia, but the Anatolian provinces of the Empire that lay between Armenia and Europe. The Seljuks carried Islam into the heart of the Near East.
The next four-and-a-half centuries were the most disastrous period in the whole political history of Armenia. It is true that a vestige of independence was preserved, for Roupen the Bagratid conducted a portion of his people south-westward into the mountains of Cilicia, where they were out of the main current of Turkish invasion, and founded a new principality which survived nearly three hundred years (1080-1375). There is a certain romance about this Kingdom of Lesser Armenia. It threw in its lot with the Crusaders, and gave the Armenian nation its first direct contact with modern Western Europe. But the mass of the race remained in Armenia proper, and during these centuries the Armenian tableland suffered almost ceaseless devastation.
The Seljuk migration was only the first wave in a prolonged outbreak of Central Asiatic disturbance, and the Seljuks were civilised in comparison with the tribes that followed on their heels. Early in the thirteenth century came Karluks and Kharizmians, fleeing across Western Asia before the advance of the Mongols ; and in 1235 came the first great raid of the Mongols themselves---savages who destroyed civilisation wherever they found it, and were impartial enemies of Christendom and Islam. All these waves of invasion took the same channel. They swept across the broad plateau of Persia, poured up the valleys of the Aras and the Tigris, burst in their full force upon the Armenian highlands and broke over them into Anatolia beyond. Armenia bore the brunt of them all, and the country was ravaged and the population reduced quite out of proportion to the sufferings of the neighbouring regions. The division of the Mongol conquests among the family of Djengis Khan established a Mongol dynasty in Western Asia which seated itself in Azerbaijan, accepted Islam and took over the tradition of the Seljuks, the Abbasids and the Sassanids. It was the old Asiatic Empire under a new name, but it had now incorporated Armenia and extended north-westwards to the Kizil Irmak (Halys). For the first time since Tigranes, the whole of Armenia was reabsorbed again in the East, and the situation grew still worse when the Empire of these "Ilkhans" fell to pieces and was succeeded in the fifteenth century by the petty lordship of Ak Koyunli, Kara Koyanli and other nomadic Turkish clans.
The progressive anarchy of four centuries was finally stilled by the rise of the Osmanli power. The seed of the Osmanlis was one of those Turkish clans which fled across Western Asia before the Mongols. They settled in the dominions of the Seljuk Sultans, who had established themselves at Konia, in Central Anatolia, and who allowed the refugees to carve out an obscure appanage on the marches of the Greek Empire, in the Asiatic hinterland of Constantinople. The son and successor of the founder was here converted from Paganism to Islam(208), towards the end of the thirteenth century A.D., and the name of Osman, which he adopted at his conversion, has been borne ever since by the subjects of his House.
The Osmanli State is the greatest and most characteristic Near Eastern Empire there has ever been. In its present decline it has become nothing but a blight to all the countries and peoples that remain under its sway ; but at the outset it manifested a faculty for strong government which satisfied the supreme need of the distracted Near Eastern world. This was the secret of its amazing power of assimilation, and this quality in turn increased its power of organisation, for it enabled the Osmanlis to monopolise all the vestiges of political genius that survived in the Near East. The original Turkish germ was quickly absorbed in the mass of Osmanlicised native Greeks(209). The first expansion of the State was westward, across the Dardanelles, and before the close of the fourteenth century the whole of South-Eastern Europe had become Osmanli territory, as far as the Danube and the Hungarian frontier. The seal was set on these European conquests when Sultan Mohammed II. entered Constantinople in 1453, and then the current of expansion veered towards the east. Mohammed himself absorbed the rival Turkish principalities in Anatolia, and annexed the Greek "Empire" of Trebizond. In the second decade of the sixteenth century, Sultan Selim I. followed this up with a sweeping series of campaigns, which carried him with hardly a pause from the Taurus barrier to the citadel of Cairo. Armenia was overrun in 1514 ; the petty Turkish chieftains were overthrown, the new Persian Empire was hurled back to the Caspian, and a frontier established between the Osmanli Sultans and the Shahs of Iran, which has endured, with a few fluctuations, until the present day.
In the sixteenth century the whole Near Eastern world, from the gates of Vienna(210) to the gates of Aleppo and Tabriz, found itself united under a single masterful Government, and once more Armenia was linked securely with the West. From 1514 onwards the great majority of the Armenian nation was subject to the Osmanli State. It is true that the province of Erivan (on the middle course of the Aras) was recovered by the Persians in the seventeenth century, and held by them till its cession to Russia in 1834. But, with this exception, the whole of Armenia remained under Osmanli rule until the Russians took Kars, in the war of 1878. These intervening centuries of union and pacification were, on the whole, beneficial to Armenia ; but with the year 1878 there began a new and sinister epoch in the relations between the Osmanli State and the Armenian nation.
III. DISPERSION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE ARMENIAN NATION.
We have now traced the political vicissitudes of Armenia down to its incorporation in the Ottoman Empire, and are in a position to survey the effects of this troubled political history on the social life and the geographical extension of the Armenian people.
At the present day the Armenians are, next to the Jews, the most scattered nation in the world, but this phenomenon does not begin to appear until a comparatively late stage in their history. At the time of the Partition of 387 A.D. they were still confined to a compact territory between the Euphrates, Lake Urmia and the River Kur. It was the annexation of the western marches to the Roman Empire that gave the first impetus to Armenian migration towards the west. After 387 A.D. the Roman frontier garrisons were moved forward into the new Armenian provinces, and these troops were probably recruited in the main, according to the general Roman custom, from the local population. But in the middle of the seventh century the Roman frontiers were shorn away by the advance of the new Arab power; the garrisons beyond the Euphrates were withdrawn towards the north-west, and, after a century of darkness and turmoil, during which all the old landmarks were effaced, we find that the "Armeniac Army Corps District" has shifted from the banks of the Euphrates to the banks of the Halys (Kizil Irmak) and become approximately coincident with the modern Vilayet of Sivas. This transference of the troops must have meant in itself a considerable transference of Armenians, and it can be taken for granted that the retiring armies were accompanied by a certain portion of the civilian population. We can thus date back to the seventh century the beginning of those flourishing Armenian colonies in the towns of north-eastern Anatolia which suffered so terribly in the ordeal of 1915.
The mountain zone between the Roman fortress of Sivas (Sebasteia) on the Halys and the Arab posts along the Euphrates, from Malatia to Erzeroum, was now debatable territory between the Moslem and the Christian Empires, and in the eighth century it was held by an independent community of Armenian heretics called Paulikians. These Paulikians led an untamed, Ishmaelitish existence. They were excommunicated for their tenets by the Gregorian Armenian Church, as well as by the Orthodox Patriarch at Constantinople, and they raided impartially in the territories of the Roman Empire and the Arab Caliphate. The Emperors waged against them a war of extermination, and anticipated the present Ottoman policy by deporting them from their mountain fastnesses to the opposite ends of the Imperial territory. In 752 A.D. a number of them were settled in Thrace, to exercise their military prowess in holding the frontier against the Bulgars ; and, in 969 A.D., the Emperor John Tzimiskes (himself an Armenian) transplanted a further body of them to Philippopolis. It may be doubted whether there is any direct connexion between them and the present (Gregorian) Armenian colony in the latter city, but their numbers and influence must have been considerable, if one may judge by the vigorous spread of their tenets among the Bulgars and the Southern Slavs, and they are noteworthy as the forerunners of the Armenian Dispersion in Europe, as well as of the Protestant Reformation.(211)
Migrations on a larger scale were produced by the Turkish invasions of the eleventh century. In 1021 A.D., for instance, the Ardzrounian Dynasty of Van surrendered its home territory to the Roman Empire in exchange for a more sheltered principality at Sivas. It only reigned sixty years in exile before it was overwhelmed there also by the advance of the Turkish tide; but the present Armenian villages in the Sivas Vilayet are doubtless derived from these Ardzrounian refugees. In the very year, again, in which the sovereignty of the Ardzrounids was extinguished at Sivas, the Bagratids of Ani founded themselves a second kingdom in Cilicia. We have spoken of this kingdom already: it is represented to-day by a chain of Armenian mountain towns and villages which stretches all the way from the headwaters of the Silioun (Saros) and Djihoun (Pyramos) to the shores of the Gulf of Alexandretta.
The still more terrible invasions of the thirteenth century scattered the Armenians even further afield. The relations of Lesser Armenia with the Crusader Principalities opened for the Armenians a door into Western Europe. When the Roupenian Dynasty became extinct, it was succeeded by a branch of the French House of Lusignan summoned from Cyprus, and in 1335 there was the first secession from the national Gregorian Church to the Communion of Rome. These new adherents to the Papal allegiance spread far and wide over Latin Christendom. A strong colony of Armenian Catholics established itself at Lemberg, recently won by Polish conquest for the Catholic Church; and others settled at Venice, the European focus of the Levantine trade. In this Venetian settlement the tradition of Armenian culture was kept alive by the famous brotherhood of Mekhitarist Monks. They founded the first Armenian printing press here, in 1565, and maintained a constant issue of Armenian publications. Their greatest work was a magnificent thesaurus of the Armenian .language, which appeared in 1836.
This Roman Catholic connexion has been of very great importance in preserving the link between Armenia and the west, and since the beginning of the nineteenth century the bonds have been strengthened by a Protestant strand. The American Missions in Turkey were founded in 1831. Debarred by the Ottoman Government from entering into relations with the Moslem population, they devoted themselves to the Christian elements, and the Armenians availed themselves more eagerly than any other Near Eastern nationality(212) of the gifts which the Americans offered. Four generations of mission work have produced a strong Protestant Armenian community, but proselytism has not been the deliberate object of the missionaries. They have set themselves to revive and not to convert the national Armenian Church, and their schools and hospitals have been open to. all who would attend them, without distinction of creed. Their wide and well-planned educational activity has always been the distinctive feature of these American Missions in the Ottoman Empire. Besides the famous Robert College and the College for Women on the Bosphorus, they have established schools and other institutions in many of the chief provincial towns, with fine buildings and full staffs of well-trained American and Armenian teachers. Due acknowledgment must also be given to the educational work of the Swiss Protestants and of the Jesuits; but it can hardly compare with the work of the Americans in scale, and will scarcely play the same part in Armenian history. There is little need here to speak in praise of the American missionaries ; their character will shine out to anyone who reads the documents in this volume. Their religion inspires their life and their work, and their utter sincerity has given them an extraordinary influence over all with whom they come in contact.
The Ottoman Government has trusted and respected them, because they are the only foreign residents in Turkey who are entirely disinterested on political questions ; the Gregorian Church cooperates with them and feels no jealousy, and all sections of the Armenian nation love them, because they come to give and not to get, and their gifts are without guile (213). America is exercising an unobtrusive but incalculable influence over the Near East. In the nineteenth century the missionaries came to its rescue from America ; in the twentieth century the return movement has set in, and the Near Eastern people are migrating in thousands across the Atlantic. The Armenians are participating in this movement at least as actively as the Greeks, the Roumans, the Serbs, the Montenegrins and the Slovaks, and one can already prophesy with assurance that their two-fold contact with America is the beginning of a new chapter in Armenian history.
Meanwhile the subjection of Armenia proper to the Mongol Ilkhans for nearly two centuries, and subsequently to the Shahs of modern Persia for certain transitory periods, produced a lesser, but not unimportant, dispersion towards the east. In the seventeenth century the skilled and cultured Armenian population of Djoulfa, on the River Aras, was carried away captive to the Persian capital of Ispahan, where the exiles started a printing press and established a centre of Armenian civilisation. Ever since then the Armenian element has been a factor in the politics and the social development of Iran, and from this new centre they have spread over the Indian Peninsula hand in hand with the extension of British rule.
Thus the Armenian nation has been scattered, in the course of the centuries, from Calcutta to New York, and has shown remarkable vitality in adapting itself to every kind of alien environment(214). The reverse side of the picture is the uprooting of the nation from its native soil. The immigrant tribes from Central Asia did not make a permanent lodgment in the Armenian homelands. Some of them drifted back into Azerbaijan and the steppe country along the coast of the Caspian and the lower courses of the Aras and the Kur; others were carried on towards the north-west, along the ancient Royal Road, and imposed the Moslem faith and the Turkish language upon the population of Central Anatolia. The Armenian plateau, entrenched between Tigris, Euphrates and Aras, stood out like a rock, dividing these two Turkish eddies. Nevertheless, the perpetual shock of the Seljuk and the Mongol raids relaxed the hold of the Armenians on the plateau. The people of the land were decimated by these invasions, and when the invaders had passed on beyond or vanished away, the terrible gaps in the ranks of the sedentary population of Armenia proper were filled by nomadic Kurdish shepherds from the south-east, who drifted into Old Armenia from the mountain girdle of Iran, just as the Albanians drifted into the Kossovo Plain from their own less desirable highlands, after the population of Old Serbia had been similarly decimated by the constant passage of the Ottoman armies.
This Kurdish penetration of Armenia had begun already by the tenth century A.D. ; it was far advanced when the Osmanlis annexed the country in 1514, and it was confirmed by the policy of the Ottoman Government, which sought to secure its new territories by granting privileges to the Kurdish intruders and inviting their influx in greater numbers from their homelands in the sphere of influence of the rival Persian Empire. The juxtaposition of nomad and cultivator, dominant Moslem and subject Giaour, was henceforth an ever-present irritant in the social and political conditions of the land ; but it did not assume a fatal and sinister importance until after the year 1878, when it was fiendishly exploited by the Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid.
But before we examine the relations between the Armenian nation and the Ottoman Government, it will be well to survey the distribution of the Armenian element in the Ottoman Empire, as it had developed during the four centuries of Ottoman rule that elapsed between the campaign of Selim I. and the intervention of Turkey in the present European War. The survey shall be brief, for it has been anticipated, sometimes in greater detail, in the separate notes prefixed to the different groups of documents in the volume.
A traveller entering Turkey by the Oriental Railway from Central Europe would have begun to encounter Armenians at Philippopolis in Bulgaria, and then at Adrianople, the first Ottoman city across the frontier. Had he visited any of the lesser towns of Thrace, he would have found much of the local trade and business in Armenian hands, and when he arrived at Constantinople he would have become aware that the Armenians were one of the most important elements in the Ottoman Empire. He would have seen them as financiers, as export and import merchants, as organisers of wholesale stores ; and when he crossed the Bosphorus and explored the suburban districts on the Asiatic side, he might even have fancied that the Armenian population in the Empire was numerically equal to the Turkish. The coast of the Sea of Marmora was overlooked by flourishing Armenian villages; at Armasha, above Ismid, there was a large Theological Seminary of the Gregorian Church, and there were important Swiss and American institutions at Bardizag (Baghtehedjik) and Adapazar. At Adapazar alone the Armenian population numbered 25,000.
Beyond Adapazar, however, the Armenian element dwindled, and anyone who followed the Anatolian Railway across Asia Minor to the rail-head in the northern spurs of Taurus, would have felt that he was travelling through an essentially Turkish land.
There were colonies of Armenian artisans and shopkeepers and business men in important places on the line, like Afiun Kara Hissar or Konia : but there were an equal number of Greeks, and both in town and country the Turks outnumbered them all. But once Taurus was crossed, the Armenians came again to the fore. They were as much at, home in the Cilician plain and coastland as on the littoral of the Sea of Marmora and the Bosphorus. Adana, Tarsus and Mersina, with their Armenian churches and schools, had the same appearance of being Armenian cities as Adapazar or Ismid ; and if at this point the traveller had left the beaten track and worked his way up north-eastward into the Cilician highlands, he would have found himself for the first time in an almost exclusively Armenian country, and would have remarked a higher percentage of Armenians in the population than in any other district of Turkey till he came to Van. But this belt of Armenian villages, though thickly set, was quickly passed, and when you emerged on the south-eastern side of it and stepped out on to the rim of the Mesopotamian amphitheatre, you had reached one of the boundaries of the Armenian Dispersion There were Armenian outposts in the cities of the fringe---Marash, Aintab, Ourfa, Aleppo---but as soon as you plunged into the Mesopotamian steppe or the Syrian desert You were in the Arabic world, and had left Armenia behind(215).
The traveller would have seen more of the Armenians if he had turned off from the Anatolian Railway at Eski Shehr, a few hours' journey south of Adapazar, and taken the branch line eastward to Angora. At Angora the Armenians were again a conspicuous element, and the further east you went from Angora the more they increased in social and numerical importance. Beyond the Kizil Irmak (Halys), in the Sandjak of Kaisaria and the Vilayet of Sivas, they constituted the great majority of the urban middle class. The strongest centres of Armenian national life in Turkey were towns like Marsovan, Amasia, Zila, Tokat, Shabin Kara-Hissar or the City of Sivas itself, or such smaller places as Talas and Everek in the neighbourhood of Kaisaria. In all this region Turks and Armenians were about equally balanced, Turks in the country and Armenians in the town, and the proportions were the same in the riviera zone along the Black Sea coast---Samsoun and Kerasond and Trebizond---though here other racial elements were intermingled---Lazes and Greeks, and the advance guards of the Kurds.
Trebizond in ancient times was the last Greek colony towards the east, and it is always a place that beckons travellers forward, for it is the terminus of that ancient caravan route which stretches away across Persia into the far interior of the Asiatic continent. Anyone who started to follow this highway across the mountains, through Gumushkhané and Baibourt to Erzeroum, would have noticed little change in these first stages of his journey from what he had seen in the Vilayet of Sivas. There were the same Turkish countryside and the same Armenian towns, with, perhaps, an increasing Armenian element in the rural population, culminating in an actual preponderance of Armenian villages when you reached the plain of Erzeroum. With Erzeroum the second section of the caravan road begins ; it crosses from valley to valley among the headwaters of the Aras and the Eastern Euphrates (Mourad Su), and winds away eastward at the foot of Ararat in the direction of Bayazid and Tabriz. But here the explorer of Armenia must turn his face to the south, and, as he does so, his eyes are met by a rampart of mountains more forbidding than those he has traversed on his journey from the coast, which stretch across the horizon both east and west.
This mountain barrier bears many names. It is called the Bingöl Dagh where it faces Erzeroum; further westward it merges into the ill-famed Dersim; but the whole range has a common character. Its steeper slope is towards the north, and this slope is washed by the waters of the Aras and the Kara Su (Western Euphrates), which flow east and west in diametrically opposite directions, flanking the foot of the mountain wall with a deep and continuous moat.
Whoever crosses this moat and penetrates the mountains passes at once into a different world. The western part of Turkey, which we have been describing so far, is a more or less orderly, settled country---as orderly and settled, on the whole,. as any of the other Near Eastern countries that lie between the Euphrates and Vienna. The population is sedentary; it lives in agricultural villages and open country towns. But when you cross the Euphrates, you enter a land of insecurity and fear. The peasant and townsman live on sufferance; the mastery is with the nomad ; you are setting foot on the domain of the Kurd.
This insecurity was the chronic condition of Armenia proper, and it was not merely due to the unfortunate political experiences of the land. In its geographical configuration, as well as in its history, the Armenian plateau is a country of more accentuated characteristics and violent contrasts than the Anatolian Peninsula which adjoins it on the west. It contains vast stretches of rolling, treeless down, where the climate is too bleak and the soil too thin for cultivation ; and, again, there are sudden depressions where the soil is as rich and the climate as favourable as anywhere in the world. There are the deep ravines of rivers, like the Mourad Su, which carve their course haphazard across tableland and plain. There are volcanic cones, like the Sipan and the Nimroud Dagh, and lacustrine areas, like the basin of Lake Van. The geography of the country has partitioned it eternally between the shepherd and the cultivator---the comparatively dense and sedentary population of the plains and the scattered and wandering inhabitants of the highlands---between civilisation and development on the one hand and an arrested state of barbarism on the other. The Kurd and the Armenian are not merely different nationalities ; they are also antagonistic economic classes, and this antagonism existed in the country before ever the Kurdish encroachments began. Most of the nomadic tribes that frequent the Armenian plateau now pass for Kurds, but many of them are only nominally so. In the Dersim country, for instance, which coincides roughly with the peninsula formed by the Western and Eastern branches of the Euphrates (Kara. Su and Mourad Su), the Kurds are strongly diluted with the Zazas, whose language, as far as it has been investigated, bears at least as much resemblance to Armenian as to Kurdish, and whose primitive paganism, though it may have taken some colour from Christianity, is free to this day from the slightest veneer of Islam.(216) These Zazas represent an element which must have existed in the land from the beginning and have harassed the national rulers of Medieval and Ancient Armenia as much as it harasses the modern Armenian townsman and peasant or the local Ottoman authorities.
On the eve of the catastrophe of 1915, this region beyond the Euphrates was a treasure-house of mingled populations and diversified forms of social life. Its north-western bastion is the Dersim, a no-man's-land of winding valleys and tiny upland plains, backing northwards on to the great mountain retaining-wall, with its sheer fall to the Euphratean moat. In the Dersim innumerable little clans of Zazas and Kurds lived, and continue to live, their pastoral, brigand life, secluded from the arm of Ottoman authority. A traveller proceeding south from Erzeroum would give the Dersim a wide berth on his right and cross the peninsula at its neck, by the headwaters of the Aras and the plain of Khnyss . He would strike the course of the Mourad Su where it cuts successively through the fertile, level plains of Melazkerd, Boulanik and Moush, and here he would find himself again for a moment (or would have done so two years ago) in peaceful, almost civilised surroundings---populous country towns, with a girdle of agricultural villages and a peasantry even more uniformly Armenian than the population of the plain of Erzeroum. The plain of Moush is the meeting-place of all the routes that traverse the plateau. If you ascend from its south-eastern corner and mount the southern spurs of the Nimroud volcano, you suddenly find yourself on the edge of the extensive basin of Lake Van, and can follow a mountain road along its precipitous southern shore ; then you descend into the open valley of Hayotz-Tzor, cross a final ridge with the pleasant village of Artamid on its slopes, and arrive a few hours later in the city of Van itself.
Van, again, before April, 1915, was the populous, civilised capital of a province, with a picturesque citadel-rock overlooking the lake and open garden suburbs spreading east of it across the plain. The City of Van, with the surrounding lowlands that fringe the eastern and north-eastern shores of the lake, was more thoroughly Armenian than any part of the Ottoman Empire. In the Van Vilayet(217) alone the Armenians not merely outnumbered each other racial element singly, but were an absolute majority of the total population. These Armenians of Van played a leading and a valiant part in the events of 1915.
Yet Van, though a stronghold of Armenian nationality, was also the extremity, in this direction, of Armenian territory; south-east of Van the upper valley of the Zab and the basin of Lake Urmia were jointly inhabited by Christian Syrians and Moslem Kurds, until the Syrians, too, were involved in the Armenians' fate. To complete our survey, we have to retrace our steps round the northern shores of Lake Van till we arrive once more in the plain of Moush.
The plain of Moush is closed in on the south and south-west by another rampart of mountains, which forms the southern wall of the plateau and repeats with remarkable exactness the structure of that northern wall which the traveller encounters when he turns south from the plain of Erzeroum. This southern range, also, falls precipitously towards the north, first into the plain of Moush, and, further westward, into the waters of the Mourad Su, which wash it like a moat all the way to their junction with the Kara Su, below Harpout. And, like the northern range, again, the southern rampart unfolds itself to the south in a maze of high hills and tangled valleys, which only sink by degrees into the plains of Diyarbekir---a detached bay of the great Mesopotamian steppe. These southern highlands are known as the Sassoun ; they are a physiographical counterpart to the highlands of Dersim, and are likewise the harbour of semi-independent mountaineers. But whereas the Dersimlis are pagan Zazas or Moslem Kurds, and were at constant feud with their Armenian neighbours, the Sassounlis were themselves Armenians, and were in the closest intercourse with their kinsmen in the valley of the Mourad Su and in the plains of Moush and Boulanik.
Sassoun was one of the most interesting Armenian communities in the Ottoman Empire. It was a federation of about forty mountain villages, which lived their own life in virtual independence of the Ottoman authorities at Bitlis or Diyarbekir, and held their own against the equally independent Kurdish tribes that ringed them round. They were prosperous shepherds and laborious cultivators of their mountain slopes---a perfect example of the cantonal phase of economic development, requiring nothing from outside and even manufacturing their own gunpowder. The Sassounli Armenians were in the same social stage as the Scottish Highlanders before 1745 ; the Armenians of Van, Sivas and Constantinople were people of the twentieth century, engaged in the same activities and living much the same life as the shopkeepers and business men of Vienna or London or New York.
Only an enterprising traveller would have struck up into Sassoun if he wished to make his way from Moush to Diyarbekir. The beaten track takes a longer course to the south-eastern corner of the plain, and then breasts the mountain wall to the south (where the branch-road turns eastward to Lake. Van). From Norshen, the last village of the plain, an easy pass leads over a saddle and brings the traveller unexpectedly to the important city of Bitlis, which lies under the shadow of the ridge, immediately south of the watershed. Bitlis is the capital of a vilayet, and before Djevdet Bey retreated upon it in June, 1915, there was a numerous Armenian element in its population. But Bitlis, again, was one of the limits of the Armenian dispersion. The waters which rise round the city flow southward to the Tigris, and the highroad winds down with them towards the plains, which are inhabited by a confused population of Jacobites(218) and Arabs, Turks and Kurds. If you had followed the Tigris upstream across the levels to Diyarbekir, you would have passed few Armenian villages on the road, even before June, 1915 ; and at Diyarbekir itself, a considerable city, there was only a weak Armenian colony---a feeble link in the chain of Armenian outposts on the fringe of the Mesopotamian steppe. But Diyarbekir is on the line of that Royal Road by which men have gone up from time immemorial from Baghdad and beyond to the coasts of the Bosphorus and the Egean. The highway runs on north-west across the flats, passes Arghana and Arghana Mines, climbs the southern escarpment of the Armenian plateau up the valley of the Arghana Su, skirts the Göldjik Lake on the watershed, and slopes down, still north-westwards, to Harpout, near the course of the Mourad Su. Many convoys of Armenian exiles traversed this road in the opposite direction during the summer months of 1915, on their way from their native plateau to the alien climate of the Arabian deserts. But our survey of the Armenians in Turkey is complete, and we can travel back in imagination from Harpout to Malatia, from Malatia to Sivas, and so on continually north-westward, till we return again to the point from which we started out.
This somewhat elaborate itinerary will have served its purpose if it has made clear the extraordinary vitality and versatility of the Armenian nation in the Ottoman Empire at the moment when its extermination was planned and attempted by the established Government of the country. The Government had been of little service to any of its subjects ; it had never initiated any social or economic developments on its own part, and had invariably made itself a clog upon the private enterprises of native or foreign individuals. Yet, under this pall of stagnation and repression, there were manifold stirrings of a new life. Wherever an opportunity presented itself, wherever the Government omitted to intervene, the Armenians were making indefatigable progress towards a better civilization. They were raising the pastoral and agricultural prosperity of their barren highlands and harassed plains; they were deepening and extending their education at the American schools ; they were laying the foundation of local industries in the Vilayet of Sivas ; they were building up Ottoman banking and shipping and finance at Trebizond and Adana and Constantinople. They were kindling the essential spark of energy in the Ottoman Empire, and anyone acquainted with Near Eastern history will inevitably compare their promise with the promise of the Greeks a century before. The apologists of the Ottoman Government will seize with eagerness upon this comparison. "The Greeks," they will say, "revolted as soon as they had fallen into this state of fermentation. The Young Turks did more prudently than Sultan Mahmoud in forestalling future trouble." But if we examine the relations between the Ottoman Government and the Armenian people we shall find that this argument recoils upon its authors' heads.
.
IV. THE ARMENIAN PEOPLE AND THE OTTOMAN GOVERNMENT.
When the Ottoman Government entered the European War in 1914 it had ruled Armenia for just four hundred years, and still had for its subjects a majority of the Armenian people. Anyone who inquires into the relations between the Government and the governed during this period of Near Eastern history will find the most contradictory opinions expressed. On the one hand he will be told that the Armenians, like the rest of the Christians in Turkey, were classed as "Rayah " (cattle[219]) by the dominant race, and that this one word sums up their irremediable position ; that they were not treated as citizens because they were not even treated as men. On the other hand, he will hear that the Ottoman Empire has been more liberal to its subject nationalities than many states in Western Europe ; that the Armenians have been perfectly free to live their own life under a paternal government, and that the friction between the Government and its subjects has been due to the native perversity and instability of the Armenian character, or, worse still, to a revolutionary poison instilled by some common enemy from without. Both these extreme views are out of perspective, but each of them represents a part of the truth.
It is undoubtedly true (to take the Turkish case first) that the Armenians have derived certain benefits from the Ottoman dispensation. The caste division between Moslem and Rayah, for instance, may stamp the Ottoman "State Idea" as mediaeval and incapable of progress ; but this has injured the state as a whole more appreciably than the penalised section of it, for extreme penalisation works both ways. The Government ruled out the Christians so completely from the dominant Moslem commonwealth that it suffered and even encouraged them to form communities of their own. The "Rayah" became "Millets"---not yoke-oxen, but unshackled herds.
These Christian Millets were instituted by Sultan Mohammed II, after he had conquered Constantinople in 1453 and set himself to reorganise the Ottoman State as the conscious heir of the East Roman Empire. They are national corporations with written charters, often of an elaborate kind. Each of them is presided over by a Patriarch, who holds office at the discretion of the Government, but is elected by the community and is the recognised intermediary between the two, combining in his own person the headship of a voluntary "Rayah" association and the status of an Ottoman official. The special function thus assigned to the Patriarchates gives the Millets, as an institution, an ecclesiastical character(220) ; but in the Near East a church is merely the foremost aspect of a nationality, and the authority of the Patriarchates extends to the control of schools, and even to the administration of certain branches of civil law. The Millets, in fact, are practically autonomous bodies in all that concerns religion, culture and social life ; but it is a maimed autonomy, for it is jealously debarred from any political expression. The establishment of the Millets is a recognition, and a palliation, of the pathological anomaly of the Near East---the political disintegration of Near Eastern peoples and the tenacity with which they have clung, in spite of it, to their corporate spiritual life.
The organisation of the Millets was not a gain to all the Christian nations that had been subjected by the Ottoman power. Certain orthodox populations, like the Bulgars and the Serbs, actually lost an ecclesiastical autonomy which they had enjoyed before, and were merged in the Millet of the Greeks, under the Orthodox Patriarch at Constantinople. The Armenians, on the other hand, improved their position. As so-called schismatics, they had hitherto existed on sufferance under Orthodox and Catholic governments, but the Osmanlis viewed all varieties of Christian with an impartial eye. Mohammed II. summoned the Gregorian Bishop of the Armenian colony at Broussa, and raised him to the rank of an Armenian Patriarch at Constantinople. The Ottoman conquest thus left the Gregorian Armenians their religious individuality and put them on a legal equality with their neighbours of the Orthodox Faith, and the same privileges were extended in time to the Armenians in communion with other churches. The Gregorian Millet was chartered in 1462, the Millet of Armenian Catholics in 1830, and the Millet of Armenian Protestants in the 'forties of the nineteenth century, as a result of the foundation of the American Missions.
The Armenians of the Dispersion, therefore, profited, in that respect, by Ottoman rule, and even in the Armenian homeland the account stood, on the whole, in the Ottoman Government's favour. The Osmanlis are often blamed for having given the Kurds a footing in this region, as a political move in their struggle with Persia; but the Kurds were not, originally, such a scourge to the Armenians as the Seljuks, Mongols, or Kara Koyunli, who had harried the land before, or as the Persians themselves, whom the Osmanlis and the Kurds ejected from the country. The three centuries of Kurdish feudalism under Ottoman suzerainty that followed Sultan Selim's campaign of 1514 were a less unhappy period for the Armenians than the three centuries and more of anarchy that had preceded them. They were a time of torpor before recuperation, and it was the Ottoman Government again that, by a change in its Kurdish policy, enabled this recuperation to set in. In the early part of the nineteenth century a vigorous anti-feudal, centralising movement was initiated by Sultan Mahmoud, a reformer who has become notorious for his unsuccessful handling of the Greek and Serbian problems without receiving the proper credit for his successes further east. He turned his attention to the Kurdish chieftains in 1834, and by the middle of the century his efforts had practically broken their power. Petty feudalism was replaced by a bureaucracy centred in Constantinople. The new officialdom was not ideal; it had new vices of its own ; but it was impartial, by comparison, towards the two races whom it had to govern, for the class prejudice of the Moslem against the well-behaved Rayah was balanced by the exasperation of the professional administrator with the unconscionable Kurd. In any case, this remodelling of the Ottoman State in the early decades of the nineteenth century introduced a new epoch in the history of the Armenian people. Coinciding, as it did, with the establishment of the American Missions and the chartering of the Catholic and Protestant Millets, it opened to the Armenians opportunities of which they availed themselves to the full. An intellectual and economic renaissance of Armenian life began, parallel in many respects to the Greek renaissance a century before.
This comparison brings us back to the question: Was the Armenian revival of the nineteenth century an inevitable menace to the sovereignty and integrity of the Ottoman State ? Is the disastrous breach between Armenian and Turk, which has actually occurred, simply the fruit of wrong-headed Armenian ambitions ? That is the Turkish contention; but here the Turkish case breaks down, and we shall find the truth on the Armenian side.
The parallel with the Greek renaissance is misleading, if it implies a parallel with the Greek revolution. The Greek movement towards political separatism was, in a sense, the outcome of the general spiritual movement that preceded it; but it was hardly an essential consequence, and certainly not a fortunate one. The Greek War of Independence liberated one fraction of the Greek race at the price of exterminating most of the others and sacrificing the favoured position which the Greek element had previously enjoyed throughout the Ottoman Empire. It was not an encouraging precedent for the Armenians, and the objections to following it in their own case were more formidable still. As we have seen, no portion of Ottoman territory was exclusively inhabited by them, and they were nowhere even in an absolute majority, except in certain parts of the Province of Van, so that they had no natural rallying point for a national revolt, such as the Greeks had in the Islands and the Morea. They were scattered from one end to another of the Ottoman Empire; the whole Empire was their heritage, and it was a heritage that they must necessarily share with the Turks, who were in a numerical majority and held the reins of political power. The alternative to an Ottoman State was not an Armenian State, but a partition among the Powers, which would have ended the ambitions of Turk and Armenian alike. The Powers concerned were quite ready for a partition, if only they could agree upon a division of the spoils. This common inheritance of the Armenians and the Turks was potentially one of the richest countries in the Old World, and one of the few that had not yet been economically developed. Its native inhabitants, still scanty, backward and divided against themselves, were not yet capable of defending their title against spoilers from without ; they only maintained it at present by a fortuitous combination in the balance of power, which might change at any moment. The problem for the Armenians was not how to overthrow the Ottoman Empire but how to preserve it, and their interest in its preservation was even greater than that of their Turkish neighbours and co-heirs. Our geographical survey has shown that talent and temperament had brought most of the industry, commerce, finance and skilled intellectual work of Turkey into the Armenians' hands. The Greeks may still have competed with them on the Ægean fringe, and the Sephardi Jews in the Balkans, but they had the whole interior of the Empire to themselves, with no competition to fear from the agricultural Turks or the pastoral Kurds. And if the Empire were preserved by timely reforms from within, the position of the Armenians would become still more favourable, for they were the only native element capable of raising the Empire economically, intellectually and morally to a European standard, by which alone its existence could permanently be secured. The main effort must be theirs, and they would reap the richest reward.
Thus, from the Armenian point of view, a national entente with the Turks was an object of vital importance, to be pursued for its ultimate results in spite of present difficulties and drawbacks. About the middle of the nineteenth century there seemed every likelihood of its being attained. The labours of Sultan Mahmoud and the influence of Great Britain and France had begun to inoculate the Turkish ruling class with liberal ideas. An admirable "Law of Nationalities" was promulgated, and there was a project for a parliamentary constitution. It looked, to an optimist, as if the old mediaeval caste-division of Moslem and Rayah might die away and allow Armenian, Turk and Kurd to find their true relation to one another---not as irreconcilable sects or races, but as different social elements in the same community, whose mutual interest was to co-operate for a common end.
This was the logical policy for the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire to pursue, and the logic of it was so clear that they have clung to it through difficulties and drawbacks sufficient to banish logic altogether ---" difficulties" which amounted to a bankruptcy of political sense in the Imperial Government, and "drawbacks" which culminated in official massacres of the Armenian population. There were two causes of this sinister turn of events: the external crisis through which the Empire passed in the years 1875-8, and the impression this crisis made upon Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid, who came to the throne in 1876, when it was entering upon its gravest phase.
In these years the Empire had been brought to the verge of ruin by the revolt of a subject Christian population, the Bosniak Serbs, which spread to the other subject races in the Balkan provinces, and by a momentary breakdown in the diplomatic mechanism of the European balance of power, which enabled Russia to throw her military force into the scales on the Balkan rebels' behalf. The ruin was arrested and partially repaired, when Turkey lay prostrate under Russia's heel, by a reassertion of the balance of power, which deprived Russia of most of her gains and half the Balkan Christians of their new-won liberties. Abd-ul-Hamid was clever enough to learn from these experiences, but not, unfortunately, to learn aright, and he devoted all his astuteness to carrying out a policy far more injurious to the Empire than the troubles it was meant to avert. He seems to have inferred from the war with Russia that Turkey was not and never would be strong enough to hold its own against a first-class power ; it was not her internal strength that had saved her, but the external readjustment of forces. Therefore, any attempt to strengthen the Empire from within, by reconciling its racial elements and developing its natural resources, was Utopian and irrelevant to the problem. The only object of importance was to insure against an attack by any single Power by keeping all the Great Powers in a state of jealous equilibrium. Now the breakdown of this equilibrium, in 1877, which had been so disastrous for Turkey, had been directly caused by an antecedent disturbance of equilibrium within the Empire itself. A subject Christian nationality had tried to break away violently from the Ottoman body-politic. Here was the root of the whole trouble, to Abd-ul-Hamid's mind, and the primary object of his policy must be to prevent such a thing from happening again. The subject nationalities of the Empire were not for him unrealised assets; they were potential destroyers of the State, more formidable even than the foreign Powers. Their potentialities must be neutralised, and the surest course, with them as with the Powers, was to play them off against one another. In fine, the policy of Abd-ul-Hamid was the exact antithesis of the instinctive Armenian policy which we have indicated above; it was not to strengthen the Empire by bringing the nationalities into harmony, but to weaken the nationalities, at whatever cost to the Empire, by setting them to cut each other's throats. Abd-ul-Hamid applied this policy for forty years. The Macedonians and the Armenians were his special victims, but only the Armenians concern us here.
It was inevitable that the Armenians should be singled out by Abd-ul-Hamid for repression. When Turkey sued for peace in 1878, the Russian troops were in occupation of the greater part of the Armenian plateau, and the Russian plenipotentiaries inserted an Article (No. 16) in the Treaty of San Stefano making the evacuation of these provinces conditional upon the previous introduction of reforms in their administration by the Ottoman Government. A concrete scheme for the reorganisation of the six vilayets in question(221) had already been drawn up by a delegation of their Armenian inhabitants. It provided for the creation of an Armenian Governor-General, empowered to appoint and remove the officials subordinate to him; a mixed gendarmerie of Armenians and the sedentary elements in the Moslem population, to the exclusion of the nomadic Kurds; a general assembly, consisting of Moslem and Christian deputies in equal numbers; and equal rights for every creed. The Ottoman Government had approved and even encouraged this project of provincial autonomy when it feared that the alternative was the cession of the provinces to Russia. As soon as it had made certain of the Russian evacuation, its approval turned to indifference; and when the European Congress met at Berlin to revise the San Stefano Treaty, the Ottoman emissaries exerted themselves to quash the project altogether. In this they were practically successful, for the Treaty drawn up at Berlin by the Congress merely engaged the Ottoman Government, in general terms(222), to introduce "ameliorations" in the " provinces inhabited by Armenians," without demanding any guarantee at all(223). The Russian troops were withdrawn and the ameliorations were a dead letter. The Ottoman Government was reminded of them, in 1880, by a collective Note from the six Powers. But it left the Note unanswered, and after the diplomatic démarches had dragged on for two years the question was shelved, on Bismarck's suggestion, because no Power except Great Britain would press it.
The seed of the "Armenian Reforms" had thus fallen upon stony ground, except in the mind of Abd-ul-Hamid, where it lodged and rankled till it bore the fruit of the "Armenian Massacres." The project had not really been a menace to Ottoman sovereignty and integrity. It was merely a proposal to apply in, six vilayets that elementary measure of "amelioration" which was urgently needed by the Empire as a whole, and without, which it could never begin to develop its internal strength. But, to Abd-ul-Hamid it was unforgivable, for to him every concession to a subject Christian nationality was suspect. He had seen the Bulgars given ecclesiastical autonomy by the Ottoman Government in 1870 and then raised by Russia, within eight years, into a semi-independent political principality. Armenian autonomy had been averted for the moment, but the parallel might still hold good, for Russia's influence over the Armenians had been increasing.
Russia had conquered the Armenian provinces of Persia in 1828(224), and this had brought within her frontier the Monastery of Etchmiadzin, in the Khanate of Erivan, which was the seat of the Katholikos of All the Armenians. The power of this Katholikos was at that time very much in abeyance. He was an ecclesiastical relic of, the ancient united Armenian Kingdom of Tigranes and Tiridates, which had been out of existence for fourteen hundred years. There was another Katholikos at Sis, a relic of the mediaeval kingdom of Cilicia, who did not acknowledge his supremacy, and he was thrown into the shade altogether by the Armenian Patriarch at Constantinople, who was the official head of the Armenian Millet in the Ottoman Empire---at that time an overwhelming majority of the Armenian people.
But Russian diplomacy succeeded in reviving the Katholikos of Etchmiadzin's authority. In the 'forties of the nineteenth century, when Russian influence at Constantinople was at its height and Russian protection seemed the only recourse for Turkey against the ambition of Mehemet Ali, the ecclesiastical supremacy of Etchmiadzin over Constantinople and Sis was definitely established, and the Katholikos of Etchmiadzin, a resident in Russian territory, became once more the actual as well as the titular head of the whole Gregorian Church. Russia had thus acquired an influence over the Armenians as a nation, and individual Armenians were acquiring a reciprocal influence in Russia. They had risen to eminence, not only in commerce, but in the public service and in the army. They had distinguished themselves particularly in the war of 1877. Loris Melikov, Lazarev and Tergoukasev, three of, the most successful generals on the Russian side, were of Armenian nationality. Melikov had taken the fortress of Kars, and the Treaty of Berlin left his conquest in Russia's possession with a zone of territory that rounded off the districts ceded by Persia fifty years before. The Russian frontier was thus pushed forward on to the Armenian plateau, and now included an important Armenian population---important enough to make its mark on the general life of the Russian Empire(225) and to serve as a national rallying-point for the Armenians who still remained on the Ottoman side of the line.
Such considerations outweighed all others in Abd-ul-Hamid's mind. His Armenian subjects must be deprived of their formidable vitality, and he decided to crush them by resuscitating the Kurds. From 1878 onwards he encouraged their lawlessness, and in 1891 he deliberately undid the work of his predecessor, Mahmoud. The Kurdish chieftains were taken again into favour and decorated with Ottoman military rank; their tribes were enrolled as squadrons of territorial cavalry ; regimental badges and modern rifles were served out to them from the Government stores, and their retaining fee was a free hand to use their official status and their official weapons as they pleased against their Armenian neighbours. At the same time the latter were systematically disarmed ; the only retaliation open to them was the formation of secret revolutionary societies, and this fitted in entirely with Abd-ul-Hamid's plans, for it made a racial conflict inevitable. The disturbances began in 1893 with the posting up of revolutionary placards in Yozgad and Marsovan. This was soon followed by an open breach between Moslem and Christian in the. districts of Moush and Sassoun, and there was a rapid concentration of troops---some of them Turkish regulars, but most of them Hamidié Kurds. Sassoun was besieged for several months, and fell in 1894. The Sassounlis---men, women and children---were savagely massacred by the Turks and Kurds, and the attention of Great Britain was aroused. In the winter of 1894-5 Great Britain persuaded France and Russia to join her in reminding the Ottoman Government of its pledge to introduce provincial reforms, and in the spring they presented a concrete programme for the administration of the Six Vilayets. In its final form it was a perfunctory project, and the counter-project which the Ottoman Government announced its intention of applying in its stead was more illusory still. It was promulgated in 1895, but the first of a new series of organised massacres had already taken place a few days earlier, at Trebizond, and in the following months the slaughter was extended to one after another of the principal towns of the Empire. These atrocities were nearly all committed against peaceful, unarmed urban populations. The only place that resisted was Zeitoun, which held out. for six months against a Turkish army, and was finally amnestied by the mediation of the Powers. The anti-Armenian outbreaks were instigated and controlled by the Central Government, and were crowned, in August, 1896, by the great massacre at Constantinople, where for two days the Armenians, at the Government's bidding, were killed indiscriminately in the streets, until the death-roll amounted to many thousands. Then Abd-ul-Hamid held his hand. He had been feeling the pulse of public opinion, both abroad and at home, and he saw that he had gone far enough(226). In all more than 100,000 men, women and children had perished, and for the moment he had sufficiently crippled the Armenian element in his Empire.
Yet this Macchiavellian policy was ultimately as futile as it was wicked. In the period after the massacres the Armenian population in Turkey was certainly reduced, partly by the actual slaughter and partly by emigration abroad. But this only weakened the Empire without permanently paralysing the Armenian race. The emigrants struck new roots in the United States and in the Russian Caucasus, acquired new resources, enlisted new sympathies ; and Russia was the greatest gainer of all. The Armenians had little reason, at the time, to look towards Russia with special sympathy or hope. In Russia, as in Turkey, the war of 1877-8 had been followed by a political reaction, which was aggravated by the assassination of the Tsar, Alexander II., in 1881 ; and the Armenians, as an energetic, intellectual, progressive element in the Russian Empire, were classed by the police with the revolutionaries, and came under their heavy hand. Yet once an Armenian was on the Russian side of the frontier his life and property at least were safe. He could be sure of reaping the fruits of his labour, and had not to fear sudden death in the streets. During the quarter of a century that followed the Treaty of Berlin, the Armenian population of the Russian provinces increased remarkably in prosperity and numbers, and now, after the massacres, they were reinforced by a constant stream of Ottoman refugees. The centre of gravity of the Armenian race was shifting more and more from Ottoman to Russian territory. Russia has profited by the crimes of her neighbours. The Hamidian régime lasted from 1878 to 1908, and did all that any policy could do to widen the breach between the Ottoman State and the Armenian people. Yet the natural community of interest was so strong that even thirty years of repression did not make the Armenians despair of Ottoman regeneration.
Nothing is more significant than the conduct of the Armenians in 1908, when Abd-ul-Hamid was overthrown by the Young Turkish Revolution, and there was a momentary possibility that the Empire might be reformed and preserved by the initiative of the Turks themselves. At this crisis the real attitude of the different nationalities in the Empire was revealed. The Kurds put up a fight for Abd-ul-Hamid, because they rejoiced in the old dispensation. The Macedonians---Greek, Bulgar and Serb---who had been the Armenians' principal fellow-victims in the days of oppression, paid the Constitution lip-homage and secretly prepared to strike. They were irreconcilable irredentists, and saw in the reform of the Empire simply an obstacle to their secession from it. They took counsel with their kinsmen in the independent national States of Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece, and, four years later, the Balkan League attacked Turkey and tore away her Macedonian provinces by force.
The Armenians, on the other hand, threw themselves wholeheartedly into the service of the new régime. As soon as the Ottoman Constitution was restored, the Armenian political parties abandoned their revolutionary programme in favour of parliamentary action, and co-operated in Parliament with the Young Turkish bloc so long as Young Turkish policy remained in any degree liberal or democratic. The terrible Adana massacres, which occurred less than a year after the Constitution had been proclaimed, might have damped the Armenians' enthusiasm (though at first the proof that the Young Turks were implicated in them was not so clear as it has since become). Yet they showed their loyalty in 1912, when the Turks were fighting for their existence. It was only under the new laws that the privilege and duty of military service had been extended to the Christian as well as the Moslem citizens of the Empire, and the disastrous Balkan Campaign was the first opportunity that Armenian soldiers were given of doing battle for their common heritage. But they bore themselves so well in this ordeal that they were publicly commended by their Turkish commanders. Thus, in war and peace, in the Army and in Parliament, the Armenians worked for the salvation of the Ottoman Commonwealth, from the accession of the Young Turks in 1908 till their intervention in the European War in 1914. It is impossible to reconcile with this fact the Turkish contention that in 1914 they suddenly reversed their policy and began treacherously to plot for the Ottoman Empire's destruction. | ||||||||
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"Nana Shakhnazaryan"
] | null | When faced with tyranny, three Latin American Armenians created legacies of resistance Whether in Montevideo or Marseille, Buenos Aires or Beirut, to be Armenian is often to be informed of the grave injustices of the world before your peers. Justice is defined alongside the rattle of impunity and for the many descendants of survivors of the Armenian Genocide, to defend it is almost a birthright. For some, like activist Anahit Aharonian and lawyer Luisa Hairabedian, this means spending a lifetime advocating, researching, and fighting for justice in all circumstances, keenly aware of the consequences of staying silent. | en | favicon.png | https://agbu.org/latin-american-armenian/paths-justice | Whether in Montevideo or Marseille, Buenos Aires or Beirut, to be Armenian is often to be informed of the grave injustices of the world before your peers. Justice is defined alongside the rattle of impunity and for the many descendants of survivors of the Armenian Genocide, to defend it is almost a birthright. For some, like activist Anahit Aharonian and lawyer Luisa Hairabedian, this means spending a lifetime advocating, researching, and fighting for justice in all circumstances, keenly aware of the consequences of staying silent.
When military coups brought a wave of violence and repression to their home cities of Montevideo and Buenos Aires, respectively, Aharonian and Hairabedian did not abandon their beliefs. These Armenian women and the work that they have inspired through their lives exemplify the spirit of seeking justice, even in the darkest of times.
For León Carlos Arslanián, a chief justice in Argentina, leveraging his power within the system also helped right the wrongs of oppression.
Déjà Vu
In the second half of the 20th century, as the US-backed Operation Condor swept through South America, destabilizing governments and installing right-wing civic-military dictatorships, Armenian communities in Uruguay and Argentina were reminded of the past. Decades after survivors of the Armenian Genocide settled into their new homes in Montevideo, in Buenos Aires or Córdoba, many were recognizing the violence they thought their families had escaped.
With Cold War tensions rising, a campaign of state terror targeted dissidence in both Uruguay and Argentina, imprisoning anyone believed to be associated with socialist organizations. Resistance to government abuse could be, and often was, a death sentence; concentration camps, death squads and the harrowing disappearances of thousands of people characterized these regimes.
In his book, Twenty Two Lives, Cristian Sirouyan details the everyday lives of the Armenians who were abducted and executed by the state. Through this work, he links two histories, two genocides by naming and profiling each victim.
“Every time we name them, we return to them the identities that the genocidaires intended to snatch from them in the clandestine detention centers of torture and extermination,” Adriana Kalaidjian expressed. She was 13 years old when her older sister Elena was abducted by military officials in 1977. Through the Kalaidjian family’s fierce activism, the remains of Elena’s body were identified and returned to them for burial in 2005, almost three decades later.
The civic-military dictatorship of Argentina lasted from 1976-1983, and in Uruguay from 1973-1985. The following decades would reveal the scope of the human rights violations in both countries, nurturing a public discourse on memory, justice and truth.
Anahit Aharonian
The Dissident
“If all those who have suffered human rights violations united,” Anahit Aharonian muses, “certainly the world would be much more just.” With her Armenian heritage at the crux of her activism, and her past and present as a proud leftist, her story is both a celebration and a question of how far definitions of justice take us as Armenians. Sentenced for her political dissidence during Uruguay’s right-wing dictatorship, Aharonian has not lost an ounce of her revolutionary spark as she marks 35 years since her release from prison, this year.
A Collective Liberation
Anahit Aharonian was born into one of the cradles of Armenian life in Montevideo. Her father Nubar Aharonian was at the birth of the first Armenian Republic in 1918, serving as part of Parliament. Her mother Victoria Kharputlian, a dedicated community educator, co-founded the Montevideo chapter of the Armenian Relief Society, and established the famed Ardzvigner Youth Group.
How can we ask others to help us in our struggle for justice when we do not involve ourselves in their struggles for justice?
Despite the vibrant Armenian cultural life in Montevideo at the time, distinct institutions and political affiliations segregated Armenians. In response to the discord, and in an effort to rally around the Armenian Cause, a group of young community leaders rejected hierarchies and established the Coordinating Board of Armenian Youth Organizations of Uruguay. Aharonian’s oldest brother Coriún was active in uniting representatives from the vast spectrum of Armenian life, mobilizing their constituents to participate in public actions.
The pioneering activism of the Board set precedents in the Armenian world, organizing marches on the streets and creating media campaigns denouncing the Turkish government. In 1965, the Board’s tireless lobbying work paid off: the world’s first official recognition of the Armenian Genocide came from the Uruguayan government. Not only was the Genocide recognized 50 years after it began, the law established April 24 as the Day of Remembrance for the Armenian Martyrs nationally.
An Era of Uprisings
Though the Board ultimately disbanded, the social justice activism around the Armenian Cause left an indelible mark on Uruguayan society and Aharonian’s life. As the 1960s ushered in an era of anti-colonial uprisings and civil rights movements throughout the world, she became increasingly inspired by what was happening in places like Algeria, Palestine, Vietnam and Cuba. People from all nations were defining their own rights on their own terms, decolonizing national histories and establishing an international definition of a liberation struggle.
By 1970, when she was studying agronomy at the state university, the young Aharonian became involved with the Tupamaros National Liberation Move-ment, a burgeoning leftist political organization in Uruguay. “In the same way that I was involved in the Armenian Cause, I became invested in the struggle against capitalism,” Aharonian explained. “I began working towards creating a society where justice and equality were at the core.” As a Tupamara, she was involved in international support missions, traveling to cities like Tripoli, Benghazi, and Beirut, meeting fellow activists and contributing her voice—as an Armenian and as an Uruguayan—to the global conversation. Soon, however, her reality would change.
History Repeated
In 1972, armed officers raided the Aharonian home only to find Anahit’s grandmother alone in the house. For an entire week after their intrusion, all she could say was, “The Turks have returned.” A year later, the Uruguayan government was officially overturned and on September 11, 1973, armed officers returned to the Aharonian home and arrested Anahit.
One of the arresting officers was a familiar face: an Armenian boy who grew up alongside the Aharonians, participating in the Ardzvigner Youth Group. “I asked myself: How could a child born of Armenian victims of state terrorism himself become a terrorist, committing crimes against humanity on behalf of the state?” she recalls.
“The Armenian community has never been a monolith anywhere,” Uruguayan historian Daniel Karamanoukian explains. “The shared heritage and patriotism united many different Armenians under the same roof in Montevideo, but in a time of raids, closures and seizures of land, many attempted to safeguard their individual institutions, occasionally at the expense of others.” After all, an Armenian heritage is not an implicit guarantor that one will always fight on the same side for justice and peace.
Azadutiún [Freedom]
Aharonian spent the entirety of the dictatorship imprisoned as a dissident in Punta de Rieles Prison. For almost 12 years, she, along with hundreds of other women, endured torture, humiliation and forced labor. Despite attempts at dehumanization, the women invented ways to support each other. “Every woman would share her life story, her wisdom, with us,” Aharonian recalls. “From me, everyone learned how to sing the Armenian songs of my childhood, like ‘Himí el Lrrenk’, and play vatsunvéts and tavli, on our makeshift board.” Even clandestine theater performances were organized.
In 1980, to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, Aharonian, with the help of her friends María and Lucía Topolansky, embroidered a tapestry with the Armenian word for freedom—azadutiún surreptitiously stitched in. The work was smuggled out of the prison, a sign that hope had not been lost among the women. Lucía would later become a prominent politician in Uruguay—first as a senator, before eventually becoming First Lady as the wife of former President José Mujica, and ultimately Vice President of the country.
Aharonian’s Armenian culture, the same heritage that motivated her revolutionary spirit, inspired her in a place that was designed to deaden. Though she was prohibited from speaking Armenian, even when her parents would come to visit, she found ways to practice the language. In solitary confinement, in the windowless cells of perpetual light or perpetual dark—depending on how the guards decided that day—Armenian words would dance out of her mouth, refusing to be forgotten.
Back to Life
On March 10, 1985, days after the dictatorship lost its grip on Uruguayan society, Aharonian was released from prison. The very next day she was back to her studies, enrolling herself in the Department of Agronomy in Montevideo’s University of the Republic. Today, she is an agricultural engineer working on public access to clean water with the country’s National Commission in Defense of Water and Life (CNDAV) and the Multisector-ial Commission, both of which she co-founded.
“Living and participating in the struggle in Uruguay has made me more committed as an activist,” Aharonian asserts. From Buenos Aires to Istanbul, Aharonian has championed equity and criticized impunity. Since 1985, she has traveled extensively as an advocate, activist and ally, speaking at global forums in defense of human rights and environmental justice. In 2003, she returned to Punta Rieles with the collective Memories for Peace, which she co-founded to reclaim the identity of the neighborhood that became synonymous with the dictatorship’s crimes. Organizing the community around arts workshops and events, the collective’s efforts culminated in the transformation of the old bus stop family members of detained women would use to visit them into the Museum and Memory Plaza in 2011. In 2007, Aharonian co-founded the country’s first Museum of Memory to commemorate the victims of state terror and honor those who mounted resistance to the dictatorship.
Almost 35 years to the day of her release, Aharonian reflects on the many mementos that surround her in her family home in Montevideo. Each is its own monument to a part of the liberation struggle. She begins to whistle “Himí el Lrrenk” softly. Soon, she is singing: “But we, brave hearts, let us march forth/ To battle, without fear;/ And, if the worst befalls us,/ Facing the foe like [wo]men,/ Win back in death our glory,/ And sleep in silence then!”
Luisa Hairabedian
The Advocate
Luisa Hairabedian was just 14 years old when the military junta in Argentina was instituted in 1976. She came of age during the dictatorship, acutely aware of the state repression that characterized her home city of Buenos Aires. Committed to speaking out against injustice at an early age, she would often get in trouble at her Armenian schools for speaking her mind. She was 21 when the dictatorship ended in Argentina and, unlike the older generation of activists before her, avoided government persecution.
Coupled with the political reality Argentina was facing, Hairabedian’s proud Armenian heritage fueled her early introduction into activism. Her father Gregorio “Coco” Hairabedian spoke often of his parents’ journey to Argentina: how his own father fought valiantly in the trenches of the French front of Adana in 1918; how his mother was the sole survivor in her entire family; and how they met on the ship to Buenos Aires. Her family’s history equipped Hairabedian with an international perspective and an understanding of how universal struggles for justice are.
Hairabedian pursued law at the University of Buenos Aires and soon became active on campus, becoming a member of the Communist Youth Federation, among other leftist organizations focusing on equality and human rights. Along with her peers, she would work in Buenos Aires’ most marginalized communities, its infamous villas miserias. Organizing and attending lectures on feminism, Hairabedian was also at the nucleus of Argentina’s nascent feminist movement in the 1980s. The close friends she made then, like Vilma Ibarra and Claudia Piñeiro, are champions of women’s rights in Argentina today.
Truth Trials
By the time Hairabedian finished her law degree, the 1985 Trial of the Juntas had characterized the way justice would be sought in Argentina. For the first time since Nuremberg, 40 years prior, war crimes were being tried on a national scale by the new democratic government. “Memory, justice and truth” became a call to action throughout Argentine society, as families who had lost loved ones became empowered.
In the transition of power, some higher level officials implicated in crimes during the dictatorship were granted immunity. Without the possibility of prosecution or punishment, thousands of cases of disappeared people hung in the balance. In response, “truth trials” were introduced into Argentine courts for the first time. Unlike ordinary criminal trials, these trials were limited to investigation and documentation: the impossibility of pursuing the people accused of crimes in criminal proceedings did not mean no other action could be taken. Truth trials prioritized the right of relatives to know what happened to their loved ones, and the right of the broader society to know the details of the dictatorship’s deeds.
The legal precedent set by these truth trials meant that in the Argentine court system, crimes against humanity would not have borders, nor time limits. With this precedent in mind, Hairabedian, now a lawyer, was the first to bring the case of the Armenian Genocide to Argentine courts in 2000. She argued that the Turkish government ought to be compelled to reveal the fate of 50 documented ancestors because her family also had the right to truth, to know what became of their forebears.
The Hairabedians, father and daughter, began a meticulous process of petitioning international governments—the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and even the Vatican—for archives that could build the case against the Turkish government. Luisa herself traveled extensively, poring over archives and trying to piece together the strongest argument to bring in front of an Argentine court.
In 2004, soon after she returned from one such trip, Hairabedian’s life was tragically cut short in a car accident.
Her Mantle
In the wake of Luisa Hairabedian’s death, her entire family came together to take up her mantle.
In March 2005, the Hairabedians established the Luisa Hairabedian Foun-dation to honor the legacy of a woman who invested her life in fighting for human rights. The foundation mobilized social scientists, academics, lawyers and historians to continue to build the case Hairabedian had set in motion. Her father Gregorio and her son Federico began traveling in her stead to collect documents all over the world.
In 2011, Judge Norberto Oyarbide sustained the Hairabedian claim, issuing a warrant to the Turkish government to make available all files and archives that may inform the family of the fate of their 50 relatives who disappeared during the Armenian Genocide. The final verdict was that genocide was committed by the Turkish state against the Armenian people, and against the Hairabedian family.
Intersections
“The fight for human rights never ends,” LHF President, and Luisa’s son, Federico Gaitan Hairabedian explains. “If we do not put these rights in action, they simply become a menu of laws.” Since its establishment 15 years ago, the foundation has worked to engage as many people from as many places in the fight for justice. With programs and initiatives at the intersections of education, culture and law, LHF links Armenian and Argentine history through parallel narratives, becoming a nexus for anyone looking to be involved.
Through the LHF Educational Pro-gram, thousands of high-school age youth have participated in curricula designed to develop an understanding of human rights and genocide. Educators have benefitted from modules created specifically around these difficult topics. From supporting
the publication of books—like that of Siruoyan’s—to organizing lectures at universities around the world, producing theater pieces to arranging arts exhibitions, the foundation does what it can to develop collaboration among institutions, solidarity among communities, and trust among individuals. Luisa Hairabedian’s pioneering legacy lives on in the work her family does to sustain her namesake.
Shall We Be Silent?
The story of the Armenian people often runs parallel to narratives of resistance and resilience, pursuing justice in whichever society they settle. Stories like that of Anahit Aharonian and Luisa Hairabedian, and their families, illuminate the individual definitions of justice that impact the world across generations and societies.
“Every one of us is a whole,” Anahit Aharonian explains. “I am Armenian. I am Uruguayan. And my commitment is to fight ceaselessly and always for a world of justice—here, there, or anywhere.” In earnest, she begs the question: “How can we ask others to help us in our struggle for justice when we do not involve ourselves in their struggles for justice?”
¡Nunca más! [Never Again]
Chief Justice León Carlos Arslanián and the 1985 Trial of the Juntas
Soon after his inauguration marked the end of the military dictatorship in 1983, Argentine President Raúl Alfonsín established the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP). The organization meticulously documented the crimes of the juntas, preparing the famed Nunca más report. It revealed the vast scope of human rights violations committed from 1976-1983: kidnapping, forced disappearances, the abduction of children, and the torture and murder of an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 people. Based on CONADEP’s findings, the Trial of the Juntas began in April 1985.
Chief Justice León Carlos Arslanián was one of six judges presiding over the trial, the first major one held for war crimes since Germany’s Nüremberg Trials, and the first to be conducted by a civilian court. Nine of the dictatorship’s most prominent military officials were sentenced for their crimes and the landmark trial set a precedent for seeking justice after years of political repression in Argentina.
The personal significance of Arslanián’s role in the trial was amplified by his Armenian heritage and his own family’s journey from Aintab to Buenos Aires. “I could see and connect Argentina’s past with that of Armenia, a past that wounded both peoples,” he explains. “Advocacy for human rights and my interest in culture, social matters and politics are in the genes I have inherited from my father.”
Orphaned during the Armenian Genocide, Arslanián’s father Levón was just a child when he made the journey from a Syrian orphanage to Lebanon, then France, to England, and finally, Argentina. Though his father spoke little about what he lost, the search for justice and truth imprinted on Arslanián and would lead to a prolific career in law, irrevocably impacting Argentine society. In the years following the trial, he would serve as Argentina’s Minister of Justice, the minister of Justice and Security for the Buenos Aires Province and president of the Buenos Aires Institute of Criminal Policies and Security.
Banner photo by Andres Stapff / Reuters | |||||
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and Ibn Taghri Birdi's description of the life of Tamerlane
Tamerlane, also called Timur Leng or Timur the Lane, was born near Samarkand in 1335. Of Mongol origin, but Turkish in speech and culture, Tamerlane was also Muslim. A skilled and ruthless military tactician, he would conquer Transoxiana, Persia, Iraq, India, Syria, Armenia and Georgia. In 1398 he sacked Delhi, and two years later he invaded Syria, as is described ibn Taghri Birdi. This was followed by his conquest of Baghdad in 1401 and the defeat and capture of the Ottoman ruler Bayezit I (in the text below he is referred to as Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman) a year later. He died in 1405 while preparing to invade China, and his empire fragmented soon after. Our source gives a good description of his invasion of Syria, as well as efforts by the Mamluk Sultanate to deal with this threat. Afterwards Ibn Taghri Birdi recounts the life of Tamerlane, although not with complete accuracy.
[A] report was brought from Aleppo that Tamerlane had besieged Siwas and fought a battle with Sulaiman ibn Abu Yazid ibn Uthman. Sulaiman had then fled to his father in the city of Brusa together with Qara Yusuf, and Tamerlane had taken Siwas, killing a vast number of its inhabitants.
A short time after this report, ambassadors from Ibn Uthman arrived at Cairo; the letter they brought asked for an understanding between him and Egypt, and stated that he would support the Sultan in combating this tyrant Tamerlane so that Islam and the Muslims might cease to be troubled by him. In the letter Ibn 'Uthman used ingratiating terms and pressed strongly for the alliance. No attention was paid to his request, however; the Egyptian emirs said: "Now he is ready to be our friend; but when our master az-Zahir Barquq died he marched against our land, and took Malatya from our control - he is no friend of ours; let him defend his own land; we will defend ours and our subjects." This was the tenor of the letter which was sent to him.
What Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman proposed, however, was the wisest policy; for afterward Asanbai az-Zahiri, warden of the armory, whom Tamerlane had made prisoner and treated with favor, making him his own warden of the armory, said: "Tamerlane said to me in substance that during his lifetime he had met and fought many armies, but among them had never seen the likes of two of them, the army of Egypt and the above-mentioned army of Ibn 'Uthman: the former however, was a mighty force without anyone to direct it, because of the youth of al-Malik an-Nasir Faraj and the lack of military knowledge on the part of the emirs about him, while Ibn Uthman was sagacious, adroit, and energetic, but had not the forces to aid him." It is for this reason that I have said that good policy demanded peace with Bayazid ibn 'Uthman; for the Egyptian armies would then have had someone to plan for them, while Ibn 'Uthman would have had the Egyptian forces to reinforce his own, and Tamerlane would have been powerless to oppose them; each of the two forces would have strengthened its own resistance to him. But there happened what we have narrated; and whatever God wishes happens. No one in Egypt made any preparation for war against Tamerlane after the reply mentioned above was written to Ibn 'Uthman, nor was any attention given to the matter. On the contrary, the highest aim of each one was for that which would help him attain the sultanate of Egypt and for the removal from the scene of everyone else - and let the world be turned topsy turvy! For at the same time that the distressing reports mentioned arrived in Egypt the Sultan and emirs received reports also that Emir Qani Bai al-'Ala'i az-Zahiri, an emir of the second class and head of guards, proposed to instigate a revolt; when the Sultan summoned him and ordered him to put on a robe in honor of his appointment as viceroy of Gaza, he refused to wear it. He was therefore apprehended and given into custody of Emir Aqbai the chamberlain, who took him down to his own house. Qani Bai remained there until the end of the day, when a party of the Sultan's mamluks assembled with the purpose of taking him away by force from Aqbai the chamberlain. In fear Aqbai took him up again to the Citadel, where the Sultan summoned the emirs; they considered the case, and agreed to leave Qani Bai in his emirate and office.
Muharram 25, 803 [September 15, 1400]: The post brought word to the Sultan from Aleppo that Tamerlane had taken Malatya. And on the following morning another report arrived by post that the advance guard of Tamerlane's army had reached 'Ain Tab; and in the letter were the words: "Aid the Muslims or they will perish."
The Sultan two days later summoned the Caliph, the Cadis, the emirs and foremost administrators, and they were informed that Tamerlane's vanguard had reached Mar'ash and 'Ain Tab. The purpose in calling this assembly was to secure money from the merchants as a means of aiding the distribution of funds among the army. The Cadis said: "It is yours to command and forbid, and no one can withstand you in this. But if a legal opinion on the subject is desired, confiscation of the property of anyone is not permitted, lest a curse fall upon the army." Then they were told: "We will take half of the trust funds of the country and use the money to bestow fiefs upon the troopers who are now out of service; for the troops are few because the trust funds are so many." To this the Cadis replied: And what would be the value of that? For if you rely in war upon soldiers out of service, it is to be feared that Islam will be lost." The matter was discussed for a long time, until finally the decision was reached to send Emir Asanbugha the executive secretary to investigate the reports received, and to send the Syrian forces toward Tamerlane. Asanbugha left by horse post on Safar 5 of the year 803 [September 25th]; but neglect and inattention marked affairs at Cairo because of the absence of centralized authority and because of the varied opinions that were held.
In the meanwhile the people of Syria were in a state which God alone could know, because of the fear and terror which had seized them; all wished to desert the towns, while the officials in charge of each restrained them, and promised that the Egyptian forces were coming to their defense.
Some days later the post brought a letter from the viceroy of Aleppo, Emir Damurdash al-Muhammadi, and with it a letter also from Asanbugha the executive secretary, stating that Tamerlane was maintaining the siege of the citadel of Bahasna after having taken the city itself, and that his armies had reached' Ain Tab. This report reached Cairo on Safar 24. Then preparations began for the Sultan's campaign, and the signal flag for departure was raised on I Rabi' 3.
Asanbugha the executive secretary had arrived at Damascus on Safar 7 [September 27th], and in the Umayyad Mosque had read the Sultan's letter ordering the Syrian forces to be armed and to take the field against Tamerlane. On the 9th the ambassador of Tamerlane had come to Damascus with official communications from him to the shaikhs, cadis, and emirs; the letters stated that he had gone to Iraq the proceeding year to punish those who had killed his ambassadors at ar-Rahba, and then had returned to India. The news of az-Zahir's death had reached him there, and he had returned and attacked the Georgians. Then when he received word of the incivility of that boy, Sulaiman ibn Abi Yazid ibn 'Uthman, he had set out for Asia Minor that he might twist his ears. He had gone to Siwas, and had done there and elsewhere in Asia Minor the things of which they had reports; then he had turned toward Egypt in order that he might strike coins there and have his name mentioned in the Friday sermon; thereafter he would return home. In his letter he demanded that Atilmish, one of his emirs who had been captured earlier during the reign of al-Malik az-Zahir Barquq, should be sent back to him, adding: "If you do not send him, you will be responsible for the blood of the Muslims." Sudun, viceroy of Damascus, paid no heed to Tamerlane's words; on the contrary, at his orders Tamerlane's ambassador was cut in two at the waist.
Asanbugha proceeded to Aleppo, and found that the reports which had been received at Cairo were correct: he sent to Egypt a report of what he saw and knew, enclosed with the letter of the viceroy of Aleppo. The letter in question reached Cairo on I Rabi' 3. It narrated that Tamerlane had besieged Buza'a, outside of Aleppo, while all the Syrian viceroys had assembled in Aleppo; and it urged that the Sultan and his forces should go from Cairo to Syria. It added that when Tamerlane had encamped at Buza'a, Emir Shaikh al-Muhmudi, viceroy of Tarabulus (he was the future al-Malik al-Mu'ayyad) had gone out toward Tamerlane's vanguard with seven hundred horsemen while the Tatars numbered about three thousand; the two forces, after shooting at each other with arrows, had fought a short while, Shaikh capturing four of the Tatars; each of the two parties had then returned to its own position. The four prisoners were then halved at the waist at the gates of Aleppo in the presence of all the assembled viceroys. Those gathered in the city were: Sudun, the viceroy of Damascus, with its army, enlisted troops, and [Druze] tribesmen; Shaikh al-Mahmudi, viceroy of Tarabulus with its army, enlisted troops, and infantry; Duqmaq al-Muhammadi, viceroy of Hama, with its army and Arabs; Altunbugha, viceroy of Safad, with its army and tribesmen; and 'Umar ibn at-Tahhan, viceroy of Gaza, with its army. The forces thus gathered in Aleppo were vast, but authority was divided and opinion unsettled because of the Sultan's absence. Tamerlane, when he had encamped at 'Ain Tab, had sent his ambassador to Emir Damurdash al-Muhammadi, viceroy of Aleppo, promising him continuance in his office and ordering him to seize Sudun, viceroy of Damascus, because he had put to death the ambassador whom he had before this date sent to Damascus. Damurdash took this messenger into the presence of the viceroys, and the messenger, disregarding the matter of the seizure of Sudun, to Damurdash: "The Emir (meaning Tamerlane) came to this country only because of your correspondence with him inviting him to encamp against Aleppo; you informed him that there was no one who could defend it." Damurdash was enraged at him when he heard say this; and he went toward him and struck him, then gave a command, and he was beheaded. It is said that the ambassador's remarks were a design of Tamerlane's craftiness and cunning to sow dissension among the army; that the emirs were aware of this, so that it failed of its purpose. However, a number of the Aleppans tell me how now that Damurdash did write to Tamerlane and held back from the battle; God knows best whether this was so or not.
The emirs and viceroys then agreed to make war on Tamerlane and each one prepared for the fray; for they now had lost hope that the Sultan and his forces would come to Syria; they knew that the emirs who were administering the government of Egypt had no plan, while the Sultan himself was too young and it was now too late. They themselves, however, had extremely meager forces in comparison with the armies and followers of Tamerlane. The most fitting procedure would have been for the Sultan to take his army from Cairo and arrive at Aleppo before Tamerlane marched from Siwas, az-Zahir Barquq (God have mercy on him) did on the occasion which has been mentioned before.
He the viceroys were putting their affairs in order for the battle, Tamerlane encamped his forces at Hailan, outside of Aleppo, on Thursday, I Rabi' 9 [October 28], and surrounded the city of Aleppo. The next morning, Friday, he assaulted the city and beleaguered its walls. On these two days there were many battles and engagements between him and the people of Aleppo, with arrows and with naphtha and other inflammable missiles; the people mounted the walls of the city and fought him vigorously.
At sunrise on Saturday the viceroys of Syria took all their forces as well as the populace outside Aleppo. They drew up their battalions and armies for the battle against Tamerlane; Sayyidi Sudun, viceroy of Damascus, with his mamluks and the Damascus army, was stationed on the right; Damurdash, viceroy of Aleppo, with his mamluks and the Aleppo army, on the left, and the rest of the viceroys in the center; they placed in front of them the people of Aleppo who were unmounted - this was the worst possible tactical blunder, despite Damurdash's claim to be an expert in tactics. As soon they had all taken their assigned positions Tamerlane attacked with armies which filled the landscape; he advanced against the Aleppo army in a mighty charge. He was met by the viceroys, who at first stood firm against the charge; although the left wing then was routed, Sudun, viceroy of Damascus, still held his position on the right supported by Shaikh, viceroy of Tarabulus; and they fought a mighty battle.
In the course of the battle Emir 'Izz ad-Din Azdamur, brother of Commander-in-Chief al-Yusufi, and his son Yashbak ibn Azdamur, advanced from the ranks with a number of horsemen; having offered their lives on the path of God, they fought mightily and displayed the greatest valor. Indeed, Azdamur and his son Yashbak ibn showed a degree of courage and valor which will perhaps be recalled until the judgment day, for Azdamur continued hurling himself against the enemy and wheeling among them until he was killed. At the time there was no report of what happened to him, for he was killed only when he had penetrated into the enemy's center. His son Yashbak fell among the slain also, covered with wounds; his head alone received more than thirty saber and other strokes, in addition to wounds in other parts of his body. He was then seize, and carried before Tamerlane, who on seeing the extent of his injuries marveled extremely at his bravery and endurance and, it is said, ordered that he be given medical treatment.
Only a short time passed before the Syrian forces turned in flight toward the city of Aleppo, with Tamerlane's men in hot pursuit; and a countless number of the inhabitants of Aleppo and others who were on foot perished under the horses' hoofs, for the citizens of Aleppo had gone out from the city to fight Tamerlane, even the women and boys; moreover, as they tried to enter through the city gates people crowded so closely together that they trampled upon one another; and corpses lay there man-high while crowds walked over them. The Syrian viceroys made for the Aleppo citadel and ascended to it, hordes of the inhabitants entering with them; they had previously transported to the Citadel all the property of the men of Aleppo.
Tamerlane's army had in the meanwhile immediately assaulted the city, lighted fires in it, and began to take prisoners, to plunder, and to kill. The women and children fled to the great mosque of Aleppo and to the smaller mosques, but Tamerlane's men turned to follow them, bound the women with ropes as prisoners, and put the children to the sword, killing every one of them. They committed the shameful deeds to which they were accustomed; virgins were violated without concealment; gentlewomen were outraged without any restraints of modesty; a Tatar would seize a woman and ravage her in the great mosque or one of the smaller mosques in sight of the vast multitude of his companions and the people of the city; her father and brother and husband would see her plight and be unable to defend her because of their lack of means to do so and because they were distracted by the torture and torments which they themselves were suffering; the Tatar would then leave the women and another go to her, her body still uncovered.
They then put the populace of Aleppo and its troops to the sword, until the mosques and streets were filled with dead, and Aleppo stank with corpses. This continued from the early forenoon of Saturday until the middle of Tuesday, I Rabi' 14 [November 2]. In the meantime the citadel was being subjected to the closest siege and attack, for Tamerlane's armies had mined its walls in a number of places and filled up its moat, so that it was all but captured.
Then the viceroys and other prominent men who were in the citadel held a council and agreed to ask for amnesty. They sent the request to Tamerlane, who demanded that some of the viceroys come down from the citadel to him. When Damurdash did so, Tamerlane bestowed on him a robe of honor, gave him letters of amnesty and robes for the viceroys, and sent with him to the citadel a vast number of his men. They went up and brought out the viceroys and the emirs and notables who were with them, shackled them together in pairs, then brought them all to Tamerlane. When they were made to stand before him he gazed at them a long time as they stood there, with Sudun, viceroy of Syria, as their head; then he began to upbraid and censure them, reproaching and threatening Sudun repeatedly for the murder of his ambassador, after which he gave each one of them into the charge of a custodian. Then the women were driven before him as captives, and money, jewels, and precious objects were brought to him, which he distributed among his emirs and intimate followers. The robbery, enslavement, and murder continued in Aleppo daily; trees were cut down, houses were ruined, and mosques were burned. The stench of corpses filled Aleppo and the environs; bodies lay on the ground, overspreading it like a carpet - one could step nowhere without finding dead bodies under his feet. Tamerlane constructed out of the heads of Muslims a number of pulpits about ten cubits in height and twenty in circumference; the human heads which they contained were counted and found to be more than 20,000; the structures were built with the heads protruding and seen by every passer-by.
Tamerlane remained in Aleppo - for a month, then departed; he left the city "fallen on its roofs," empty of its inhabitants and every human being, reduced to ruins; the muezzin's call and the prayer services were no longer heard; there was nought there but a desert waste darkened by fire, a lonely solitude where only the owl and the vulture took refuge.
Tamerlane next set out for Damascus, passing by the city of Hama, which his son Mirim Shah had taken. Miran Shah had encamped against Hama on the morning of Tuesday, I Rabi' 14 [November 2]. He had first plundered the surrounding territory, taken the women and children captive, and imprisoned the men, while his followers subjected the women and virgins to the most shameless treatment. When they had reduced everything outside the walls to ruin, Miran Shah encircled the walls themselves with his men. The people of Hama had in the meantime prepared for the conflict; men stood on the city walls and refused to surrender the city all night. The next morning Tamerlane's son induced them by a pretext to open one of the gates of the city for him; he then entered and issued a proclamation of security. Men came to him and brought him various sorts of food, which he accepted from them. He decided to appoint one of his followers to take charge of the city, for he was told that its prominent men had left it. Then he went to his camp, where he passed the night; and on Thursday he departed from Hama, promising that the people would be treated with kindness. The citadel of Hama, however, had not yet been taken by him, but had held out against him; and in the night before Friday its defenders went down to the city and killed two of the followers of Tamerlane's son whom he had placed in charge of it. On hearing the news Tamerlane's son returned to the city, attacked it, and set fire to it; his followers took to killing, capturing, and plundering until Hama was left like Aleppo. To the people of Aleppo, however, he had been [comparatively] mild. He had interrogated the Cadis of Aleppo, when they became his prisoners, concerning his war and asked them: "Who is a martyr?" To this Muhibb ad-Din Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn ash-Shihna the Hanafite had replied: "The prophet of God (God bless him and grant him peace!) was asked this question, and he answered: "He who fights that the word of God be supreme is a martyr." The answer pleased him, and he engaged them in further conversation; they asked him then to pardon the people of Aleppo and put none to death; he granted safety to all, and swore to them to that effect, so that some received merciful treatment in comparison with others.
At Damascus, when news of the taking of Aleppo was received a proclamation was issued that people should move from the environs to the inside of the city and prepare to fight the Godforsaken enemy. As they began their preparations the fugitives from Hama arrived so that, filled with fear, the Damascenes thought to leave. From this they were prevented, and this proclamation was made: "Whoever sets out will be subject to plunder." All those who had gone outside then returned; Damascus was fortified, the catapults were mounted on the citadel, and the naphtha throwers on the city walls; the preparations thus made to fight were excellent. Messengers from Tamerlane then came to the interim viceroy in Damascus, demanding the surrender of the city. The interim viceroy wished to flee, but the populace turned him back ignominiously. Then there was a loud outcry among the men, and they also agreed to leave the city; the women and children cried to God for aid, and the women went out with uncovered heads, going they knew not whither, until the interim viceroy issued the proclamation to prepare for defense. In the meanwhile the report arrived that the Sultan was coming to Syria, and determination of the men to depart from Damascus, held as long as the Sultan was not present, weakened.
In Egypt on I Rahi' 18 [November 6], seven days after Tamerlane had taken Aleppo, expense money for the journey was distributed among the Sultan's mamluks; on the 20th the enlisted troops were by proclamation ordered to appear on Wednesday for review at the palace of Emir Yashbak ash-Sha'bani the executive secretary.
I Rabi' 25. The report of the capture of Aleppo by Tamerlane and his siege of the citadel arrived at Cairo, but it was not believed, and the bearer of the news was arrested and imprisoned awaiting future punishment on the charge of falsification.
The distribution of money among the mamluks then began, each one of them receiving 3,400 dirhams. The night before Wednesday, the 29th [November 27], Emirs Sudun min Zada and Inal Hatab set out on dromedaries to investigate the report that had been received.
Shaikh Siraj ad-Din 'Umar al-Bulqini, the Chief Cadis, and Emir Aqbai the chamberlain then rode through the city preceded by a herald proclaiming a holy war on the path of God (Who is exalted) "against your greatest enemy Tamerlane; for he has seized the land, and, arriving at Aleppo, has killed children at their mothers' breasts, has destroyed the mosques and made them stables for their animals; and now he is coming against you to destroy your land and kill your men." Cairo was thrown into commotion at this proclamation; men's fears mounted and there was much weeping and lamentation among them, while tongues were loosened with vituperation against the government leaders.
II Rabi' 3 [November 19]: Emir Asanbugha, an executive secretary, arrived at Cairo and reported that Tamerlane had taken Aleppo and its citadel by agreement with Damurdash; he narrated the disasters which had descended on the people of that city, and that he had told the interim viceroy of Damascus to leave men free to depart from the city, for conditions were very difficult there.
The same day the Sultan an-Nasir set out from Cairo and encamped with his emirs, the army, and the cadis, at ar-Raidaniya. He designated Emir Timraz an-Nasiri, emir of the council, to be interim viceroy in Egypt, and stationed in Cairo Emir Jakam min 'Iwad and several other emirs. Timraz remained there to spur on the enlisted troops and to gather a thousand horses and a thousand camels to send on with the troopers who should be chosen for the expedition.
It was then ordered that Emir Aristai min Khuja 'Ali, former chief head of guards, should be appointed viceroy of Alexandria because of the death of the viceroy Faraj al-Halabi. Aristai from the time that he had been liberated had been in retirement in Alexandria, and the news of his appointment reached him there.
At Cairo Emir Timraz began to review the enlisted troops and gather the horses and camels; he also summoned the Arabs from Northern and Southern Egypt to fight against Tamerlane. This took place while the Sultan was still in ar-Raidiniya.
Friday morning, II Rabi' 8 [November 26]: The vanguard set out, including of the prominent emirs of the first class Baibars, commander-in-chief; Nauruz al-Hafizi, head of the corps of emirs; Baktamur ar-Rukni, emir of arms; Aqbai, grand chamberlain; Yalbugha an-Nasiri; and Inal Bai ibn Qajmas, together with a number of emirs of the second and third classes. The Sultan with the remainder of the emirs and soldiers then likewise set out from ar-Raidiniya in the direction of Syria to wage war on Tamerlane, and continued the march to Gaza.
II Rabi' 20 [December 8]: The Sultan encamped at Gaza, and summoned my father and Aqbugha al-Jamali al-Utrush, former viceroy of Aleppo, from Jerusalem. He invested my father with the vice-regency of Damascus in succession to Sudun, kinsman of Sultan az-Zahir Barquq, because the latter was then Tamerlane's prisoner; this was my father's first appointment as viceroy of Damascus. Emir Aqbugha al-Jamali al-Utrush was invested with the vice-regency of Tarabulus in place of Shaikh al-Mahmudi, who, also was a prisoner; Tamurbugha al-Manjaki was similarly made viceroy of Safad, succeeding Altunbugha al- 'Uthmani, also a prisoner; Tulu min 'Ali Basha was made viceroy of Gaza, in succession to 'Umar at- Tahhan; and Sadaqa ibn at-Tawil became viceroy of Jerusalem. The Sultan then sent all to their respective provinces.
My father then said to the Sultan and the emirs: "I have an opinion which I wish to express, for it will be of value to the Sultan and the Muslim people." On being asked what it was he replied: "It is my opinion that neither the Sultan nor his forces should undertake any movement from the city of Gaza, but that I should go to Damascus, encourage its people to fight, and fortify the city; for it is a mighty city which has not suffered disaster since ancient times, and it contains supplies enough to suffice its people for many years; moreover, its people are now filled with the greatest fear, so that they will fight to the death. Tamerlane will not he able to take it from me quickly, and he has an extremely large army which he cannot maintain long in anyone place. He will then either leave Damascus and proceed to Gaza against the Sultan, and when he penetrates far into the land, will be between two armies and this I do not think he will do; or he will return to his own country; like a fugitive. Moreover, his armies are unacquainted with the Syrian country, and there are few provisions on his path because the land has been wasted. Then let the Sultan with both the Egyptian and Syrian armies ride hot on the heels of Tamerlane's forces to the Euphrates and he will achieve his aim and more."
This plan was approved by all men, including Tamerlane himself when it was reported to him after he had taken Damascus. The order to carry it out had been all but given when some of the stupid emirs who had retained some grudge against my father from the affair of Aitamish and Tanam conversed secretly with one another and said: "You put his associates to death, and then hand Damascus over to him; by God, his purpose is surely to go to Damascus, come to an agreement with Tamerlane, and then return to make war on us, so that he can take vengeance on us for his companions' deaths." Nauruz al-Hafizi was opposite my father at the time, and when he heard this conversation, though he hesitated to repeat it to him, signaled to him to keep silence and refrain from urging his plan. The council then disbanded, and my father left the ceremonies and, after arranging his affairs, set out, for Damascus. There he found that Emir Damurdash, viceroy of Aleppo, had fled before Tamerlane had come to Damascus, whose inhabitants were terrified when they heard of the near approach. My father then undertook to organize the affairs of the people; he found them well armed and determined to fight Tamerlane until they all should perish. He grieved then that the Sultan had not accepted his advice - but he could do nothing now except remain silent.
II Rabi' 24 [December 12]: The Sultan's vanguard set out from Gaza, and the Sultan with the remainder of the army followed on the 26th; all continued their march until they reached Damascus.
On Thursday, I Jumada 6, the Sultan entered Damascus; it was a day made tragic by the cries of men, their tears, and their supplications to God for his succor. He went up to the citadel, and remained there until Saturday, the 8th, when he descended again and went out with his armies to his tent at the Dome of Yalbugha, outside the city. He and his army prepared to give battle to Tamerlane; the Zahiri mamluks had cut the shafts of their lances short so that they might be able to stab Tamerlane's men one after the other - such was their contempt for his soldiers.
At noon of that day Tamerlane's vanguard approached from the direction of Mount Hermon, consisting of about a thousand horsemen. A hundred of the Sultan's soldiers sallied forth to meet them, delivering one attack in which they scattered and routed them ignominiously and killed a large number of them, after which they returned. A number of Tamerlane's men then came to offer submission to the Sultan, and reported that Tamerlane had encamped in the Azizi Valley, adding: "So be on your guard, for Tamerlane is very wily and crafty." So the people took the greatest precautions against him.
Five emirs of Tarabulus then brought to the Sultan a letter from Asandamur, its interim viceroy, stating that Ahmad ibn Ramadan, emir of the Turcomans, together with Ibn Sahib al-Baz and the sons of Shahri had conspired together and proceeded to Aleppo, which they had taken from Tamerlane's followers and had killed of them more than 3,000 horsemen; that Tamerlane had sent to Tarabulus an army which had been attacked by the villagers and been killed to the last man with rocks (hurled upon them) as they entered between two mountains; that five of Tamerlane's soldiers had come and reported that half of his army intended to submit to the Sultan though this report was but a ruse of Tamerlane's. Asandamur added that letters had come from the rulers of Cyprus and Famagusta stating that they were awaiting permission to send ships by sea to fight against Tamerlane as a support to the Sultan. No attention was paid to this letter, for discord prevailed among those in Damascus.
On Saturday Tamerlane encamped at Qatanci with his armies, which were so numerous that they filled the land. A detachment of them rode forward to reconnoiter and found the Sultan and emirs prepared, with their lines drawn up for battle. Tamerlane's followers advanced and delivered a violent attack; both sides held their position for a while, then a battle followed in which the Sultan's left was routed and the Gaza army and others fled toward the Hauran, while a number were wounded. Tamerlane himself then led a mighty and violent attack in order to get possession of Damascus, but the Sultan's right repelled him at the point of the lance until it forced him back to his position.
The two armies then encamped in their respective camps, and Tamerlane sent to the Sultan requesting an armistice; he asked that Atilmish, one of his followers, be sent to him and offered in return to send to the Sultan the emirs who had been taken prisoner at the battle of Aleppo and were now with him. My father, Damurdash and Qutlubugha al-Karaki advised the acceptance of this offer, because of the discord which they knew existed among themselves, not because of the weakness of their forces. Their advice was not accepted, however, and it was insisted that the war should continue. Tamerlane then sent another messenger asking for peace, and repeated what he had said before, but although the emirs and all the men believed that his offer was sincere and was meant in earnest, the emirs refused to accept it, and fighting continued between the two sides daily.
On I Jumada 12 [or I Jamada 19, February 5th] a number of the Cairene emirs and Sultan's mamluks disappeared, including Sudun at-Tayyar, Qani Bai al-'Ala'i, head of guards, and Jumaq; and of the Sultan's intimate emirs Yashbak al-'Uthmani, Qumush al-Hafizi, Barsbugha an executive secretary, Tarabai, and a number of others. Dissension then arose among the emirs, and they returned to their bickering in regard to offices, fiefs, and control of the government, leaving the matter of Tamerlane as though it did not exist; and they also discussed among themselves the reason for the disappearance of the emirs and others mentioned above.
During all this Tamerlane continued w put forth his utmost endeavors to take Damascus and devise a ruse to that end; and when, he was informed of the quarrels of the emirs his position was strengthened and his efforts increased, though he had been on the point of marching off and had made his preparations accordingly. The report was then spread in Damascus that the emirs who had disappeared had gone together toward Cairo to raise to the sultanate Shaikh Lajin al-Jarkasi, one of the outside enlisted troopers. This gave great concern to the emirs who were carrying on the government, and because of their poor judgment it outweighed for them in importance the war against Tamerlane. They therefore agreed among themselves to take Sultan al-Malik an-Nasir in a lightly equipped detachment by night back to Egypt, informing only a few of their plan. But the matter of Lajin did not deserve the attention given it, for Tiniraz, the interim viceroy in Cairo, was fully able to deal with the conspirators on behalf of the Sultan; but what happened was done so that God might accomplish that which was to be done.
In the latter part of the night before Friday, II Jumada 21 [January 8th], the emirs took Sultan al-Malik an-Nasir Faraj suddenly, without the knowledge of the army, and rode in the direction of Egypt by way of the pass of Dummar, leaving the army and the Muslim subjects as sheep without a shepherd. They pressed the march by night and day until they arrived at Safad, whose viceroy, Tamurbugha al-Manjaki, they summoned and took with them. Many of the government officials and emirs also met them, and together they proceeded until they overtook at Gaza the other emirs who had set out for Egypt - may God punish them as they deserve! When they interrogated the emirs in regard to what they had done, they made excuses which could not be accepted either in this world or the next. The emirs then repented, when repentance was useless, that they had left Damascus; they had left that city to be devoured by Tamerlane, a city which at that time was the most beautiful and flourishing city of the world.
The remainder of the emirs and leading cadis and others of Egypt, when they learned of the departure of the Sultan from Damascus, immediately followed in groups, hoping to overtake him; but the [Druze] tribesmen captured most of them, plundering them and killing many of them.
Several of the chief Zahiri mamluks said to me: "When we learned of the Sultan's departure we immediately rode out, and we were delayed from overtaking him only because of the many arms lying on the ground along the way, thrown there by the Sultan's mamluks to lighten their horses' burden; if their horses were swift they escaped; otherwise Tamerlane's soldiers overtook them and made them prisoner. Among the latter was Chief Cadi Sadr ad-Din al-Munawi, who died while a captive, as will be narrated in the necrologies.
The stragglers - Sultan's mamluks and others - continued to arrive one after the other at Cairo in a desperate condition by reason of walking, lack of clothing, and hunger; and the Sultan ordered that each of the mamluks should be given a thousand dirhams and two months' subsistence pay.
The emirs likewise entered Cairo, accompanied only by one or two mamluks, having left in Damascus property, horses, battalions, and everything else which they possessed, for they had departed suddenly, without any mutual agreement, when they learned of the Sultan's going, and each one thought only of escape.
The armies which they left in Damascus, its own residents, and others for there were gathered in it many from Aleppo, Hama and Hima, as well as villagers who had fled before Tamerlane when on Friday morning they found the Sultan, emirs, and viceroy missing, closed the gates of Damascus, mounted on the city walls, and proclaimed a holy war. The people of Damascus prepared to fight, and when Tamerlane led his armies in an attack the inhabitants fought vigorously from on top of the walls, forcing the enemy to withdraw from both the walls and the moat, making prisoners of a number who had assaulted the Damascus Gate, seizing a large, number of their horses, and killing about a thousand men whose heads they brought within the city. They had the advantage now; and Tamerlane, baffled by them and aware that he would find the matter long drawn out, resorted to a ruse to take the city. While the Damascenes were fighting with all their strength and straining themselves in fortifying their city, two of Tamerlane's men approached beneath the walls and cried out from a distance: "The Emir desires an armistice; therefore send some wise man to discuss, the matter with him."
I remark: This is what my father referred to at Gaza when he was appointed viceroy of Damascus and said that the people of Damascus had the strength to repel Tamerlane from the city; and that Damascus was rich in supplies and food, was most strongly fortified, and that he should go thither and fight Tamerlane there. No one listened to what my father said on the subject; but, on my life, if those who did not approve what he said could have seen the way the people of Damascus now fought, and their great courage, though they were without a viceroy or anyone to direct their affairs - and how much more would this have been so had there been with them their ruler and his mamluks together with the emir, of Damascus, their armies, and all those who were attached to them - certainly they would have rightly repented and acknowledged their error.
When the people of Damascus heard Tamerlane's message concerning peace, their choice for ambassador fell upon the chief Hanbalite cadi, Taqi ad-Din Ibrahim ibn Muflih. He was lowered to the ground from the wall of Damascus, went to Tamerlane, had a meeting with him, and then returned to the city. Tamerlane had beguiled him by his artful speech, had spoken ingratiatingly and kindly to him. He had said to him: "This is the city of the prophets and the companions of Muhammad; I give it its freedom for the sake of the messenger of God (Whose blessing and peace be upon him!), as an alms offering from me and my sons; had it not been for my anger at Sudun, viceroy of Damascus, when he killed my messenger, I should not have come to the city; now Sudun has been captured and imprisoned by me; and since he was the object of my coming hither, my only remaining purpose is to return to my land. However, I must receive my usual gift of 'tuquzat'." It was his custom, namely, that when he took a city by surrender its inhabitants should bring to him nine of each species of food, drink, animals, clothing, and precious objects, and this they call "tuquzat," "tuquz" being the Turkish word for "nine"; this gift is a custom of Tatar kings to the present day.
When Ibn Muflih was back in Damascus he urged the men to cease fighting, and highly praised Tamerlane, his piety, and his sincere faith. He sought to restrain the Damascenes from carrying on the war against him, and one party was favorably inclined while another opposed him and insisted on continuing to fight. Thus they passed the eve of Saturday; but Saturday morning those who had opposed Ibn Muflih were won over to his view, and he decided to carry out the peaceful surrender of the city; he issued a proclamation that any who opposed this plan should be put to death and his life be taken with impunity. The men thereupon ceased fighting, and an ambassador of Tamerlane immediately came to Damascus to seek the gifts mentioned above. Ibn Muflih hastened to demand of the cadis, lawyers, prominent men, and merchants that they contribute the sum, each one in proportion to his circumstances. This they proceeded to do until the amount was complete, when they took it to the Gate of Succor in order to convey it to Tamerlane. But the viceroy of the Damascus citadel forbade them to do so, and threatened that if they did he would burn the city against them. They disregarded his words and said: "Rule over your citadel and we will rule over our city."
They then left the Gate of Succor and went on, sending the gifts outside the wall; Ibn Muflih again let himself down from the wall together with many of the prominent men of Damascus and others, and they proceeded to Tamerlane's camp. They passed the eve of Sunday there, and returned on Sunday morning. Tamerlane had appointed a number of them to various positions, such as that of chief cadi, vizier, collector of funds, etc. They also carried a royal patent from Tamerlane in their favor, a document of nine lines declaring safety for the inhabitants of Damascus, specifically for themselves and families. The patent was read from the pulpit of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.
The Little Gate of the city alone was then opened, and one of Tamerlane's emirs came and took his seat there to guard the city against the entrance of any of Tamerlane's soldiers. The people of Damascus acquiesced in all this and rejoiced at it. Ibn Muflih and the prominent men of Damascus who had gone with him heaped praises on Tamerlane, repeating his virtues and excellent qualities. Ibn Muflih called upon the people to yield obedience and show themselves friendly to Tamerlane, and urged all to collect the sum which had been fixed for them to pay him, namely, 1,000,000 dinars. The payment of this sum he made an obligation of the people as a whole, and they provided it without difficulty because of the vastness of their wealth.
When the entire sum was ready Ibn Muflih conveyed it to Tamerlane, and set it down before him; but when the latter looked at it he became exceedingly angry - he was not satisfied with it. He ordered Ibn Muflih, and those with him to leave him; they were taken away from his presence and placed under the charge of a number of guards, until they obligated themselves to bring a thousand "tumans," a tuman being the equivalent of 10,000 gold dinars, although the price of gold differed for them; under all circumstances, however, the sum was 10,000,000 dinars. They accepted the obligation, returned to the city, and again made the payment an obligation of the whole people, on the basis of three months' rent of their properties; they also obligated each person, male and female, free and slave, to contribute ten dirhams, and each trust administrator to pay a sizable sum.
In the exaction of this second sum from them a great trial came upon the people; many of them were tortured with blows; prices rose, and provisions became very scarce, one "mudd," that is, four "qadahs of wheat rose to 40 silver dirhams. Friday prayers ceased to be recited in Damascus, and Friday services were held there only twice, until prayers were said on its pulpits for Sultan Mahmud and his heir apparent, the son of Emir Tamerlane. Sultan Mahmud was but a tool in the hands of Tamerlane, appointed because according to their custom only one of royal descent might rule over them.
Then Shah Malik, one of Tamerlane's emirs, came to Damascus as viceroy there representing Tamerlane. Two weeks later Friday prayers were forbidden in Damascus because of the vast number of Tamerlane's followers in the city.
During all this time the viceroy of the citadel was holding out there, while Tamerlane's assisting forces were besieging it tightly; he surrendered it, however, after twenty-nine days, during which innumerable catapults and ballistas directed their fire against it.
Suffice it to say that because of the extreme difficulty of the capture of the citadel they built opposite it a wooden fortress; and when it was finished and the forces of Tamerlane wished to ascend to combat from its top those in the citadel, the latter hurled naphtha upon it and burnt it down. Tamerlane's men then erected another tower greater than the first, ascended it, and from it fought the men in the citadel. This was despite the fact that there were in it but few fighting men, less than forty. But the siege had lasted too long for them, and in despair of receiving aid they requested amnesty and surrendered the fortress under promise of safety. I remark: May their hands never wither! They were truly brave men, God (Who is exalted) have mercy on them.
When the collection of the money, a thousand tumans, had been completed, Ibn Muflih took it to Tamerlane, who said to him and his companions: "This according to our reckoning is only 3,000,000 dinars, so you still owe 7,000,000; it appears to me that you are in default." Tamerlane, when he first agreed with Ibn Muflih upon the sum of 1,000,000 dinars, stipulated that this should be paid by the inhabitants of Damascus specifically, and that the arms and property left behind by the Egyptian armies should be his in addition Ibn Muflih had taken to him all the property of the people of Egypt, and when he had all this in his possession and knew that he had gotten everything that the Egyptians possessed, he compelled them to produce the possessions of those who had fled from Damascus; they hastened to bring all that also, and became informers against each other before him, until all that they had was gone.
Then when this was completed he obligated them to bring to him all the arms, great and small, that were in the city; and they sought them out for him until there was no weapon left.
When this too had been finished, he seized Ibn Muflih and his companions and forced them to write down the names of all the quarters, squares, and streets of Damascus; when they had done so and given the lists to him, he distributed them among his emirs, dividing the city among them. The emirs entered the city with their mamluks and attendants, and each emir settled in his alloted section and then summoned its inhabitants and demanded money of them. At that time there came upon the people of Damascus afflictions beyond description: they were subjected to all sorts of tortures; they were bastinadoed, crushed in presses, scorched in flames, and suspended head down; their nostrils were stopped with rags full of fine dust which they inhaled each time they took a breath so that they almost died. When near to death, a man would be given a respite to recover, then the tortures of all kinds would be repeated, so that the sufferer would envy a companion who had perished under his tortures and would say: "Would that I might die and be at rest from my pain.
And in the meanwhile all his women and daughters and sons were divided among the companions of that emir, and while under torture he would see his wife and daughter ravished and his son defiled; as he cried out in the pain of his torture the boy and girl would cry out in the suffering of their violation. All this took place without any concealment, in broad daylight and in the presence of crowds of people. Indeed, the people of Damascus witnessed tortures of kinds that had never been heard of before. For example, they would take a man and tie a rope around his head, and twist it until it would sink into his flesh; they would put a rope around a man's shoulders, and twist it with a stick until they were torn from their sockets; they would bind another victim's thumbs behind him, then throw him on his back, pour powdered ashes in his nostrils to make him little by little confess what he possessed; when he had given up all, he would still not be believed, but the torture would be repeated until he died; and then his body would be further mutilated in the thought that he might be only feigning death, And some would tie their victim by his thumbs to the roof of the house, kindle a fire under him and keep him thus a long time; if by chance he fell in the flames, he would be dragged out and thrown on the ground till he revived, then he would be thus suspended a second time.
These trials and tortures of the people of Damascus continued for nineteen days, the last being Tuesday, Rajab 28, 803 [March 14, 1401] There perished, during this period of torture and hunger, human beings whose number God (Who is exalted) alone knows. When Tamerlane's emirs knew that nothing was left in the city they went to him, and he asked them: "Have you any more concern with Damascus?" And when they said "No," he granted the city to the followers of the emirs, who entered it on foot on Monday, Rajah 30, with swords drawn from their sheathes. They stole whatever they could lay their hands on, household furniture, etc., took captive all the women of the city, and drove before them, bound with ropes, the men and boys, leaving only the children less than five years old. They then set fire to the dwellings, palaces, and mosques, and as it was a day of high winds the fire spread throughout the city, and the flames almost mounted to the clouds. The fire continued burning for three days and three nights, the last of which was Friday.
Tamerlane (may God curse him) departed from Damascus on Saturday Sha'ban 3 [March 19th], having been there 80 days. The whole city had burned, the roofs of the Umayyad Mosque had fallen in because of the fire, its gates were gone, and the marble cracked - nothing was left standing but the walls. Of the other mosques of the city, its palaces, caravanseries, and baths, nothing remained but wasted ruins and empty traces; only a vast number of young children was left there, who died, or were destined to die, of hunger.
Sultan al-Malik an-Nasir Faraj, after remaining in Gaza three days, had departed for Egypt, sending on in advance Aqbugha al-Faqfh, one of the executive secretaries. The latter had arrived at Cairo on Monday, II Jumada 2, and informed Emir Timraz, the interim viceroy, of the Sultan's arrival at Gaza. Cairo was in commotion at the news and men almost lost their minds, for each had thought that the Sultan had been defeated by Tamerlane and that the latter was in pursuit of him. They had begun to sell all they possessed and prepared to flee Cairo; the price of animals rose until it was several times the normal.
Thursday, II Jumada 5 [January 20th]: The Sultan arrived at the Citadel with the Caliph, emirs, the Syrian viceroys, and about a thousand of the Sultan's mamluks - others say about five hundred.
Saturday, II Jumada 7: The Sultan granted my to father an emirate of the first class in Egypt which was unassigned in the Sultan's private bureau, after he had asked to be relieved of the vice-regency of Damascus; the Sultan then nominated for that office Aqbugha al-Jamali al-Utrush, and ordered my father to sit at the head of the right side of the council.
The Sultan then gave permission to Emir Yalbugha as-Salimi, the major-domo, to direct all affairs connected with the government, and ordered that he should send an army to Damascus to make war won Tamerlane. Yalbugha as-Salimi began to collect revenues, and imposed contributions on all lands in Egypt, including the fiefs of the emirs, the Sultans cities, the appanages of the enlisted troops, and the trust-fund cities, at the rate of 500 silver dirhams and one horse per 1,000 dinars. Then he taxed all real properties in Cairo and Old Cairo with a month's rent; even the value of a mans own dwelling would be estimated and a month's rent taken; also the trust lands - that is, those the product of which were received by certain individuals as alms and charity - were taxed at the rate of ten dirhams per acre, the rent per acre at that time being from thirty dirhams down. I remark that he collected a half of its land tax in one round which he made, taking for an acre of sugar cane, colocassia, or indigo, a hundred dirhams, or about four dinars, per hundredweight. Gardens he taxed at the rate of one hundred dirhams per acre.
He then summoned the treasurers of the judiciary and the merchants and demanded loans from them; he made a surprise visit by night to the caravanseries and storehouses, and in case he found anyone there he opened his money chest and took half of the cash which he found (that is, of the gold, silver, and copper coins), but if he did not find the owner of the property he would take all the coins. Furthermore, he seized all the trust deposits he could find. In addition to this the money changer received three dirhams per hundred dirhams; the messenger who brought anyone who was summoned received six dirhams, or, if he held the rank of sergeant, ten. This is according to the Shaikh Taqi ad-Din al-Marqrizi (God have mercy on him), who says: "The people suffered severely, and they cursed as-Salimi bitterly." I remark: On the whole they were better off than the people of Damascus; and if a half of what they had was taken from them, what was as-Salimi - poor fellow! - to do, since the Sultan had directed him to send a second army from Egypt to combat Tamerlane?
II Juriiada 13 [January 28th]: Cadi Amm ad-Din Abd al-Wahhab, son of Chief Cadi Shams ad-Din Muhammad at-Tarabulusi, cadi of the army, was invested with the office of chief Hanafite cadi of Egypt upon the death of Chief Cadi Jamal ad-Din Yusuf al-Malati; and Cadi Jamal ad-Din 'Abd Allah al-Aqfahsi was made chief Malikite cadi, succeeding Cadi Nur ad-Din 'Ali ibn al-Khallal because of the latters death. On the same day there arrived three hundred of the straggler mamluks in a deplorable state from traveling on foot, lack of clothes and hunger.
II Jumada 21 [February 5th]: Chief Hanbalite Cadi Muwaffaq ad-Din Ahmad ibn Nasir Allah arrived at Cairo, likewise in a deplorable state; also the chief Shafiite cadi of Damascus, 'Ala' ad-Din 'AIr ibn Abi I-Baqa'. Also a letter for the Sultan from Tamerlane was brought by one of the Sultan's mamluks, seeking the surrender of Atilmish, and stating that when he should come to him he would send the emirs, viceroys, and others who were with him, also Chief Shafiite Cadi Sadr ad-Din al-Munawi, and would depart from Damascus. Atilmish was summoned from the Citadel Tower, set free, given 5,000 dirhams and lodged with Emir Sudun Taz, grand emir of the horse; Qutlubugha al-' Ala'i and Emir Muhammad ibn Sunqur were designated to make the journey with him. Emir Baisaq ash-Shaikhi, an emir of the horse, then went to Tamerlane as messenger from the Sultan to report the liberation of Atilmish, and other matters
In the meanwhile Yalbugha as-Salimi was energetically gathering funds, and began to review the enlisted troops. He obligated everyone able to travel to go to Damascus for war against Tamerlane; and those unable to journey he obligated to furnish a substitute, or contribute half his crops for the year; from the owners of produce brought for sale in ships to the shores of Cairo he required that there be collected one dirham per irdabb.
Tuesday, Rajab 1 [February 15th]: As-Salimi ordered that dinars should be struck weighing some 101 mithqals,12 some 91 mithqals, and then so on down to those weighing 10 mithqals; a number of such coins were then struck off.
The Sultan then invested Alam ad-Din Yalwa ibn As'ad, known as Abu Kumm, with the office of vizier in Egypt in succession to Fakhr ad-Din Majid ibn Ghurab. A report then arrived stating that Damurdash al-Muhammadi, viceroy of Aleppo, had escaped from Tamerlane, had gathered bands of Turcomans, and had taken the city and citadel of Aleppo from Tamerlane's officials, of whom he had put a large number to death.
The Sultan then invested Shahin al-Balabi, second commander of the Sultan's mamluks, with the office of commander in succession to Sawwab, known as Shankal, and made the eunuch Firuz min Jirji, commander of the Rafraf Barrack, second commander of the mamluks.
Rajab 7 [February 21st]: There arrived in the environs of Cairo 6,000 horsemen of the Arabs of Buhaira Province, 2,500 Ibn Baqar Arabs from Sharqiya Province, and 1,500 of the 'Isawi and Banu Wa'il; Yalbugha as-Salimi distributed money among them so that they might prepare to take the field against Tamerlane.
Rajab 8. The ambassador of Emir Nu'air arrived at Cairo and related that he had gathered many Arabs and encamped with them at Palmyra; likewise that Tamerlane had gone from the outskirts of Damascus to al-Qutaiyifa.
By this time the government officials had directed their attention to Yalbugha as-Salimi and had been working for his downfall, which they eventually accomplished. On Rajab 14 Yalbugha was arrested together with Shihab ad-Din Umar ibn Qutaina, my father's major-domo, who had held the office of vizier before this date. The two were handed over to Sa'd ad-Din Ibrahim ibn Ghurab for an accounting of the sums taken from the people in the tax collections. I remark that this case exemplifies the proverb: "Make me poor among those I love and I will not ask for riches."
Rajab 18 [March 4th]: Sa'd ad-Din Ibrahim ibn Ghurab was appointed to the office of major-domo succeeding as-Salimi and, in addition to the two other offices which he had held, to the controllership of the army and that of the Sultan's privy funds.
Sha'ban 5. The emirs who had been designated to go on the campaign to fight Tamerlane led the Sultan's mamluks, and the enlisted troops similarly designated, to the suburbs of Cairo; they were those who had remained in Cairo while the Sultan had been absent in Damascus. The commander of the entire force was Timraz an-Nasiiri, emir of the council, with Aqbai min Hasan Shah az-Zahiri, grand chamberlain, and, of the second class emirs, Jarbash ash-Shaikhi, Tumantamur, and Sumai al-Hasani. Emir Jakam refused to make the journey.
On Sha'ban 7 Emir Shaikh al-Mahmudi, viceroy of Tarabulus, arrived at Cairo, having escaped from Tamerlane; he reported that Tamerlane had set out for his own land. The Sultan then ordered that the expedition be canceled and the emirs should each return from the environs of Damascus to his own home. The following morning Duqrnaq al-Muhammadi, viceroy of Hama, also arrived, having fled from Tamerlane.
On that day also my father was summoned and invested with the vice-regency of Damascus a second time, against his own desire; the post had been vacant since the day Tamerlane had come to Damascus. Next Shaikh al-Muhmudi was invested with the vice-regency of Tarabulus (the office which he held before); Duqmaq with that of Hama (likewise a continuance in office); Tamurbugha al-Manjaki with that of Safad, and Tankizbugha al-Hitati with that of Ba'labakk.
A proclamation was then made in Cairo that no Persians should remain in the city; they were allowed three days in which to leave, and threats of punishment made against anyone who should remain. None of them left, however; .and people wrote on many of the walls: To kill the Ajam is an aid to Islam.
In the meanwhile Egyptian affairs remained unsettled, while in Syria there was a great plague of locusts after Tamerlane left, and ruin was added to ruin there.
TAMERLANE
Here let me recount a selection of events from Tamerlane's history, his genealogy, the size of his armies, and his great shrewdness and craftiness, so that he who looks into this book may have a knowledge of the events and circumstances of his life; and although therein is some prolixity and a departure from the main subject, it is still not without some usefulness.
He was Timurlank - others say Timur, both of which have the same meaning, though the second is the better Turkish form ibn Aitamish Qanligh ibn Zankl ibn Sanya ibn Tarim ibn Tughril ibn Qalpah ibn Sunqur ibn Kanjak ibn Taghar Sabuqa ibn Iltakhan, Mongol by origin, a Turk of the group of Jaghatai; the tyrant Timur Kurkan - that is, in Persian, "the relative by marriage of kings."
He was born in 728 [1328] in a village named Khawaja Abghar, of the district of Kashsh1 one of the, cities of Transoxania; the distance of this town from the city of Samarkand is one day.
It is said that on the night he was born something resembling a helmet was seen which appeared to be flying in the middle of the sky and which fell to the ground in a great open plain; live coals and sparks from it were scattered about until they filled the land. It is said also that when he came forth from his mother's womb his palms were found to be filled with blood; and this was understood to mean that blood would be shed by his hand. I remark: and so it happened.
It is said further by some that his father was a shoemaker; others say that his father was an emir at the court of Sultan Husain, ruler of the city of Balkh, and was one of the pillars of his government, and that his mother was a descendant of Chingiz Khan. Again it is said that Sultan Husain had four viziers, of whom Tamerlane's father was one, and that on the father's death Tamerlane took over his position at the court of the Sultan. Tamerlane was by origin of the tribe of Barlas.
It is said that the first known circumstance of Tamerlane's life was that he used to engage in robbery. One night he stole a sheep, which he took up in order to carry it off, when the shepherd awoke and shot him with an arrow which hit his shoulder; he followed this with another, which missed him, and then with still another which hit him in the thigh, leaving its effects on him so that he became lame from it, and for this reason he was called Timurlank," because "lank" in Persian means 'lame.' His real name, however, was Timur, without "lank," which was added only after he became lame. When he had recovered he took to brigandage again and became a highway robber; in this he was aided by a band numbering forty.
During those days Tamerlane used to say to them: I shall surely rule the earth and kill the kings of the world." Some used to laugh at him, but some believed him because of the determination and bravery which they saw he possessed. It is said that on one of his brigandage raids he wandered about lost for a number of days, and finally happened on the horses of the Sultan Husain, mentioned above. The herdsman in charge of the horses gave him shelter, felt a liking for him, and showed him hospitality by bringing him the food and drink which he needed. Tamerlane had a perfect knowledge of what good horses were, a fact which pleased the horse keeper. He kept him with him until, he sent him in charge of some horses to Sultan Husain and informed the latter about him. The Sultan bestowed a gift on him and sent him back to the keeper, with whom he remained until the keeper died, when Sultan Husain appointed him to succeed him in charge of his horses on pasture.
Thereafter Tamerlane continued to rise from one position to another until he became a man of importance and one of the emirs. He married Sultan Husain's sister, and remained with her for a time until one day they had an argument in which she taunted him with the poor circumstances of his earlier life. He killed her, and took to flight and to open rebellion against Sultan Husain. He then grew in power, conquered Transoxania, and married the daughters of its kings. It was then that he was given the by-name "Kur Kan;" which name has been spoken of above.
His power continued to increase and his territories expand until Sultan Husain came to fear him and determined to make war on him. When news of this reached him he fled. But after 760 A.H. [1359] his power increased, and when he had a large army he sent to the rulers of Balakhshan, two brothers who had come to the throne after their father's death, and invited them to acknowledge his authority, to which they returned a favorable reply.
The Moghuls, under their leader Khan Qamr ad-Din, had risen in the East against Sultan Husain and the latter had marched against them and fought them. Tamerlane now sent and invited them to come to him; they accepted and acknowledged his authority; he thus gained further in power.
Sultan Husain then proceeded against them a second time with a large army and arrived at Daghlugha, a narrow pass through which it takes a man an hour to ride; in the middle of it is a gate which when it is closed and defended no one can take; and around it are high mountains. The army took possession of the mouth of this pass on the Samarkand side, while Tamerlane stationed his men\on the other road. The army thought they had besieged and hemmed him in, but he left them and took a little-known: way going by night through rough and difficult terrain, and came upon them in the early morning. They had begun to load their impedimenta, under the supposition that Tamerlane had fled and gone from them in fear. But Tamerlane tricked them by dismounting with his men, while they thought that he was of their own party and was planning to rest. When Husain's army had entirely passed, Tamerlane and his men rode close on their heels, shouting and striking fiercely with their swords. Husain's men were thrown into confusion, and Husain fled with those who were with him, each one by himself, until he reached Balkh. Tamerlane took possession of all that the Sultan had had, and the remainder of the latter's soldiers attached themselves to him. So his following and his resources grew, he took possession of territories, and continued on his course until he captured Sultan Husain after he had granted him a safe-conduct; and he then put him to death. This was the beginning of his renown.
Next was his battle with Tuqtamish Khan, king of the Tatars, whom he encountered at the extremities of Turkestan, near the Khujand River. The battle between them waxed hot, and Tamerlane's army lost so many men that it was almost annihilated, and he determined to flee.
Just then there approached him the revered Sayyid and Sharif Baraka, to whom Tamerlane, worn out by his trials, said: "Sayyidi, my army is defeated"; but the Sayyid and Sharif Baraka replied: "Have no fear"; and dismounting from his horse and taking up a handful of pebbles he mounted again and threw them in the faces of Tuqtamish's soldiers, crying out at the top of his voice: "yaghi qajti, which in Turkish means "the enemy has fled." Tamerlane shouted loudly the same words as the Sharif Baraka, so that the ears of his men were filled with their cry, and they all rallied to him after having already turned in flight. Tamerlane led them back to a second charge against the army of Tuqtamish, every man. Of them shouting "yaghi qajti," whereupon Tuqtamish Khan's army fled, and Tamerlane's men were at their backs, plundering them of uncountable amounts of property. He then conquered most of the country of Tuqtamish Khan.
His third conflict was with Shira Ali, ruler of Mazandaran, Gilan, the land of Rai and Iraq, whom he defeated, captured and slew, and then ruled all of his territory.
Then comes the account of his relations with Shah Shuja', ruler of shiraz, the marriage of the daughter of Shah Shuja' to Tamerlane's son, and the truce which Shah Shuja' made with him and which lasted until his death, when his sons quarreled and Shah Mansur gained power over all his brothers. Tamerlane then took the field against Shah Mansur, who with only two thousand horsemen met him in battle. This Shah Mansur was indisputably the bravest horseman of all the rulers who fought Tamerlane, for he went forth to meet him with the two thousand horsemen while Tamerlane's army numbered almost a hundred thousand. And as Shah Mansur thus went out to meet him one of the emirs of his army named Muhammad ibn Amin ad-Din fled to Tamerlane with most of the men, so that he was left in command of less then one thousand. Nevertheless he led them in battle against Tamerlane the whole day until nightfall, when each of the opposing forces went to its camp.
Shah Mansur then mounted during the night, attacked Tamerlane's forces in the dark, and killed about ten thousand horsemen. He next chose five hundred of his own horsemen and led them to battle the next morning; making for Tamerlane he forced him from his position, and Tamerlane took to flight and hid among his women. With his small force he surrounded Tamerlane's men despite their vast numbers, fighting them until his hands became weak and his warriors had fallen; he became separated from his followers and cast himself among the slain. One of Tamerlane's men struck and killed him, and then brought his head to Tamerlane; but the latter in grief for his loss put to death the man who had slain him. Tamerlane ruled over all the domain of Persia after Shah Mansur. This battle with Shah Mansur I have described in greater detail than here in my work "al-Manhal as-Safi," since that is a biographical work.
Tamerlane then brought under his rule one government after another, until he took possession to the two Iraqs; Sultan Ahmad ibn Uwais fled from him, and he ruined the greater part of Iraq, including Bagdad, Basra, al-Kufa, and their dependencies. Then he took possession of most of the Diyar Bakr region, and ruined a number of cities there also.
His next objective, in 798 [1396], was Syria, but in fear of al-Malik az-Zahir Barquq he turned back to his own country. There he received news that Firuz Shah, ruler of India, had died without leaving a son and that there was discord among the people of the city of Delhi. A vizier named Mallu had usurped the throne there, but he was opposed by the brother of Firuz Shah, Sarank Khan, who was ruler of the city of Multan.
When Tamerlane heard this report he seized the opportunity, marched in the month of Dhu Hijja, 800 [1398], from Samarkand to Multan, besieged King Sarank Khan for six months, and took the city. Tamerlane then proceeded to Delhi, the capital. Mallu went out to give him battle; in the forces which were before him were eight hundred elephants, which were a part of Sarank Khan's army. Upon each of the elephants there had been mounted a tower containing a number of fighting men. The animals had also been clothed with armor and caparisons, upon which had been hung gongs and bells which made a terrific din, the purpose being to stampede thereby the horses of the Jaghatai; they had also fastened to the elephants' trunks a number of thin blades. The forces of India marched behind the elephants, so that the elephants in front of them might set the horses of Tamerlane's men in panic by means of the objects which they carried.
Tamerlane, however, outwitted them; he reckoned with their plan by preparing thousands of three-pointed iron spines which he strewed in the paths of the elephants. He also loaded five hundred camels with reeds stuffed with wicks dipped in oil, and placed these camels before his own army. When the two armies came in sight of each other and advanced for battle Tamerlane set fire to the loads of reeds and drove the camels toward the elephants; the camels because of the intense heat of the fire leapt forward, and then their drivers goaded them from behind.
Tamerlane had also placed some of his men in ambush. He slowly led his army on in the early morning, and as the enemy charged he turned his horse's head back to make them believe that he had fled from them, and, swerving aside from the path of the elephants as though his horses were running away in fear, he made for the area in which he had scattered the iron spines prepared by him. His ruse was effective in deceiving the Indians; they drove the elephants vigorously after him until they trod upon the iron thorns, and as they stepped upon them they recoiled. Tamerlane then wheeled his army against them with the camels, on whose backs the flames were now burning with intense heat while the sparks flew everywhere; their panic became hideous because of the violence with which they were being goaded in the rear. When the elephants saw this they took fright and wheeled about toward the Indian army; and when they felt the harsh spines which Tamerlane had thrown in their course they knelt down, becoming like mountains in the path, and lay on the ground unable to move, while their blood poured out in rivers. At that Tamerlane's men who were in ambush emerged on both sides of the army of India, and Tamerlane then galloped forward with his men. The Indians turned, and the two armies shot at one another with arrows; then they came to close combat, first with lances, then with swords and battle-axes. Each of the armies held its ground for a long time, until finally the army of India was defeated, having lost their prominent leaders and warriors; then the remainder fled, worn out with battle.
Tamerlane followed in hot pursuit until he alighted at Delhi, which he besieged and after a time took by force, gaining possession of the throne and seizing all its treasures, while his armies in their usual shameful manner took prisoners and captives, killed, plundered, and ruined.
While they were thus engaged Tamerlane learned of the death of al-Malik az-Zahir Baruq, ruler of Egypt, and also of the death of Cadi Burhan ad-Din Ahmad, ruler of Siwas in Asia Minor. Tamerlane thought that now by their death he had conquered their countries, and almost flew for joy at the news. He settled his affairs and turned about hastily, leaving as viceroy in India one of his emirs in whom he had full confidence. He journeyed until he arrived at Samarkand, then in the early part of 802 A.H. [October 1399] hastily departed, encamped in Khurasan, then went to Tabriz and appointed his son Miran Shah to rule there. Proceeding on, he encamped in Qarabagh in the month of I Rabi', killing and taking captives there; then he departed and encamped at Tiflis in the month of II Jumada [February 1400] and traversed the land of Georgia, killing and taking captives wantonly.
His next objective was Baghdad, whose Sultan, Ahmad ibn Uwais, fled from him to Qara Yusuf; and Tamerlane returned from Baghdad and spent the summer in the country of the Turcomans. He then went to Siwas, which Sulaiman ibn Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman had taken; after a siege of eighteen days he took it on Muharram 5, 803 A.H [August 27, 1400]; and seizing its armed men, three thousand individuals, he dug for them an underground vault into which he threw them and then covered them with earth. This was after he had sworn to them that he would shed the blood of none of them; and he then said: "I have kept my oath, since I have not shed the blood of any of them." He then put the inhabitants to the sword and destroyed the city, wiping out every trace of it.
Next he went to Bahasna, plundered its outskirts, and took its citadel after a siege of twenty-three days, then proceeded to Malatya and leveled it. He went on and attacked Qal'at ar-Rum, but, unable to conquer it, left for Ain Tab, whose viceroy, Arikmas az-Zahiri fled from it. Aleppo and Damascus were his next objectives; what he did there until the time he left Syria has already been recounted. His departure from Damascus was on Saturday, Sha'ban 3, 803 A.H. [March 19, 1401] He then passed by Aleppo and subjected it a second time to the fate that had been decreed for it. From there he went and attacked Maridin on Monday; Ramadan 10 [April 25, 1401] of the same year. Certain events befell him there, and he departed from the city, giving the impression that he was making for Samarkand so as to distract attention from Baghdad.
Sultan Ahmad ibn Uwais had appointed as viceroy in Baghdad an emir named Faraj, while he himself and Qara Yusuf had gone toward Asia Minor. Tamerlane in a surprise move sent Amirzah Rustum with twenty thousand men to take Baghdad, then followed him with the remainder of his forces. He encamped at Baghdad and besieged it, finally taking it by conquest on the day of the Festival of the Sacrifices that year [July 22, 1401], and put the inhabitants to the sword.
Emir Asanbai, the warden of the armory (one of az-Zahir Barquq's former mamluks, who had been taken prisoner by Tamerlane, had found favor with him, and was made by him his own armory warden), told me concerning the capture and siege of Baghdad some terrible tales. For instance, when Tamerlane got possession of the city he compelled everyone of his followers to bring him the heads of two of the inhabitants. The slaughter took place in Baghdad and its territories, and blood flowed in streams before they had brought him what he required. Of these heads he then built 120 minarets; the number of Baghdads inhabitants who were killed on this day was about 100,000 men (AI-Maqrizi says 90,000), and this was in addition to those killed during the days of the siege, those killed on the day when he entered Baghdad, and those who threw themselves into the Tigris and were drowned, a number even larger than that first mentioned. He says: "If a man who was ordered to bring two heads could not secure heads of two men he would cut off the head of a women, shave off its hair, and bring it instead. And some of them would stand in the streets, pursue one of the passers-by and cut off his head."
From Baghdad, after he had razed it level with the ground, Tamerlane went to Qarabagh, where he encamped. He then wrote to Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman, lord of Asia Minor, to expel Sultan Ahmad ibn Uwais and Qara Yusuf from his territories, threatening that if he did not comply he would bring upon him the same punishment that had befallen others. Abu Yazid sent back an exceedingly gruff reply, so Tamerlane set out in his direction.
Abu Yazfd ibn 'Uthman assembled his forces of Muslims, Christians, and various divisions of the Tatars, and when his army was complete he marched to give him battle. Before his arrival Tamerlane sent to the Tatars who were with Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman, saying: "We are one race, and these are Turcomans whom we shall expel from our midst, and then Asia Minor will be yours instead of theirs." The Tatars were deceived by him and promised that when the encounter took place they would be with him.
Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman marched on with the expectation that he would meet Tamerlane outside of Siwas and repulse him so that he could not enter Asia Minor. But Tamerlane took another road; marching through untraveled country, he entered Ibn 'Uthman's territory and encamped in a wide, fertile district. Before Ibn 'Uthman was aware of it he had been robbed of his land, and in consternation turned back; he and his men had become so weary that their strength was gone and their horses were worn out too. He was encamped now in a waterless region, and his soldiers were near to perishing. As they approached each other for battle, the first disaster that alighted upon Ibn 'Uthman was that the Tatars in their entirety betrayed him; since they constituted his main force, his army was thus much reduced.
His son Sulaiman then followed them and left his father, to return to the city of Brusa with the remainder of his army; there were now left with Abu Yazid only about 5,000 horsemen, with whom he held his ground until Tamerlane's forces had surrounded them. Against these, however, he delivered a terrific attack with sword and battle-axe and continued fighting until his followers had killed of Tamerlane's men several times their own number. The battle continued from forenoon of Wednesday until the afternoon, when Ibn 'Uthman's soldiers were worn out, overwhelmed by the forces of Tamerlane, who attacked them with swords because they were so few while the Tamerlane forces were so many; indeed one of the 'Uthman is fought against ten opponents, until most of their warriors lay prostrate. Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman himself was taken prisoner, captured by hand about a mile from the city of Ankara, on Wednesday, Dhu l-Hijja 27, 804 A.H. [August 7, 1402], after most of his men had died of thirst, for the time was the twenty-eighth day of the Coptic month Abib, which is the Greek Tamuz.
Tamerlane had Ibn 'Uthman stand before him every day, deriding and insulting him. One day he sat at a wine-drinking bout with his companions and summoned Ibn 'Uthman in a manner which caused him to be alarmed; he entered hobbling in his shackles and trembling. Tamerlane sat him before himself and began to converse with him; then he arose and gave him to drink at the hands of Ibn 'Uthman's slave girls whom he had made captive, and returned him to his prison.
Tamerlane then received a visit from Isbandar, one of the minor kings of Asia Minor, bringing magnificent gifts; Tamerlane accepted these, treated the giver with honor, and sent him back to his dominions.
In the meanwhile Tamerlane's armies had been perpetrating in Asia Minor and upon its inhabitants those deeds that have been described before.
Then Sulaiman, son of Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman, collected the money and everything else which was in the city of Brusa and went to Adrianople, whose men joined him one after another; and he also made peace with the inhabitants of Istanbul [Constantinople]. Tamerlane then sent a large part of his army with Shaikh Nur ad-Din to Brusa and they seized whatever they could find there, while he himself then followed with [the remainder of] his army. He next set free Muhammad and 'Ali, sons of Ibn Qaraman, from the prison of Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman, and invested them with the government of their country, obligating each of them to have the public prayer recited and coinage struck in his name and that of Sultan Mahmud Khan, called Surghatmish. He then spent the winter in the province of Mantasha, and devised a ruse for killing the Tatars of the army of Ibn 'Uthman who had come to him and he wiped them an out.
Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman remained in captivity with Tamerlane from Dhu l-Hijja, 804, until he died, grieving in fetters, within Dhu I-Qa'da, 805 [June 1403], having ruled Asia Minor about nine years. He was one of the greatest monarchs, resolute, firm, and brave (God the Exalted have mercy on him); it was he who was called Yildirim Bayazid.
Tamerlane then turned back from Asia Minor, having set his hopes on taking China; but God took him before he could attain his wish. Were it not for the fear of being too prolix I would give an account of him and what happened to him on the road to China until his death (God curse him!); I refrain from doing so not only out of fear of digressing but also because I have already given the account in detail in my work Al-Manhal as-Safi," to which the reader is referred. Tamerlane died on the eve of Wednesday, Sha'ban) 17, 807 A.H. [February 19, 1405]; he was then encamped near Utrar, which is near Ahankaran; the Arabic translation of this last name is "the smiths". | ||||||||
3581 | dbpedia | 1 | 89 | https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cwdlancaster/episodes/The-Armenians-of-Aintab-e1i808c | en | The Armenians of Aintab by The War & Diplomacy Podcast: From the Centre for War and Diplomacy at Lancaster University | [
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"podcast creat... | null | [] | null | Spyros Tsoutsoumpis, associate lecturer and researcher at the Centre for War and Diplomacy at Lancaster University is joined by Dr Umit Kurt, research fellow at The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute/Polonsky Academy in Jerusalem. Joining Spyros and Umit to talk about the Armenian Genocide in Aintab are Professor Janet Klein and Dr Max Bergholz. Professor Janet Klein is an expert in the field of Ottoman Studies and the author of an outstanding monograph on Kurdish tribal militias, The Margins of Empire: Kurdish Militias in the Ottoman Tribal Zone. Dr Max Bergholz from Concordia University, Canada, is an associate professor and the author of Violence as a Generative Force: Identity, Nationalism, and Memory in a Balkan Community. | en | //d12xoj7p9moygp.cloudfront.net/favicon/favicon-s4p-57x57.png | Spotify for Podcasters | https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cwdlancaster/episodes/The-Armenians-of-Aintab-e1i808c | In this episode, Dr Keith Hamilton discusses the vibrant social and administrative history of the nineteenth-century Foreign Office at Whitehall with the CWD's Prof Gaynor Johnson. Dr Hamilton, formerly a historian of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, has evaluated the records and accounts of domestic staff rather than just the higher levels of government agents to create a more comprehensive picture of diplomatic history. This archival work has also served as the foundation for Dr Hamilton's latest book, Servants of Diplomacy. A Domestic History of the Victorian Foreign Office (Bloomsbury, 2021), which is an invaluable complement to his wider work on the history of British diplomacy.
To find out more about Servants of Diplomacy, or to order a copy, please visit the publisher's website: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/servants-of-diplomacy-9781350159150/
The CWD advises with sadness that Dr Keith Hamilton passed away in October 2023. You can find his obituary here: https://issuu.com/fcohistorians/docs/keith_hamilton_obituary
We offer our condolences to Dr Hamilton's family, friends and colleagues.
In this podcast, Dr Thomas Mills, Senior Lecturer in Diplomatic and International History at Lancaster University and Director of the Centre for War and Diplomacy is joined by Jussi Hanhimäki, Professor of International History and Politics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. The pair discuss Jussi’s latest book, Pax Transatlantica: America and Europe in the Post-Cold War Era, published by Oxford University in 2021, as well as the broader global significance of the US-UK relationship analysing more recent events and points of crisis. Pax Transatlantica offers a wide-ranging exploration of what Jussi Hanhimäki calls the transatlantic community in the fields of security, economic and politics in the years following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Both the podcast and book cover the impact of Brexit, the presidency of Donald Trump, and the coronavirus pandemic on transatlantic relations.
Jussi was previously a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington, DC. He also received the Bernath Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations in 2002 and was elected Finland Distinguished Professor in 2006. His previous books include, The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy, published by Oxford University Press in 2004, The United Nations: A Very Short Introduction, published in 2012, The Rise and Fall of Détente: American Foreign Policy and the Transformation of the Cold War from 2013 and edited collections on international terrorism and documents of the Cold War.
Dr Marco Wyss, Reader in International History and Security at Lancaster University and a Deputy Director of the Centre for War and Diplomacy, is joined by Dr James Rogers, Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science at SDU and History Hit Warfare podcast host, on the topic of “Drones: From ‘Precision Warfare’ to Today’s Battlefields”. Drone warfare, perceived to be a relatively modern addition to the battlefield, transcends the threats of war on the ground but brings with it new threats to security and the potential for drone genocide. This podcast discusses the prominence of drones on today’s global battlefields, covering topics such as the evolution of drone development and their early practicality, as well as the future of air power and combat. In doing so, it traces the history of drone warfare to the early twentieth century, to the conceptualisation of precision bombing by the US in the First World War.
Dr James Rogers is Associate Fellow within The London School of Economics and Political Science’s foreign policy think tank (LSE IDEAS). He is also currently Special Advisor to the UK Parliament’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drones, Advisor to the United Nations, a UK MoD Defence Opinion Leader, and NATO Country Director of the NATO SPS funded Vulnerabilities of the Drone Age project. He has previously been a Visiting Research Fellow at Stanford University, Yale University, and the University of Oxford. He is the Co-founder and Co-Convenor of BISA War Studies, the War Studies section of the British International Studies Association. James is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow within the Cornell Tech Policy Lab at Cornell University. His forthcoming publication, Precision: A History of Warfare, with Manchester University Press, is out at the end of 2022.
The Centre for War and Diplomacy at Lancaster University and the British International History Group co-hosted ‘The Falklands War at 40: Voices of the Conflict’ on Thursday 26 May 2022, attended by staff and students, alongside members of local history groups, and the general public. This event brought together researchers and curators, joined by a Falklands veteran and Lancaster alumnus Major General Chip Chapman, to discuss working with voices of the conflict forty years on. A recording has been made into a podcast for the War and Diplomacy podcast series.
The panel was chaired by Professor Gaynor Johnson, Professor of International History at the University of Kent, Honorary Researcher at the Centre for War and Diplomacy, and Conference Officer of the British International History Group. Panellists included: Mr John Beales, a doctoral student at Keele University and Imperial War Museums, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Major General Chip Chapman, a platoon commander in 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment (2 PARA) in the Falklands campaign. Dr Peter Johnston, Head of Collections and Research at the Royal Air Force Museum, responsible for developing the museum’s research and collection strategies, and exhibitions. Professor Helen Parr of Keele University, author of Our Boys: The Story of a Paratrooper (Penguin, 2019), a history of the Parachute Regiment in the Falklands. Professor Tony Pollard of Glasgow University, a leading archaeologist working on sites of conflict from across history, and heading a new investigation into the landscape of the Falklands War.
Dr Stephanie Wright, lecturer in Modern European History at Lancaster University and Dr Regina Mühlhäuser, Senior Researcher at the Hamburg Foundation for the Advancement of Research and Culture discuss what the history of sexual violence perpetrated by the German Wehrmacht in the Second World War can tell us about sexual violence in current wars, including the war in Ukraine. This podcast grapples with the challenges of studying the history of sexual violence, especially given the paucity of sources and the fact that many victims were shamed into silence. In conversation, Stephanie and Regina highlight the importance of being attentive to which stories of sexual violence we are willing to listen to, and which ‘constellations’ or ‘narratives’ of rape are given priority in historical and media accounts of particular wars.
Dr Thomas Mills, Senior Lecturer at Lancaster University and Director of the Centre for War and Diplomacy is joined by Patrick Salmon, Chief Historian at the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development office. In his seventeen years in office, Patrick has published a number of volumes in the flagship series, Documents on British Policy Overseas, including works on German unification at the end of the Cold War and UK/South Africa relations during the era of apartheid. He also has expertise on Scandinavia and has published works including Scandinavia and the great powers 1890 to 1940, and Scandinavia in British policy during the twilight war, 1939 to 1940. His latest book is entitled The Control of the Past: Herbert Butterfield and the Pitfalls of Official History, published by University of London Press (2021). Mills and Salmon discuss this recently published work, looking at Patrick’s experience and expertise as well as his motivation for researching this topic.
This podcast discusses the merger of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Not only has Winfried extensively worked on this topic but it has also become a contentious historical issue in recent years as archival material has become available thirty years after the event. Heinemann and Wyss question whether the merger of the two Germanies and their armed forces after the end of the Cold War was in fact a merger, a hostile takeover or something in between with the transferral of East German personnel into the Bundeswehr.
Colonel Professor Winfried Heinemann has extensively researched the diplomatic history of NATO, post-World War II German military history (in both the East and West), and especially the military resistance against Hitler. His most recent book is Operation “Valkyrie”: A Military History of the 20 July 1944 Plot (De Gruyter Studies in Military History, 2021).
This special episode marks the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Boroughbridge and the execution of Thomas, earl of Lancaster, in 1322. This was the bloody end of a civil war that scarred one of England’s most troubled and turbulent reigns, that of Edward II. Dr Sophie Ambler is the Deputy Director of the Centre for War and Diplomacy and author of The Song of Simon de Montfort: England's First Revolutionary and the Death of Chivalry (2019); Dr Andrew Spencer is Fellow and Senior Tutor of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and has published extensively on the nobility, politics and constitution of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century England; Dr Paul Dryburgh is Principal Record Specialist at The National Archives, and has been at the forefront of new research into the records and government of the era for nearly twenty years. Paul, Andrew and Sophie are part of a team of researchers – from the The National Archives and the Universities of Lincoln, Cambridge and Lancaster– involved in a new collaborative research project: ‘A State within a State? The making of the Duchy of Lancaster, c.1066-1422’.
This special episode of the War & Diplomacy Podcast Series is a recording of an event that was hosted on 16 June 2021. This discussion, led by the Deputy-Director Dr Thomas Mills, highlights aspects of Alistair Burt's career as an MP and a minister in the Foreign Office. The conversation details several notable diplomatic events that took place during his tenure in office.
About Alistair Burt:
Recently appointed Pro-Chancellor of Lancaster University, Alistair Burt was a member of parliament for over 30 years, representing the constituencies of Bury North and North East Bedfordshire. He served in the government of Margaret Thatcher as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Kenneth Baker and in John Major’s government as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Social Security. Having returned to parliament in 2001, he served in various opposition roles, including Assistant Chief Whip and Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party.
Following the 2010 election, Alistair Burt was appointed by David Cameron to serve as a minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with responsibility for the Middle East and North Africa. After a period as a minister in the Department of Health, he was appointed by Theresa May in 2017 as a Minister in both the FCO and Department for International Development, again with responsibility for the Middle East and North Africa region.
Alistair Burt stood down from parliament at the 2019 election, having had the Conservative whip withdrawn in September of that year for his opposition to Brexit policy, only for it to be restored the following month. Alongside his current role at Lancaster, Alistair is a Council member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and a Distinguished Fellow at the Royal Institute for Strategic Studies.
In 1939, South Africa entered World War II on the side of the Allied powers, although not without internal opposition. The German government capitalised on these domestic rifts and secretly engaged the leaders of the pro-fascist Ossewabrandwag in order to encourage sedition across South Africa and intercept naval intelligence- ultimately to undermine the strategic importance of the Cape of Good Hope for Allied efforts. To this end, a complex network of spies was dispatched to collect intelligence to send back to the Reich by way of coded messages to Axis diplomatic agents stationed in Mozambique. These spies and their tactics are the focus of Dr Evert Kleynhans' new book, Hitler’s South African Spies (Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2021). In this podcast, Dr Kleynhans and Dr Marco Wyss, Director of the Centre for War and Diplomacy, discuss the role of intelligence in South Africa during the Second World War, the impact these spies had on the outcome of the war, and how research into this field continues to develop.
Dr Evert Kleynhans is a senior lecturer in the Department of Military History at the Faculty of Military Science of Stellenbosch University. He lectures undergraduate and postgraduate modules on the evolution of warfare, African military history, and low-intensity conflict in Africa since 1945. His research interests include South African participation in both World Wars, insurgency and counterinsurgency in Africa, and the broad historical impact of climate and terrain on warfare. Dr Kleynhans formerly served as an officer in the South African National Defence Force, whereafter he was appointed as the archivist, and later director, of the Records, Archives and Museums Division of North-West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa. His book, Hitler's South African Spies: Secret Agents and the Intelligence War in South Africa, was published by Jonathan Ball Publishers this year and is available through reputable booksellers.
Papal calls to crusade were some of the most influential texts in the medieval West: key messages, crafted at the papal court, that were disseminated and preached across Christendom to mobilise men and women of every level of society to take up the crusading cause. These calls were a dynamic element of a crusading society, in which all Christians were responsible for the fate of the Holy Land and could support the crusading movement by bearing arms or offering prayers. How were these calls crafted? How were they interpreted, reshaped and shared by the people of Christendom? In this episode, Dr Sophie Ambler, Deputy Director of the Centre for War and Diplomacy, talks to Dr Thomas Smith about his work investigating papal calls to crusade – both their production and their later life, once they were released ‘into the wild’.
Dr Smith is an expert in ecclesiastical and crusading history in the central Middle Ages. After completing his doctorate at Royal Holloway, he was Scouloudi Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research and then Leverhulme Study Abroad Fellow at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. After two years at Trinity College, Dublin, he was Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Leeds, before joining the History Department at Rugby School in 2019. His early work explored papal policy and financing in relation to the crusading movement, in a number of articles and his first book: Curia and Crusade: Pope Honorius III and the Recovery of the Holy Land, 1216-1227, published with Breopls in 2017. He has since undertaken important work in the forensic investigation of various documents related to the crusades, from papal bulls, to letters and chronicles, published across a host of articles in journals such as Historical Research, Viator, Crusades, and the Journal of Ecclesiastical History. He is currently completing his second monograph, on the Letters of the First Crusade, forthcoming with Boydell and Brewer, as well as working with Dr Susan Edgington on a new edition of a neglected chronicle of the First Crusade, traditionally attributed to Bartolf of Nangis.
Select works by Thomas Smith:
Curia and Crusade: Pope Honorius III and the Recovery of the Holy Land, 1216–1227 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017)
‘Audita tremendi and the Call for the Third Crusade Reconsidered, 1187–1188’, Viator, 49.3(2020 for 2018), 63–101
‘How to Craft a Crusade Call: Pope Innocent III and Quia maior (1213)’, Historical Research, 92(2019), 2–23
‘The Dynamism of a Crusade Encyclical: Pope Honorius III and Iustus Dominus (1223)’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 74 (2018), 111–42
Music credit: Kai Engel, 'Flames of Rome', Calls and Echoes (Southern's City Lab, 2014).
The series of conflicts known as the Wars of the Roses tore through fifteenth-century England: the houses of Lancaster and York and their supporters fought over notions of good governance and the right to wear the crown, while vast swathes of the population took up arms in rebellion or on the battlefield, or lived in fear of rampaging armies. What can historians deduce about popular involvement in the Wars, including in key events such as the Battle of Towton (1461)? How can the treatment of prisoners and the battlefield dead at the battles of Wakefield (1460) and Tewkesbury (1471) reveal concepts of chivalry and military ethics? And how did those in power – from Edward IV, to Margaret of Anjou and Richard III – seek to manage popular fears? In this podcast, Dr Gordon McKelvie discusses his research on these topics with Dr Sophie Ambler, Deputy Director of the Centre for War and Diplomacy.
Dr Gordon McKelvie is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Winchester, where he is also a convenor for the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Research. He has worked extensively on political society and warfare in England in the long fifteenth century. Following various journal articles and chapters, his first book was published with Boydell and Brewer in 2020: Bastard Feudalism, English Society and the Law: The Statutes of Livery, 1390 to 1520. This examines the effectiveness of new laws on social relations and how ‘bastard feudal’ ties facilitated many of the rebellions and acts of noble violence in the long fifteenth century. Dr McKelvie’s new research considers both the role of chivalry and martial ethics in the Wars, and the importance of managing popular emotions – principally fear and hatred – for use as weapons of military strategy.
Dr McKelvie’s book Bastard Feudalism, English Society and the Law: The Statutes of Livery, 1390 to 1520 is available from Boydell and Brewer. You can learn more about this research in his blog for the Boydell and Brewer website.
In a recent article for The Conversation, marking the 550th anniversary of the Battle of Tewkesbury, Dr McKelvie discusses: ‘Wars of the Roses: How the French meddled in this very English conflict’.
Music credit: Kai Engel, 'Flames of Rome', Calls and Echoes (Southern's City Lab, 2014).
Dr Matthew Bennett, leading expert in medieval military history, discusses the technology, economy, and ideology of warfare in the medieval age with Dr Sophie Ambler, Deputy Director of the Centre for War and Diplomacy at Lancaster University.
Dr Bennett describes the connections between warfare, trade and finance in the medieval West, as well as military technology – from bows to armour, artillery and fortifications – and explores the concept of chivalry, the treatment of prisoners of war, and how knights and common soldiers fared differently on the battlefield. He also explains the role of mercenaries and sets out some of the eternal truths of warfare that can be identified in the medieval period.
Dr Bennett is a leading expert on the history of warfare and military culture in the medieval West. He spent three decades teaching at The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (retiring in 2015) and has since been lecturing part-time at the University of Winchester, where he was recently made a Visiting Research Fellow. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Society of Antiquaries (London). He has also been a Trustee of The Battlefields Trust, for whom he led the Magna Carta Wars project, supported by a Heritage Lottery Fund grant. He has been an editor of the ‘Boydell and Brewer Warfare in History Series’ since its foundation in 1995.
His own extensive publications include the Cambridge Atlas of Medieval Warfare, books on the Norman Conquest of England and the Battle of Agincourt for Osprey Books, and a host of articles, on topics ranging from the experience of civilian populations in the Hundred Years War, to masculinity, medieval hostageship, chivalry and the conduct of war, and most recently the Battle of Hastings as well as Norman battle tactics across the Mediterranean.
Books, websites and sources mentioned in the podcast:
Matthew Bennett and Katherine Weikert (eds.), Medieval Hostageship c.700-c.1500
Hostage, Captive, Prisoner of War, Guarantee, Peacemaker, (Routledge, 2019)
Matthew Bennett and Nicholas Hooper, The Cambridge Illustrated Atlas of Warfare: The Middle Ages, 768–1487, (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
‘The Soldier in Later Medieval England’ – a database containing the names of soldiers serving the English crown between 1369 and 1453, developed by Professors Anne Curry and Adrian Bell and their team, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council: https://www.medievalsoldier.org/
The Pipe Roll Society website provides an extensive introduction to these key records of the medieval English state. The Society is dedicated to publishing editions of the pipe rolls of the Exchequer and of other related medieval documents: https://piperollsociety.co.uk/
The History of William Marshal, trans. Nigel Bryant (Boydell and Brewer, 2016)
Music credit: Kai Engel, 'Flames of Rome', Calls and Echoes (Southern's City Lab, 2014).
Dr Hugo Meijer is a CNRS Research Fellow at Sciences Po Paris, Center for International Studies (CERI), and is the Founding Director of The European Initiative for Security Studies (EISS), a multidisciplinary network of scholars that share the goal of consolidating security studies in Europe. His research interests lie at the intersection of foreign policy analysis and security studies, with a particular interest in the triangle between the US and China, the US and Europe, and Europe and China.
Dr Meijer is currently working on two research projects: the reconfiguration of American hegemony through the prism of the US-led regional alliance systems in Europe and in the Asia-Pacific since the end of the Second World War; and on European foreign and security policies in the face of a rising China in the post-Cold War period. Previously, he was Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the European University Institute (EUI, Florence), Lecturer in Defence Studies at King’s College London and a Researcher at the Institute for Strategic Research (IRSEM, Paris). Dr Meijer was also a Senior Common Room Member at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University and a visiting scholar at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at George Washington University. He received his Ph.D. in International Relations from Sciences Po (cum laude), completed his M.A. in International Relations at Johns Hopkins University/School of Advanced International Studies (Washington DC/Bologna) and his B.A. in political economy at the LUISS (Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali) Guido Carli in Rome.
In relation to this discussion, see his recent article in International Security, entitled “Illusions of Autonomy: Why Europe Cannot Provide for Its Own Security Even if the United States Pulls Back”, which he co-authored with Stephen Brooks from Dartmouth College. This article (and the impressive research on which it is based) provides the basis for this podcast.
Dr Nathaniel Powell discusses France's Wars in Chad: Military Intervention and Decolonization in Africa with Dr Marco Wyss of the CWD.
Dr Powell completed his PhD in International History and Politics from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva in 2013. His research focuses on the postcolonial relationship between France and its former African colonies, particularly on the question of military interventions. He has published on various facets of the history of French military interventions in Africa in the Journal of Cold War Studies, African Security, Les Temps Modernes, International History Review, as well as in media outlets such as Foreign Affairs, War on the Rocks, and The Conversation. His current research looks at the role of French intelligence and security assistance in the political trajectories of newly independent African states in the 1960s and 1970s. He is also working on a book project focusing on Western support for Mobutu's Zaire in the 1970s.
Nat’s most recent publication, France's Wars in Chad: Military Intervention and Decolonization in Africa, is published by Cambridge University Press.
Music credit: Kai Engel, 'Flames of Rome', Calls and Echoes (Southern's City Lab, 2014).
The Albigensian Crusade of the early thirteenth century saw crusading used to combat heresy in southern France. Dr Gregory Lippiatt, in discussion with the CWD’s Dr Sophie Ambler, discusses how the crusade came about, its brutality and violence, and the role of Simon V of Montfort. Dr Lippiatt also discusses developments in governance introduced by the Statutes of Pamiers (1212), a crusader constitution for the Midi.
Dr Lippiatt is Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Exeter and a historian of aristocratic government in the High Middle Ages and its intersection with Christian reform movements, particularly the crusades.
Dr Lippiatt's work considers the ways in which barons attempted to use their lordship to create an idealised Christian republic, at times through the imposition of military force. He is currently preparing a major monograph for Oxford University Press on the Statutes of Pamiers.
Dr Lippiatt’s publications include Simon V of Montfort and Baronial Government, 1195-1218, (Oxford University Press, 2017), ‘Reform and Custom: the Statutes of Pamiers in Early Thirteenth-Century Christendom’, in M. Aurell , G. Lippiatt and L. Macé (eds.), Simon de Montfort (c. 1170-1218): Le croisé, son lignage et son temps, (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), and ‘Worse than all the Infidels: the Albigensian Crusade and the Continuing Call of the East’, in G. Lippiatt and J. Bird (eds.), Crusading Europe: Essays in Honour of Christopher Tyerman, (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019).
Dr Lippiatt's blog for the Exeter Centre for Medieval Studies, is free to access: https://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/medievalstudies/2020/04/a-new-charter-from-the-fourth-crusade/
Music credit: Kai Engel, 'Flames of Rome', Calls and Echoes (Southern's City Lab, 2014).
In this episode, Dr Anaïs Waag (University of Lincoln) talks to the CWD's Dr Sophie Ambler about some of the thirteenth century's most notable women, and how their letters illuminate their role in diplomacy, warfare, and the commemoration of battle. From civil wars to crusades, royal women like Berenguela and Blanche of Castile and Eleanor and Marguerite of Provence played a vital part in securing peace treaties – but also in raising and leading armies and celebrating the military feats of their families. Drawing from the evidence of their letters, Dr Waag asks whether these women worked within a gendered language of power, and explains how a comparative study of their careers invites us to revise our understanding of how royal rule operated in medieval Europe.
Dr Waag is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the School of History and Heritage at the University of Lincoln. She specialises in gender studies and women's history in medieval Europe, taking a comparative perspective to examine how female power was formally and publicly expressed in England, France and the Iberian Peninsula. Her publications include 'Gender and the language of politics in thirteenth-century queens' letters', published in Historical Research, 'Rethinking battle commemoration: female letters and the myth of the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa', in the Journal of Medieval History, and most recently 'The Letters of Eleanor and Marguerite of Provence in Thirteenth-Century Anglo-French Relations', in the series Thirteenth Century England.
Music credit: Kai Engel, 'Flames of Rome', Calls and Echoes (Southern's City Lab, 2014).
In this interview, Dr Marco Wyss from the CWD and Prof Mark Bradley discuss the Vietnam War from the perspective of the Vietnamese, the United States' role as a guarantor of human rights, and ongoing work in the history of the Global South.
Prof Mark Bradley is a Bernadotte E. Schmitt Distinguished Service Professor of International History and the College, the Deputy Dean of Division of the Social Sciences Faculty, the Director of the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights, and a Senior Fellow of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts at the University of Chicago. Prof Bradley is the author of The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century (2016), Vietnam at War (2009), and Imagining Vietnam and America: The Making of Postcolonial Vietnam (2000), which won the Harry J. Benda Prize from the Association for Asian Studies. He is the co-editor of Making the Forever War (2021), Familiar Made Strange: American Icons and Artifacts after the Transnational Turn (2015), Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars (2008), and Truth Claims: Representation and Human Rights (2001). His work has appeared in the American Historical Review, Journal of American History, the Journal of World History, Diplomatic History, and Dissent.
Music credit: Kai Engel, 'Flames of Rome', Calls and Echoes (Southern's City Lab, 2014).
In this episode, Simon Collis CMG interviewed by the CWD's Nic Coombs discusses his experiences in the Middle East as former British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria and Qatar. Simon discusses the craft of diplomacy giving fascinating insights into warfare in the region, religious strife, human rights and the role of the diplomat in representing their country's interests.
Simon Collis CMG joined the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office in 1978 and after studying Arabic has served mainly in the Middle East and South Asia. In addition to his ambassadorial appointments, he was British Consul-General in Dubai and in Basra. Simon has also served in Tunis, New Delhi and Amman.
Nic Coombs is also a former member of HM Diplomatic Service principally working in or on the Middle East. He has served in Amman, and twice in Riyadh. Nic has particular interests in Saudi Arabia, salafism and sectarianism, and the practice of diplomacy. He was a Teaching Fellow in PPR at Lancaster University and is a member of the CWD.
For more information on the CWD including events, research and news see: lancaster.ac.uk/cwd
Music credit: Kai Engel, 'Flames of Rome', Calls and Echoes (Southern's City Lab, 2014).
Dr Flavia Gasbarri (King's College London) and Dr Marco Wyss (Lancaster University) discuss the Cold War in Africa, particularly during the 1970s and 1980s. Dr Gasbarri examines the United States' role in the conflict, and how the end of the Cold War affected US foreign policy in Africa.
About the guest:
Dr Gasbarri is co-Chair of the KCL Africa Research Group and a member of the KCL Centre for Grand Strategy. She completed her PhD in War Studies at King's College London in 2014, with a project entitled "The United States and the end of the Cold War in Africa, 1988-1994". After the end of her doctoral studies, Dr Gasbarri also worked at the Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC) in Shrivenham, and at the Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS), where she was Academic Tutor for the British Armed Forces (both at junior and senior level). Her book entitled US Foreign Policy and the End of the Cold War in Africa was published this year in Routledge’s ‘Cold War History’ series (edited by Arne Westad and Michael Cox). The book can be bought directly from Routledge, Amazon, or any other respectable bookseller.
Checkout the CWD website for details of events, our research and news: lancaster.ac.uk/cwd
Music credit: Kai Engel, 'Flames of Rome', Calls and Echoes (Southern's City Lab, 2014)
Prof Gaynor Johnson explores the often-overlooked role civil servants in the formulation of foreign policy, including the role of women in the British Foreign Office. She discusses innovative methodological approaches to the study of diplomatic history, including the use of prosopography.
Gaynor has published widely in the field of international history on topics ranging from fanaticism and warfare to interwar appeasement. She led a major AHRC project on British and French attitudes towards European integration between 1919 and 1957. A major preoccupation of her work has been the study of diplomacy and diplomats. She has published studies of Robert Cecil, Eric Phipps and Lord D’Abernon to name but a few.
She has been Professor of International History at the University of Kent since 2013. She sits on the executive committees of the British International History Group and the Transatlantic Studies Association and was previously book reviews editor for the International History Review. She is also an Honorary Researcher at the Centre for War and Diplomacy.
Gaynor's article 'Women Clerks and Typists in the British Foreign Office, 1920-1960: A Prosopographic Study' has just been published and you can find a full copy here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09592296.2020.1842066
Music credit: Kai Engel, 'Flames of Rome', Calls and Echoes (Southern's City Lab, 2014).
Prof Winfried Heinemann and Dr Marco Wyss discuss Operation Valkyrie (the unsuccessful assassination attempt of Adolf HItler in 1944) and the legacy of military resistance against Hitler.
About the guest:
Colonel Professor Winfried Heinemann has spent his career at the Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr in Potsdam, where he worked in editorial, research, and leadership positions. There, he notably carried out extensive research on the diplomatic history of NATO, post-World War II German military history – in both its Eastern and Western variants – and, especially, the military resistance against Hitler. Currently, he is a Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Cottbus University, serves as the associate and book reviews editor of the International Journal of Military History, and is an Honorary Researcher of our Centre for War and Diplomacy. His new book, Operation Valkyrie: A Military History of 20 July 1944 (in German, but an English edition is forthcoming in 2021) through Amazon, the publisher (de Gruyter Oldenbourg), or any respectable bookseller.
Music credit: Kai Engel, 'Flames of Rome', Calls and Echoes (Southern's City Lab, 2014) | ||||
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] | null | [] | null | en | https://cems.ceu.edu/sites/all/themes/zingaro/favicon.ico | https://cems.ceu.edu/participants-abstracts-0 | Honor in Ottoman and Contemporary Mediterranean Societies: Controversies, Continuities and New Directions
March 21-23, 2013 at Central European University in Budapest
Nadia Al-Bagdadi (Central European University)
TITLE: Shame, honour and taboo - Eros and etiquette in nineteenth century Arab writings
ABSTRACT: In my paper I shall address the emergence and assertion of new moral and sexual taboos during the Arab 19th century from the perspective of a radical change of Arabic ars eroticaand other related writings. Traditionally a central theme not only of erotological handbooks, erotic literature, moral and juridical texts, this topic disappears during the 19th century. It is replaced by a new prudery, which is considered to be either ofa genuine character (Arab/Muslim) or re-active (against the European gaze). I want to explore this transformation by way of pursuing two questions. Fristly, to address the question of representation of Eros and etiquette and to ask why an entire literary and semi-literary genre disappeared, making place for a new discourse on honor and shame. Secondly, and in conjunction with the first, to what extent the historical conditions and the colonial context of the 19th century impacted this process of redefining Eros, etiquette and taboo.
Dionigi Albera (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
Dionigi Albera is a senior research fellow at the CNRS and director of the Institut d’Ethnologie Méditerranéenne, Européenne et Comparative (Idemec, Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l’Hommes, Aix-en-Provence, France). He co-edited several volumes with a Mediterranean focus: (with Anton Blok and Christian Bromberger) L’anthropologie de la Méditerranée/Anthropology of the Mediterranean, Actes du colloque international, Aix-en-Provence, Palais des Congrès, 14-17 mai 1997, Paris : Maisonneuve et Larose, 2001, 756 p.; (with Mohamed Tozy), La Méditerranée des anthropologues. Fractures, filiations, contiguïtés, Paris, Maisonneuve et Larose 2005, 385 p.; (with Maria Couroucli), Sharing Sacred Spaces in the Mediterranean. Christians, Muslims, and Jews at Shrines and Sanctuaries, Indiana University Press, 290 pp. (New Anthropologies of Europe).
TITLE: Honor in Mediterranean Anthropology
ABSTRACT: The topic of honor is embedded in the history of the Mediterranean anthropology. Honor was the main concern of the anthropologists working in this area when this field of study experienced a rapid growth, between the 1950s and the 1970s. Later, honor has been the key focus of a set of internal criticisms that arouse in the 1980s and 1990s, generating a crisis of the Mediterranean anthropology. Some authors saw in the “Mediterranean artifact” the manifestation of an Orientalist vision, which would oriented the construction of a theoretical field around some strongly stereotyped federating themes, such as patronage, familism and, above all, honor and shame. Yet, on several respects, this debate produced the same “imperial” attitude that it criticized. Specialists of Europe have been prominently engaged in this dismantling, just as previous attempts to define a comparative perspective on the Mediterranean had been above all promoted by anthropologists working on the northern shore of the sea. Moreover this confrontation of different points of view concerned only the Anglophone production. In the last few years there has been a renewal of interest in a Mediterranean level of comparison in anthropology. New approaches aim at adopting a more balanced approach. This should imply an enlargement of perspectives via a conversation with national traditions of anthropological research that remained marginalized for a long time; a closer dialogue with other disciplines, first of all history; and a more systematic inclusion of Southern and Eastern Mediterranean historical and ethnographic data, which have been largely underestimated in the past generalizations on the Mediterranean (including the prolix debates on honor). The final part of this paper will tentatively explore the place of the notion of honor in this renewed field of study.
Ceren Belge (Concordia University)
Ceren Belge received her Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Washington. During 2008-2010, she held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies at Harvard University. Her research interests include state-minority relations, law and society, the politics of everyday life, and gender relations. Her dissertation, titled “Whose Law?: Clans, Honor Killings, and State-Minority Relations in Turkey and Israel,” received the best dissertation awards of the Law and Society Association and Israel Studies Association. The dissertation examines how the visions of national identity in Turkey and Israel shaped the modes of governance each state developed to control its minority population and the willingness and capacity of these states to administer a uniform body law of law over all citizens. Her articles have been published at International Journal of Middle East Studies, Law and Society Review, and Israel Studies Forum.
TITLE: The Rules of Difference: Honor and National Identity in the Courts of Turkey and Israel
ABSTRACT: This paper examines Turkish and Israeli courts’ approach to honor killings within the Kurdish and Palestinian communities as a foray into several broader questions about state power, gender, and national identity. Turkey and Israel followed different nation-building paths vis-à-vis their Kurdish and Palestinian minorities: assimilation in Turkey, and separation, in Israel. In concrete interactions between state officials and the minorities, however, the regulation of cultural difference and the negotiation of authority took unexpected turns. Despite the Turkish government’s program of forced assimilation, courts in Eastern Turkey developed a body of case law emphasizing the recognition that must be accorded to “regional customs.” And in Israel, where Arabs went to different schools, spoke a different language, and were subject to a different family law from Jews, Israeli courts asserted that no tolerance could be accorded to the “abhorrent” and “disgusting” custom of honor killing. Set in the context of contrasting state-minority relations, courts’ treatment of honor killings in Turkey and Israel raise a number of broader questions. First, how do conceptions of ethnic, national, or “cultural” difference translate into structures of authority at the local level? Under what conditions do states recognize or reject the norms and power structure of communities they regard as “different,” particularly when such difference is integrally linked with competing claims to sovereignty? Second, what norms of sexuality and meanings of gender are inscribed into national identity through state practices, such as court decisions and legal discourse on honor killings? This paper attempts to examine these questions through a systematic study of criminal court decisions in Turkey and Israel from 1970 on.
Isa Blumi (University of Leipzig)
Isa Blumi, (NYU, Ph.D. 2005), Associate Professor of History at Georgia State University, is Currently Senior Research Fellow at Leipzig University. His work seeks to explain transformations in world history through observations of trans-regional exchanges in the context of collapsing political systems, be they in the Balkans, the larger MENA region or South China Sea. He has just completed a book Ottoman Refugees, 1878-1939: Migration in a Post-Imperial World (Bloomsbury Press, 2013) highlighting the daily adaptations to violence in such contexts. He is also author of three recent books covering many of the same themes: Chaos in Yemen (Routledge 2010); Reinstating the Ottomans (Palgrave, 2011); and Foundations of Modernity (Routledge 2012) and is co-editor of Lasting Political Impacts of Balkan Wars 1912-1913 (U. of Utah Press, 2013) and author of Rethinking the Late Ottoman Empire (ISIS, 2003).
TITLE: An Honorable Break from the Besa: Reorientating Violence in the Late Ottoman Mediterranean
ABSTRACT: In this presentation of ongoing research into the shifting fortunes of Ottoman western Balkan regions (represented here in their main towns) at the end of imperial rule, I will argue the evidence of certain internal dynamics compel us to reconsider what are the animating forces at work during a period of state reorientation. Using the cases of the Ottoman western Balkans as extensions of broader regional interactions between (not so neatly distinctive) state and subject actors, it becomes clear that the origins of certain kinds of social upheaval are linked to local socio-economic forces directly affiliated with administrative reforms adopted to harness local practices of conflict resolution. As argued throughout, these local forces engaging with presumably distinct state actions only later translate into new conditions that often manifested in terms of indigenous principles. The manner in which the eventual shifts in how state authorities try to co-opt these local practices are manifested, prove violent. Such violence invariably appears in the documents. Where this paper seeks to go, however, is to highlight how the violence alone cannot serve as our focus to better understand how change is brought to the region. Evidence of violent exchange may require a careful reinterpretation of what this violence actually reflects at several layers of social organization and institutional interaction. In the end, violent moments that appeared to mark the collapse of Ottoman rule in the western Balkans, often seen in regional historiographies as an ascendency of local practices, need deeper inspection. While local practices based on Albanian “honor codes” or BESA may have played a role, I wish to suggest an indirect one in order to correct an indigenous sourced essentialism. As such, this paper looks into tensions around the regulation of honor codes in Albanian territories through discourses of the native, as much as the manifestation of a product of policy or indigenous agency, the final product being violence. This complication of the interaction is one means I am continuously seeking to develop in order to suggest our greater sensitivity for intersections of tension may be but extensions of intricate domestic disputes that are themselves marked by gradations of possible violence. In the end, I hope this paper will initiate a new approach to monitoring social dynamics in Ottoman Balkan settings while discussing otherwise neglected cases of indigenous sources of systemic change that is obscured in the literature by the violence of the First World War.
Jean-Louis Briquet (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/Université Paris 1)
Jean-Louis BRIQUET is a political scientist and CNRS researcher at the Centre européen de sociologie et de science politique, University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France. His main fields of research concern unofficial politics (clientelism, corruption, and political criminality), sociology of local politics and élites, especially in France and Italy. His recent publications include: Mafia, justice et politique en Italie. L’affaire Andreotti dans la crise de la République (1992-2004), Paris, Karthala, 2008; Organized crime and the State, New York, Palgrave-MacMillan, 2010 (ed. with Gilles Favarel-Garrigues).
TITLE: «A matter of man to man». Moral obligations, political loyalty and clientelism in Corsica
ABSTRACT: While established on the exchange of material benefits (goods and services in return for political support), clientelistic relationships involve inter-individual links, often expressed in terms of friendship, personal attachment and solidarity, sense of duty, or gratitude. People are expected to act according to moral obligations (providing favours to their allies for politicians; returning these favours with political loyalty for their electorate), at risk of losing their reputation and social status. Based on a fieldwork research on local politics in Corsica, the paper analyses these moral obligations and the way in which they influence on the one hand the exercise and legitimation of political authority, on the other hand the conception of political commitment and loyalty among ordinary citizens. It is argued that clientelism doesn’t manifest a “traditional” culture antagonistic to modern democratic standards, but results of the appropriation and reshaping of modern state institutions and electoral mechanisms by the local society.
Berna Ekal (EHESS, Paris)
PhD Student, Social Anthropology and Ethnology, Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS – Paris)
TITLE: The Notion of Honor and Institutions: The Case of Public Women’s Shelters in Turkey
ABSTRACT: This paper aims to understand how the notion of honor serves to shape the relations between citizens and officials in the public institutions in Turkey today, through the example of public women’s shelters. As a point of departure, it dwells on my PhD research in two different women’s shelters that are established and run by municipalities and on the disputes and negotiations revolving around honor in these institutions. In other words, the article seeks to put forward the appropriation of the notion of honor either for disciplinary purposes by the staff of the shelters, or as a legitimation by residents as to their choice to stay in the shelters. If we look at the background of women’s shelters in Turkey, we can see that they are predominantly established and run either by municipalities or the Institute of Social Services and Child Protection. The reasons that lead to such a situation are multiple (such as the lack of funding in the case of the feminist and other non-governmental organizations in Turkey, which represents a different path than the countries of Europe and North America, since in these countries it is predominantly the NGOs which are involved in shelter work), but what has to be emphasized concerning shelters is the fact that they have their unique character as public institutions, with their specific hierarchical structures; whereas feminists all over the world originally have envisaged women’s shelter as a political space where non-hierarchical bonds of solidarity would prevail. However, academic researches have mostly focused on feminist women’s shelters, and the elements of the functioning of the public women’s shelters remains a question to be explored. In this, we can argue that the notion of honor constitutes the specificity of the hierarchical structure of the public women’s shelters. That is, women who stay in shelters usually say that they come to shelters for not having to live on the streets (which refers to being homeless but which also refer to prostitution) and hence to protect their honor. On the other hand, staff of the shelters also concern about the honor of women and also of the institution (i.e. shelter): they banish the use of portable phones under the pretext of security, inspect residents closely, and devote themselves to keep the “respectability” of the shelter intact. In other words, in the context of women’s shelters, honor can be argued to be 1) a disciplinary element over the residents, and 2) a quality of the institution as such. This image, in turn, doesn’t necessarily have a negative effect over the residents; they indeed perceive the shelters as a legitimate place to stay by arguing that it is a place where they can protect their honor. All in all, the everyday disputes over the honor of residents provide us an opportunity to discuss how honor becomes a dimension of the everyday encounters of residents and the staff in the shelters, and hence how it becomes a reference point in the institutional spaces.
Tolga Esmer (Central European University)
Tolga U. Esmer is an Assistant Professor of Ottoman, Middle Eastern, Eastern Mediterranean, and Balkan Studies in the Department of History at the Central European University, and he has also taught classes on Islam and Islamic history at Northwestern and Pennsylvania State University. A social and cultural historian of the Ottoman Empire, Middle East, and Balkans, Dr. Esmer earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 2009. He is the author of several articles, one of his most recent articles entitled “Economies of Violence, Governance, and the Socio-Cultural Dimensions of Banditry in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1800” is forthcoming in Past & Present. Dr. Esmer is currently working on a book that re-conceptualizes the phenomenon of banditry central to the narratives of disorder, decentralization and disintegration that dominate the historiography of the late Ottoman Empire by exploring how banditry and its attendant economies of violence mediated social relations. The book approaches banditry as a politicized site of contestation in which socio-economic, moral, legal, and religious concerns of various groups in Ottoman society converged to highlight new tensions and define new relations in processes that the fields of Ottoman, Balkan, and Middle Eastern history study separately.
TITLE: How to Read Acts and Words of Honor in Late-Ottoman Accounts of Banditry
ABSTRACT: This essay compares the self-narrative of the “irregular,” paramilitary cavalryman Deli Mustafa that records the campaigns he took part in between 1801/2 to 1832 with Ottoman archival sources written about and by Kara Feyzi, a savvy paramilitary soldier (sekbân) cum bandit leader who marshaled a successful, trans-regional organized crime network that pillaged Ottoman Rumeli from 1793 to well beyond 1808. In this sense, the comparison between these two social actors juxtaposes how one actor of a humble station in life fashions himself vis-à-vis his superiors and sundry communities throughout the Ottoman Empire versus how disparate imperial officials and communities described and explained their often compromising relationships with the much larger, controversial figure Kara Feyzi and his vast network. This essay revisits the notion of honor as a broader dialogical discourse that mediated encounters among these trans-regional networks of violence, local and imperial officials who were charged with repelling but often found it more lucrative to join them, and local populations throughout the Empire that were either forced to join or make a stand against these unruly men and their powerful networks. While it starts with assessing some of the ritualistic violence that these social actors either discussed in their own narratives or were attributed to them by other observers, this essay moves the discussion of honor from “acts of honor” to what I will argue are the more important “words of honor” embedded in these sources since much of the violence described in the narrative and officials sources utilized here are mediated by embellishments, biases, and agendas that distract us from understanding these types of sources’ more complicated stories. It is what I call the “leveling affect” that conflicting words of honor had on “class” and social distinction that makes honor such a fascinating and fruitful inquiry into historical studies. By manipulating notions akin to honor and shame, social actors of humble origins as well as entire communities could check and manipulate more powerful players in Ottoman society whilst legitimating their own contentious behavior in ways that have been overlooked in mainstream historiography.
Anastasia Falierou (University of Athens)
Anastasia Falierou is an Adjunct Professor at the department of Turkish and Modern Asian Studies at the University of Athens. She studied at EHESS and in the Ataturk Institute for Modern Turkish History, in Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. She defended her Ph.D thesis concerning the transformations of Ottoman clothing in Istanbul (1826-1925). Anastasia Falierou worked as fellow in the French Institute for Anatolian Studies in Istanbul (IFEA) and as instructor in the University of Bahçeşehir. She is currently working in the Department of Turkish and Modern Asian Studies in the University of Athens. Her research interests concern social and cultural history of the Ottoman Empire, gender studies in the Balkans, history of Modern Turkey. Recent publications: "From the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic: Ottoman Turkish Women’s Clothing between tradition and modernity" in C. Vintilă-Ghiţulescu (ed.) From Traditional Attire to Modern Dress: Modes of Identification, Modes of Recognition in the Balkans (XVIth-XXth Centuries), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011, pp.175-193 and «La révolution jeune-turque de 1908, une révolution de la condition féminine dans l’Empire ottoman?» dans F. Georgeon (sous la dir. de) L’ivresse de la liberté: la révolution de 1908 dans l’Empire ottoman, Peeters de Louvain, Belgique, 2012, pp. 221-237.
TITLE: The Female Body as "Social Disorder": Morality and Honor in Ottoman Muslims Womens' Public Appearance
ABSTRACT: Woman’s honor and respectability is one of the favored topics in the field of gender studies. These questions do not concern of course, only Muslim women but seem to preoccupy all ethnic and religious groups in the Ottoman Empire. My paper will focus on the study of the intermingled connection between Muslim women’s clothing and the notions of respectability, purity and honor in the late 19th century and early 20th century Istanbul. By scrutinizing several documents from the ottoman archives of Başbakanlık I shall try to analyze a) the vocabulary of honor used in the official documents and its connotations, b) the important role of Islamic principles in shaping the clothing habits of Muslim women c) the relation between the female body and State policy during Abdulhamid II’s reign and finally, d) the similarities with other ethno-confessional communities such as the Greeks.
Orit Kamir (Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem)
Dr. Orit Kamir is an Israeli professor of Law, Cultureand Gender. She specializes in jurisprudence, law and film, feminist law, andhonor and dignity. She has written two books and many articles (in Hebrew) on honor and dignity in Israeli society, law and gender politics. She is the headof the Israeli Center for Human Dignity (a non-profit organization).
TITLE: Honor as a Driving Force in Israeli Politics: Israeli Political History Told through the Lens of Honor
ABSTRACT: In my book Israeli Honor and Dignity, 2004 (inHebrew), I showed that Political Zionism aimed to redeem Europe’s Jews from their “unmanly lack of honor” by forging the New Jew and constructing a new Jewish culture of honor, modeled on central Europe’s 19th century codes of national honor. The book argues that the Zionist settlement in Palestine/Israel over the course of the 20th century succeeded in fulfilling this revolutionary vision, and Israel's Jewish community indeed became an honor society. It garnished its 19th century German notions of honor with local Palestinian honor and sprinkles of Iraqi, Syrian and North African honor, as adopted by Jewish immigrants to Israel from these countries. This unique Zionist honor comes into play in daily life in Israel and underlies many basic notions and patterns of conduct (including gender politics). It has also been a predominant, fundamental feature of the Israeli state in its dealings with friends and enemies near and far. In contemporary Israel, a shift can be noticed mostly among educated, middle and upper class Jews of European descent ("the oldelites"), away from the prevailing Zionist honor culture. This trend was launched in 1992, with the legislation of Israel's "Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty", often hailed as the country's Bill of Rights. Human dignity was meant by the initiators of this bill to become the country's fundamental, liberal, universal value, thus undercutting the privileged status of Zionist honor. The legal system, particularly the Supreme Court, widely associated with "the oldelites", quickly embraced human dignity, making it the foundation of Israeli law. Two sectors of Jewish Israeli society, traditional Jews of Middle Eastern descent and the Nationalist Orthodox Jews, re-embraced Zionist honor, now enhanced with religious Jewish motifs, vowing to repudiate the ongoing establishment of human dignity's new hegemony. Present-day Israeli politics, both internal and external, represent this fierce battle surrounding Zionist honor and human dignity.
Noémi Lévy-Aksu (Boğaziçi University)
Noémi Lévy-Aksu is an Assistant Professor at Boğaziçi University, Department of History. She got her PhD in History from the EHESS-Paris, in 2010. Her main research interests are in late Ottoman History, public order and social control in urban contexts. She has recently published a reworked version of her PhD dissertation, entitled Ordre et désordres dans l’Istanbul ottomane (1879-1909) (Karthala, 2013).
TITLE: Building Professional and Political Communities: The Value of Honor in The Self-Representations of the Police during the Second Constitutional Period
ABSTRACT: My paper will focus on the use of honor and related concepts in self-narratives written by members of the police active during the Young Turk period. I argue that the concept of honor emerged as a central value around which the promotion of individual, professional and political identities was articulated at a time when the police institution was deeply reformed. Referring to personal qualities and political values, the notions related to “namus” were used by the authors of short self-narratives or more detailed autobiographies to legitimize both their role in the police institution and the activity of the police institution in the society. This twofold dimension was based on a rhetoric of inclusion and exclusion, constantly opposing the honorable policemen of the new regime to various categories supposedly lacking honor, such as the policemen of the previous regime and the strong-arm men of the present. My paper aims to highlight that multi-dimensional use of the notion of honor and its social and political signification in the definition of a professional identity for the police forces. The first part of my paper will concentrate on the role of honor in the affirmation of a positive police identity. The value of honor was very instrumental in the emergence of a discourse on police ethics during the second constitutional period. Parallel to the efforts put into the professional formation of the police members, the stress on the moral qualities which were required to be part of the police served two purposes: it aimed to mark the rupture with the turpitudes of the previous regime, while enhancing the legitimacy of the new institution, whose activities were to be shaped by the principles of the new regime: freedom, equality, justice and service to the people. Honor was promoted as the central value which would allow the policemen to perform their duty properly and to become essential intermediaries between the state and the people. In the second part of my paper, I will show that this emphasis on the value of honor was also a way to stigmatize and exclude some categories, an aspect which, though less explicit than self-promotion in the narratives under study, was at least as central in the construction of a professional community. Focusing on the characters depicted as shameful, I will point out the convergence of the different sources in defining moral, political and ethno-religious criteria supposedly incompatible with honorable behavior. I will argue that, beyond being a literary way to emphasize the virtue of the authors confronted to dangerous enemies, this negative approach to honor should be one of the elements to take into account in the evaluation of the political orientations of the police institution and its relationship with the people during the second constitutional period.
Leslie Peirce (New York University)
Leslie Peirce is Silver Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies at New York University, where she directs the Program in Ottoman Studies. She received her Ph.D. in 1988 from Princeton University, and also taught at UC Berkeley and Cornell. Peirce specializes in the history of the 16th and 17th centuries. She is the author of The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (1993) and Morality Tales: Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab (2003). Both books have been translated into Turkish and both won the Köprülü Prize of the Turkish Studies Association; the second also won the Middle East Studdies Association’s Hourani Prize Peirce is also the recipient of fellowships from NEH, ACLS, Fulbright, Guggenheim Foundation, Koç University RCAC, and the Institute for Advanced Study.
TITLE: Honor as a Social Contract
ABSTRACT: Honor in its usage today is typically defined by its constituent qualities: Dicitonary.com defines it as “honesty, fairness, or integrity in one’s beliefs and actions”. Reputation on the other hand is a relational concept: “the estimation in which a person or thing is held, especially by the community or the public generally”. It takes observers to bestow or deny reputation. Looking at reputation and how one gained a good or bad one is arguably the most productive avenue for understanding how people in early modern Ottoman times understood honor. Having explored this point briefly in previous publications, I would to use the opportunity of this paper to explore its ramifications. My paper argues that the preservation of honor—of the person, the community, even of the empire—is a kind of social contract. It is an agreement on the meaning of certain acts (or an agreement to agree) for mutual benefit between individuals or an individual and his or her community. Studying honor as a relational phenomenon, as the process of censuring or validating a person or group’s actions or inactions, allows us to appreciate the capacity of Ottoman subjects and Ottoman authorities to talk to each other about honor, even to accuse one another of the disgrace and suffering precipitated by one side’s failure to uphold the contract.
Will Smiley (Harvard University)
Will Smiley received his PhD in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Cambridge in October 2012, and expects to receive his JD from Yale Law School in 2014. His dissertation focused on the evolution of a system of international rules governing the capture, enslavement, and release of prisoners of war between the Ottoman and Russian Empires in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; more broadly, he is interested in Ottoman history and the histories of Islamic and international law. Will currently serves as a Graduate Research Associate at the Center for History and Economics at Harvard University, as a Student Director of the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project at Yale, and as an Articles Editor for The Yale Journal of International Law.
TITLE: Freeing "The Enslaved People of Islam". Treaty Law, Religious Rhetoric and Inter-Imperial Honor in Russo-Ottoman Relations, 1739-1815
ABSTRACT: My paper, based on Ottoman and Russian archival sources, examines the changing Ottoman state responses to the captivity of its subjects in Russia during and after each of the two empires’ eighteenth and nineteenth century conflicts. I explore the relationship between captivity and honor, focusing especially on Ottoman subjects held in Russia, arguing that the Ottoman state increasingly came to see this as a matter of honor—and came to use treaty law to vindicate that honor. I trace this process across four wars: 1735-1739, 1768-1774, 1787-1792, 1806-1812. The Ottoman state, I argue, attempted to protect individual (usually male) slave owners’ honor by resisting Russian attempts to free that state’s own captives, and also saw the conversion of Russians to Islam as a vindication of the honor of the Ottoman state and the Muslim religion. At the same time, the Porte—in particular, Sultans Selim III and Mahmud II—increasingly felt that, in the face of military defeat, the release of Ottoman subjects held captive in Russia was vital to their own personal, political, and religious honor. The Ottoman state therefore became far more involved in liberating its subjects than it had been previously, and Ottoman ambassadors to Russia became increasingly methodical and aggressive in using treaty law to advocate for captives’ release. This culminated in Mahmud’s nearly obsessive concern for prisoners during the 1806 War, and in the frantic response to the Russian massacre of several hundred captives after the end of that conflict. I conclude by posing the question: what was the conception of honor that emerges from this story? Was it based on a conception of the Ottoman state as fundamentally Muslim? On concerns for the sultan’s standing among the monarchs of Europe? Or on a view of the sultan as the patriarchal head of the imperial “family”?
Başak Tuğ (Bilgi University)
Başak Tuğ is Assistant Professor of History at Istanbul Bilgi University. Her areas of research are gender history and theory, Ottoman legal culture, Islamic law, and the social history of violence and crime. She is currently working on her book entitled Politics of Honor: Sexual Violence and Socio-Legal Surveillance in Early-modern Ottoman Anatolia.
TITLE: Protecting Honor in the Name of Justice
ABSTRACT: The “violation of honor” (hetk-i ‘ırz – عرض هتك) is one of the most frequently encountered concepts in eighteenth-century Ottoman legal documents. The association of sexuality with honor was not of course a novel phenomenon for Ottoman society. However, the recurring presence of honor in the correspondence especially between the central power and the Ottoman subjects reflects the development of new parameters between the early-modern state and its subjects in moral terms. The Ottoman central government’s claim to protect the honor of its subjects reflects a dialogic process in which subjects started to use new types of legal terminology and concepts in order to request the intervention of state in local matters that threatened their well-being. This paper argues that such a relationship or claim based on honor started to establish state-society relationship based on citizenship rights over the protection of life, honor and property well before the so-called reform era, the era most scholars maintain began with the Tanzimat Edict of 1839. Following this continuity in Ottoman legal discourse on honor from the eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries, this paper aims to trace continuities and changes in governmental and punitive techniques of the Ottoman power over moral order from the mid-eighteenth century to the early decades of the Tanzimat era, namely the 1840s and 1850s. In doing so, it will trace the utilization of the term “violation of honor” in the Ottoman legal practice and discourse in order to explore the importance of honor in conceptualizing sexual offences and sexuality in different periods. Secondly, it will concentrate on the discourse of the “protection of honor” as a legitimizing motive behind the interventions of the political power in the sexual sphere. | ||||||
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By Minas Kojayan PhD, Van Nuys, California, 11 September 2008
Many of the descendents of the residents of Chork-Marzban who are now spread all over the world teasingly wish one another to one day taste the oranges of Chork-Marzban and experience the sweetness of the warm breeze flowing from the mountains of Adana. Their dreams to return are still alive.In the past, numerous works have been published depicting the historical past, national traditions, lifestyle, customs, dialects and heroic resistance efforts of historical Armenia and other Armenian-inhabited villages and regions.In the past, numerous works have been published depicting the historical past, national traditions, lifestyle, customs, dialects and heroic resistance efforts of historical Armenia and other Armenian-inhabited villages and regions.
Some of the intellectuals of Chork-Marzban attempted to do the same in their humble memoirs and publications. Unfortunately, the three heroic resistance battles of Chork-Marzban and the surrounding villages have failed to be mentioned in textbooks. I would like to point out that this conference organized at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) is the first intellectual gathering where mention has been made of the heroic battles of Chork-Marzban and the surrounding towns of Ozerli, Ojakle and Najarle.
Historical sources are extremely meager with respect to the history of this region, and there is hardly any useful information. The population of Chork-Marzban and the surrounding villages consisted of individuals who had settled there from various regions of Cilicia and Armenia. According to the dominant belief among this population, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they had settled in the area from various provinces of the Bagradouni Dynasty. Chork-Marzban, whether by its Armenian name or Turkish Dort-Yol, became known within the Armenian realm in the late 19th century, particularly with the advancement of the harvesting of citrus fruits. The names of the town and surrounding regions also became more familiar following the initial attempts of self-defense during the massacres of Abdul Hamid.
THE First HEROIC RESISTANCE
The first armed self-defense tactic of Chork-Marzban is one example of the mismatched armed struggle of the Armenians against Sultan Hamid’s bloodthirsty policies of the 1890s, as well as against the Turkish-Kurdish-Cherkez tribes and those who had been exiled from the liberated territories of the Ottoman empire.
During the first battle Chork-Marzban was well prepared and was saved from annihilation thanks to a group of “outsider” revolutionaries and their followers from Chork-Marzban.
Memoirs from Chork-Marzban credit the passionate and devoted Jirair Boyajian from Hajin. Along with his sister, he took on the task of Armenian instruction in the town. Initiated by Jirair, a National Council was formed. Jirair secretly devoted himself to the military training of the young men, teaching them to hold weapons, aim, etc.
Khacher Karayakubian, a student of Jirair, described those days with youthful excitement in his unpublished handwritten memoirs. “The students in the upper two classes were his main focus. The students in the fifth and sixth grades fell in love with him. We began to worship him.”
The most noteworthy in the first battle were Jirair’s students, such as Vahan Balian, Kerovpe and Yeremiah Der Stepanian, Boghos Tughleian, Avedis (Vahram) Keshishian, Missak, Kevork and Karnig Geoghlanians, Rupen, Dikran, Vahan and Puzant Balians, Mugurdich (Meroujan) Keheian, Hovhannes (Khosrov) Karasarkisian, Hovsep Kuchuk Sarkisian, Mugurdich Shakelian, Gagig Balian, Khacher Kara-Vartanian, Hovhannes Der Kevorkian (later Fr. Sahag Der Kevorkian), Barnes Der Kevorkian, Hagop (Baret) and Khacher Vasilians, Hampartsoum Rupenian, Iskender Balian, Manouk Tenkerian, Mugurdich (Bebek) Majarian, Nazaret Peltekian, Yervant Der Sdepanian, Sarkis Balian etc. As you noticed, some names are in brackets. These were names given by Jirair to the young freedom fighters for security reasons.
It was Jirair’s routine to take his students to nearby hills where he would motivate them with patriotic speeches. He would then mix the blood of their little fingers making them blood brothers, following which he would give them new Armenian names.
Two members of the Henchakian Party, Vartan Akhigian and Mekho Shahen (Mekhitar Seferian) produced militarily-driven members of Chork-Marzban with their speeches, particularly thanks to their efforts to instill a sense of national awareness and pride within the young men.
During the days of Sultan Hamid’s violence patriots who were aware of the tragedy awaiting Western and Cilician Armenians tried to convince the young men that massacres were near and pleaded for them to take the necessary measures for self-defense. The men fervently and secretly went to work relying on bribery and other such means to get their hands on gunpowder, weapons and ammunition. Most prominent in this effort was Bedoyan Bedig, a courageous young man, who succeeded in bringing about 45 kilograms of precious gunpowder from Eybez.
On November 12, 1895 the Turkish mob began to gather in Turkish villages around Chork-Marzban and other predominantly Armenian villages, with the intention of attacking, plundering and massacring the residents. The same morning the Armenians of Ojakle and Ozerli fled to Chork-Marzban in order to avoid a deadly encounter. With the command and under the leadership of Mekho Shahen a group of daring young men left to take the first military action and to receive their first baptism on the battlefield.
After plundering Armenian homes and farms in both Ozerli and Ojakle, the Turks burned the homes. The crackling of the flames could be heard as far as Chork-Marzban.
The Turkish and Kurdish mob was not satisfied with torching uninhabited villages, and thus attacked Chork-Marzban. The mob was greeted by the open fire of the defenders of Chork-Marzban. Mekho Shahen not only led the resistance but also personally participated in the battle. As the men opened fire from their locations, Mekho Shahen jumped from one location to the other firing with his long-range weapon, giving the Turks the impression that the Armenians were armed with several long-range weapons.
By the evening more than 10,000 Armenians had fled to Chork-Marzban and had found refuge in the homes of the locals.
The next day the Turks attempted a second try. They tried to advance by way of the marketplace. As if on their way to a Jihad, those marching in front let out deafening sounds of drums, howling, and gunfire in an attempt to scare the “giavours”. Under the command of expert marksman Vahan Chojuk and the leadership of Mekho Shahen a group of men armed with hunting guns managed to force the Turkish mob to retreat. The battle was imbalanced. Chanting the name of Mohammed they slowly approached the church and the homes of the Lower Chork Marzban and managed to burn some of them. At that moment Mekho emerged from his hiding place like an enraged lion and mixed with a small group of the mob. He yelled and screamed in Kurdish and invited the mob towards the Armenian front. By the time the Turks were not aware of the game, 14-15 year old Hovhannes Shakelian killed the first Turk. Shahen returned to his position and from there with his group was able to force the rest to retreat.
In the days that followed the Turks made a few more futile attempts to prove their superiority but were not successful and lost more lives. Seventy-year-old Agilen Karavartanian, Mani Oglu Kevork, Vahan Balian, and Krikor Tomboulian stood out with their bravery and devotion. It is interesting to note the strange behavior of a Turkish battalion roundabout that week. Since November 12 that battalion had put up tents on the northern side of Chork-Marzban, however they did not participate at all in the fighting; rather they took on the role of spectators.
It is noted in memoirs that a British naval ship was expected to arrive for help around this time, and the fighters of Chork-Marzban were to join the British in freeing Cilicia. No such ship came, however, but apparently an American ship came to rescue Dr. Hovhannes Khachadourian (Peltekian) who with his American wife and children had just arrived to visit relatives. This incident did not go unnoticed and left a positive influence on the bloody events of 1896.
Only on the eighth day of self-defense, on November 20, did Rezmi Pasha, the Mutasarref (governor) of Jebel Bereket arrive in Chork-Marzban with a group of soldiers and Giragos Efendi, an elder of Hasan Beyli. The clever strategist did not want to see a lucrative town in his jurisdiction such as Chork-Marzban, particularly one by the sea, burned down like Zeitun and the surrounding regions. Thus he informed the Turkish mob and later the Armenians to stop the fighting. The governor sent Giragos Efendi of Hasan Beyli to Chork-Marzban and began the negotiations with the appeal of the clergy of both sides.
The summary of eight days of self-defense is as follows.
a. LOSSES
1. Armenian homes in Ozelri and Ojakle were seriously damaged.
2. Several residents of the other villages were wounded. Three from Chork-Marzban lost their lives, as well as a few farmers from the other villages who had stayed in their farms.
3. Several homes near the “Lower Neighborhood” Church were burned.
4. Upon pressure from the Ottomans Mekho Shahen and Vartan Akhigian quietly left town and went to Cyprus.
b. ADVANTAGES
1. Armenians of the entire region, around 20,000 in number, were rescued.
2. The lucrative marketplace was saved.
3. The Armenians gained valuable experience in self-defense.
4. Armenian morale was lifted, as they became more confident in their own strength.
THE Second ARMED RESITANCE of Chork-Marzban
The second or Great Battle of Chork-Marzban was the direct consequence of the confusion and chaos that arose during 1908, between the Young Turks overthrowing the Sultan, the return of the Sultan and the regaining of power by the Young Turks. It is during this time that Chork-Marzban and the neighboring villages put forth a great effort of resistance which earned the acclaim of Siamanto and Zabel Esayan, bringing further fame to the name of Chork-Marzban within the intellectual circles of Istanbul.
In the days preceding the Great Battle of Chork-Marzban the “sister political parties” coexisted with exemplary harmony. The Reformed Hnchakian Party and the Sahmanadir Ramkavars were fairly popular in the town. The Dashnak Party became better known in 1908, in association with the name of Mihran Der Melkonian. Eyewitnesses testify that Mihran was an eloquent speaker and had his followers. During the second better-known armed resistance, Mihran became a key figure. It was this harmony that would bear fruit in the days when life and death hung in the balance.
Sunday, March 29, 1909 on the old calendar was the Feast of the Holy Resurrection (April 11 on the new calendar). The mood was a bit more cheerful than previous years as the political situation of the Ottoman government promised its people reforms, fraternity and equality…. On the morning of Tuesday, March 31 the dark news of Sultan Abdul-Hamid’s return was heard and the Young Turks had fled. This caused the Vali of Adana, a member of the Young Turks, to become desperate and confused. Hagop Karahagopian, the Armenian representative in the Ezrin region which contained Chork-Marzban, who had been in Adana during the past two months, heard news of the tragedy that was awaiting the Armenians from rumors and his friends in the Ittihad Party. He secretly sent news to Chork-Marzban to begin preparations immediately, and on his way he acquired gunpowder, guns, and anything else he could manage to find. He and his colleague Keuroglian, predicted what was about to happen and hurried to Chork-Marzban.
Upon reaching the town they called the elders to a meeting. The townspeople were given a warning not to leave the boundaries of the city, and farmers were informed to quickly return home.
In the morning of Wednesday, April 1 the massacre in Adana began, during which no lives were spared, including women, children and newborns. The next day the massacres spread to the regions of Cilicia, and the looting, destruction and massacre reached Chork-Marzban. The farms and cultivation spanning northeast of Adana, in the region of Jihan and its surroundings, as well as in Chork-Marzban were plundered and farmers brutally murdered.
Orders to destroy farms came from Asafbeg, the governor of Erzin, and the perpetrators were the Turks from Turunclu who had settled there from Grete. Their motive was so they could claim and settle in Armenian homes, putting an end to their migrant status.
Forty-eight Armenian farmers lost their lives in the bloody attack, most from Ojakle, including Fr. Boghos who was performing Easter house. The Turks bound the Armenians and took them to nearby Leche, where they brutally murdered them; the sole survivor was Garabed who managed to escape and return to Chork-Marzban. The belfries of the Upper and the Lower Chork Marzban Churches began to toll, warning the population to prepare for self-defense.
To make the operation more efficient the National Council of elders and the Armed Operations Command were formed. With the help of the imam of the neighboring Turkish village, the Armenian population of Najarle fled to Chork-Marzban. At the same time ten points of observation were designated and several mounted messengers assigned. The Armenians of Ojakle and Ozerli reached Chork-Marzban by noon. At Noon the same day the Turkish mob attacked the churches and homes of Ojakle and Ozerli, and looted and burned them. Upon the decree of the Operations Command the marketplace was closed, and by the order of the Secret Committee of Self-Defense, the Turkish residents of “Sara” (the government building and the surroundings) and the marketplace were taken hostage, putting Turkish homes under strict observation.
And thus, the Armenians decided not to remain obedient slaves. At daybreak on Friday, April 3 Chork-Marzban was already on its feet, while the guards had stood watch all night. Messengers and the leaders of the operation were designated, and guard units were assigned to the entrances, gates and boundaries of the town. Female volunteers were called who under the leadership of Dr. Movsesian and the regional Red Cross would tend to the wounded. There are historical accounts of the self-defense of Chork-Marzban by Arshagouhi Teotig and Zabel Yessayan who were sent to Cilicia a month later to observe the devastating results of the massacres of Cilicia.
Night and day patrol units were formed to protect the marketplace and the shops. A Military Tribunal was also created which upon the agreement of the leaders of the families, consisted of the prominent leaders of the town.
Relying on the expertise of the town carpenters, the residents of Chork-Marzban carved three canons from the bark of oak trees, which were to be used to scare the mob. At the same time they began work on preparing gunpowder using their own resources, and repaired the guns. Simultaneously, two of the fifty-seven Turks left in town were sent to Erzin, the center of the region, to ask Asaf Pasha for help from the government. The delegates did not return, leaving the residents of Chork-Marzban without a response and solely dependent on their own strength.
The commanders decided to secretly send delegates to Iskenderoun, who would appeal to the European consuls for help. The task was entrusted to Mihran Der Melkonian. Although Mihran’s attempt was futile, he proved to be extremely helpful in greeting the fleeing Armenians from Najarle. In the days that followed Mihran became one of the central heroes of Chork-Marzban’s self-defense.
From Saturday, April 4 until cease-fire on April 18 the residents of Chork-Marzban fought daily with life and death on the balance. Some of the most noteworthy moments were the battles to secure the water reservoirs. The devoted fighters were successful in stopping the Turks’ attempt to maintain control on the reservoirs. Mihran came out as the main hero in this event. With their modern equipment the mob also attempted to destroy the marketplace, however the brave locals did not allow them to succeed. In their haste to escape following one of their attempts the Turks dropped their weapons on the “battlefield”.
To disorient and frighten the tenfold force the Armenians appealed to military cleverness. They directed the oak canons towards the oncoming mob, and terrorized them with the powerful sound resonating from them. In regards to the Armenians’ military cleverness it is also noteworthy to mention the march organized by Kerovpe Der Stepanian, Megerdich Shakelian, and Merujan Keheyan, whereby around two hundred girls and women holding long canes marched along the streets of Chork-Marzban, giving the impression of hundreds of forces having come to the aid of the Armenians.
Back in Istanbul the Young Turks had been successful in reclaiming power, but the mob pretended to be unaware. Meanwhile, the residents of a neighboring town Hasanbeyli who had asked Chork-Marzban for help safely arrived in Chork-Marzban and lent their help in attacking the predominantly Kurdish village of Guzulucu Torun. Several uniformed soldiers from the Ottoman army were also among the Kurds. This attack became one of the most significant episodes in the Great Battle of Chork-Marzban, as the prey became the attacker and delivered a valuable lesson to the bloodthirsty enemy.
The decisive battle came to an end with the victory of the Armenians. Although the people of Chork-Marzban lost two soldiers and had three wounded, they returned having taught the enemy a lesson and having successfully performed the sacred task entrusted to them with utmost pride.
The desperate Mutasarref Asaf Beg sent a letter from Erzin in which he warned the Armenians to surrender if they did not wish to be subjected to more forceful punishments. To his letter he had also attached a letter from the Mufti. “It is a sin against God to raise your guns against Islam. Surrender, so that those who are guilty may be distinguished and punished, and the elderly, innocent and children may be saved. Be aware that if you do not surrender, then upon the command of the prophet your lives, belongings and assets will justly be claimed by the Muslims, as you have rebelled against the king.”
Thus more dire days awaited Chork-Marzban and so the commanders of the town decided to employ stricter rules in rationing water and food, to the extent that each fighter and resident was allowed to drink “one demitasse of water”.
A second even stronger attack was organized against the town marketplace. Following unwavering battles in which even some women participated including Mikel Geze (Mikayel’s daughter) and Annig Der Kevorkian, the mob retreated.
The commanders of Chork-Marzban made a second attempt to send word to Alexandria in regards to the agonizing battles of the Armenians. On April 16 the Armenian messengers who had arrived in Alexandria performed a vital task. Along with Pastor Fr. Krikor and the local leaders they explained the situation of Chork-Marzban’s self defense and the threatening danger awaiting the town. Led by Fr. Kevork the delegates immediately approached Mr. Katony, the British Consul and described their situation. The latter promised to do his best and intervene. To gain yet another mediator on their side he even spoke to the commander of the British naval ship docked in the harbor of Alexandria and explained to him the state of affairs in Chork-Marzban. On Friday, April 17, the two commanders, Mr. Katony, British missionary Mr. Kenneth, Fr. Krikor and other Armenian leaders, the Mufti of Alexandria and several Turk leaders boarded a ship and went off to the open waters of Chork-Marzban.
In the early stages of Armenian-Turkish negotiations the Turks suggested the following strict and unacceptable terms:
1. The Armenians must surrender their weapons and barracks.
2. The “outsiders” fighting in Chork-Marzban must leave immediately.
The Armenians stood firm on their position and refused to accept the conditions suggested by the Turks. They offered their counter terms.
1. We do not want to fall in the trap of the treacherous mob.
2. Our weapons will remain with us, but we will not open fire on the Turks.
3. We have built the barracks with our own resources and will surrender it only to the formal army.
4. We have no outsiders fighting among our ranks.
To further aid the Armenians on Saturday, April 18 the English left for Adana and informed the head vali of the Armenians’ situation. Italian, French and German naval ships reached the harbor of Alexandria during the same time. The admiral of the Italian ship Filomen called upon the Turkish commander of Alexandria and demanded that the mob retreat immediately, otherwise he would bombard the surrounding Turkish villages. Having comprehended the seriousness of the Admiral’s demands, the Turk commander pleaded to the Admiral to wait until the next morning, as the government in Istanbul had ordered the army to send two battalions to Chork-Marzban in order to mediate an accord. The warning had a serious impact because a fleet of small Turkish ships appeared at sea and together with the Turkish commander proceeded towards the harbor of Chork-Marzban.
Cease-fire and treaty
The “international pressure”, although weak, had their positive influence on upcoming events. The next day the Young Turks sent a military official named Kiliades Efendi from Adana with a special mission, bringing along an infantry unit. The elders were immediately called to a meeting in the governmental building. The delegate sent by the Vali of Adana urged the people of Chork-Marzban to not involve Britain in internal affairs, and second, to rest assured and trust the “Ittihad ve Terakke” Party.
That same day a lunch meeting was held during which the following points were placed under consideration.
1. Chork-Marzban must continue to remain the center of Gaza (a province). Instead of a Turk a Greek Kaymakam (provincial leader) will be assigned as a vicar to the governor.
2. Expansion of the barracks and an increase in the number of staff
3. Expansion of the telegraph office on the first floor of the government building in Chork-Marzban to convert it into a post/telegraph office
4. Expansion of the main road in Chork-Marzban which connects to the wide crossroad of Toprakgale-Payas-Alexandria, and the construction of a railroad station near the intersection by European countries.
5. The construction of a small harbor to ease the export of 80 million oranges from Chork-Marzban
Aside from the abovementioned reforms promised to the Armenians, the governor of Adana also granted several community and national rights.
1. Certain humanitarian, religious and educational institutions are allowed to exist (Red Cross hospital, Kelegian Orphanage).
2. Pastors may deliver the Sermon in Armenian on feast days such as the New Year, Christmas, Diarnentarach, Easter, and the feast of St. Mary.
3. Lighting an open fire and the firing of guns are allowed during weddings and celebrations, under the direct supervision of the general of the barracks.
The governor also promised to see that trials in relation to taxation disputes over land were conducted according to the fair interests of the communities. The only request the governor had of the Armenians in return to his promises was their loyalty to the Ottoman government and the turnover of the people’s weapons to commander Nedim Bey.
The people of Chork-Marzban proceeded with caution; they purposely delayed the handing over of weapons, and in the days that followed they transferred to the commander only the rifles that had become obsolete. In regards to weaponry, the leaders of the town adopted a policy to not compromise under any circumstance.
LOSSES
Chork-Marzban and surrounding Armenian villages
People killed 83, including 11 women and 3 children
People wounded 109, including 33 women and 6 children
Plundered 18 shops in the marketplace
Shops burned 4 and 1 orange storehouse
Homes burned 84
Destroyed 2 watermills
Horses killed 26
Churches and schools 2 churches and 2 schools
Monetary loss 40,000 gold liras
Immediately after the ceasefire Chork-Marzban received 300 gold liras towards their rebuilding efforts from the Center of the AGBU and the Patriarchate. They also received all necessary food provisions.
Third Heroic Resistance (1919-1921)
After the ceasefire of 1918, Cilicia, Syria and Lebanon fell under the control of France. The Armenians who had been spread near and far began to slowly head back to the vacant Armenian towns and villages of Zeitun, Hajin, Adana, Sis, Chork-Marzban, Marash, Aintab and Edessa. However the agenda of the Armenians differed from the policies of the French who were claiming lands, and thus soon after the Armenians were forced to once again pick up their weapons to defend what was left to them.
Although Turkey had lost and had accepted her defeat, the Turkish army had not yet surrendered their weaponry and Ataturk had begun his nationalist movement. This was the backdrop in 1919-1921 when the Armenians of Cilicia began to organize their self-defense in several regions. Chork-Marzban became one of the most prominent among the communities.
The organization and leadership of the third battle of self-defense may be credited to Zora (actual name Misak) Iskenderian, a member of the Reformed Hunchakian Party from Musa Ler region, and his colleague Evig Minas from Chork-Marzban. A united body was formed in Chork-Marzban comprising of the three political parties, including three chapters from the Armenian Sahmanadir Ramkavar Party, one chapter from the Reformed Hunchakian Party, and one chapter from the Dashnak Party. Aside from those the Armenian Protestant community of Ozerli and Ojakle had one member. The Armenian National Association created in Adana, which was a sort of government, also had a local chapter. The executive body and the local committee of the Combined Political Party collaborated harmoniously. According to Zora Iskenderian, “It was a form of government that had regular sessions and took decisions in Chork-Marzban.”
In order to prepare themselves for upcoming attacks, Zora and Hampartsoum Barsamian were entrusted with the task of forming a youth organization. Immediately by-laws were drawn up and the “Youth Association” was created and also is placed under the jurisdiction of the National Association. During this time (December 18) the “People’s Association” had also been formed by Minas Krikorian with a membership of over 200.
The leaders of Chork-Marzban had firm ties with the Armenian Legions. Meanwhile the experienced and legendary hero Mleh was sent to Chork-Marzban by Mihran Damadian, the leader of the Combined Political Committee of Adana as Overall Supervisor.
At this time Venizelos, the Greek Prime Minister, sent a full container of arms and ammunition to Chork Marzban. This was considered to be a meaningful turn of events for the Armenians of Chork-Marzban and the surrounding regions, as although extremely small in number, they had succeeded in maintaining their existence under such chaotic and difficult conditions. The weapons were brought ashore at night, using caution to not alert the unkind and pro-Turkish French “allies”, as a result of whose presence the unbridled barbarism of the Turks continued at every opportunity. The people of Chork-Marzban were armed with Martins and Bulgarian rifles. Thanks to these weapons no one in the city was left unarmed; even the women and girls had their share of weapons.
During French occupation, as a result of the predetermined rights granted to the Turks by local leaders, certain Armenian regions such as Ekbes (Eybez), Bakce, Harunie and Hasanbeyli were stranded or were under intense danger. Thus Armenians would arrive from these regions on a daily basis. In addition to the aforementioned, with the support of commander Gara Hasan, the loyal general of Kemal Ataturk, innocent Armenian farmers and coal miners became the target of fierce attacks. Having lost hope in French forces, the people of Chork-Marzban were forced to rely upon their own resources for the third time and defend themselves. This period of self-defense lasted a couple of months during which the lives of the Armenians of Chork Marzban were spared.
The tension between French leaders and Armenians reached its zenith when Gara Hasan, encouraged by French tolerance, opened fire on the marketplace of Chork-Marzban and took two lives. When the Armenians asked for French support, the latter had the audacity to reply that they did not have the necessary resources to defend Chork-Marzban. In this tension the French intensified the resuscitation of criminal activity against the war-torn Armenians of Chork-Marzban.
Such was the case of Zora Iskenderian, assigned to lead the resistance. The French commander Andre wished to find a reason to remove this hero from the battlefield. He purposely provoked Zora into a fiery reaction and tried to arrest him. Zora managed to escape and that same day in a secret meeting with the National Association he transferred his post to Evig Minas.
The French actively persisted in persecuting the leaders of the resistance. For example, Colonel Bremo in his letters addressed to Mihran Damadian, representative of the National Delegation, dated April 18 and 19 (No. 1258 and 1285), wrote:
“I have the honor to inform you of the events which have occurred in the region of Dort-Yol…. The Armenians have formed several brigand groups.”
It was clear to the Armenian fighters that they should not place any hope in the French forces, and thus they intensified their attacks on Turkish bandits who under the leadership of Gara Hasan had grasped Chork-Marzban in pincers. The Armenians proceeded according to the principle, “and eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. During the three days that followed under the leadership of Evig Minas the fighters of Chork-Marzban achieved several victories and voided the surrounding villages of Turkish and Kurdish bandits. Chork-Marzban was free once more.
Up to the point of the great betrayal, which is to say the Franco-British agreement of October 21, 1921, Chork-Marzban struggled to maintain its existence. Forgotten were yesterday’s “small ally”, the devotion of the Armenian legions, our innumerable martyrs, and the Christian and co-religionist Armenians. “Knightly” France slithered like a reptile in front of her former enemy, giving in compromise after compromise. The people of Chork-Marzban, who had fairly achieved victories in an armed resistance, were told by the French governor, “…I am saddened to inform you that we will intervene with military force so that the Turks may take possession of this land as imposed by the terms of the agreement.”
Thus the remainder of the Armenians, the Greeks, Assyrians and Alevis were placed under the will of Turkish compassion. The haste and flight began. The destiny of the Armenians was left up to chance and so they looked towards different and unknown horizons. Just like the Armenians of Cilicia, those of Chork-Marzban left their homeland with teary eyes. For the most part they settled in Alexandria, Aleppo and Oman.
Many of the descendents of the residents of Chork-Marzban who are now spread all over the world teasingly wish one another to one day taste the oranges of Chork-Marzban and experience the sweetness of the warm breeze flowing from the mountains of Adana. Their dreams to return are still alive. | ||||
3581 | dbpedia | 0 | 10 | https://brill.com/downloadpdf/journals/ssm/23/1/article-p94_5.xml | en | “No More Cookies or Cake Now, 'C'est la guerre' ”: An American Nurse in Turkey, 1919 to 1920 | [
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"Kathleen Sheldon"
] | 2010-01-01T00:00:00 | Abstract Sylvia Thankful Eddy was a nurse with the Near East Relief in Turkey, based at an American mission hospital at Aintab. She kept a diary during 1919-1920, when she witnessed a conflict between Turkish and French forces and Turkish persecution of Armenians. Her story counters the expectations of a missionary perspective, as she rarely mentions anything religious but frequently reports on sharing social activities with French soldiers. She was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for her actions in saving patients when the hospital was bombarded. Her story illustrates the complicated alliances of an American woman working at the intersection of various conflicting national, ethnic, and religious communities, and demonstrates one woman's route to missionary work. Sylvia Thankful Eddy, infirmière, travailla pour le Near East Relief en Turquie où elle fut basée à Aintab dans un hôpital missionnaire américain. Elle rédigea un journal entre 1919 et 1920 alors qu'elle était témoin du conflit entre les forces turques et françaises et de la persécution des Arméniens par les Turcs. Son histoire ne correspond pas à ce que l'on peut attendre d'une perspective missionnaire dans la mesure où elle ne parle presque pas de religion et qu'elle mentionne au contraire fréquemment les activités sociales qu'elle partage avec des soldats français. Elle reçut la médaille française de la Croix de Guerre pour ce qu'elle entreprit afin de sauver des patients lorsque l'hôpital où elle était fut bombardé. Son histoire illustre les alliances compliquées d'une femme américaine travaillant à l'intersection de diverses communautés nationales, ethniques et religieuses, et elle démontre le parcours singulier d'une femme vers le travail missionnaire. | en | /fileasset/brillcom-favicon-20180215.png | Brill | https://brill.com/view/journals/ssm/23/1/article-p94_5.xml | Abstract
Sylvia Thankful Eddy was a nurse with the Near East Relief in Turkey, based at an American mission hospital at Aintab. She kept a diary during 1919-1920, when she witnessed a conflict between Turkish and French forces and Turkish persecution of Armenians. Her story counters the expectations of a missionary perspective, as she rarely mentions anything religious but frequently reports on sharing social activities with French soldiers. She was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for her actions in saving patients when the hospital was bombarded. Her story illustrates the complicated alliances of an American woman working at the intersection of various conflicting national, ethnic, and religious communities, and demonstrates one woman's route to missionary work. Sylvia Thankful Eddy, infirmière, travailla pour le Near East Relief en Turquie où elle fut basée à Aintab dans un hôpital missionnaire américain. Elle rédigea un journal entre 1919 et 1920 alors qu'elle était témoin du conflit entre les forces turques et françaises et de la persécution des Arméniens par les Turcs. Son histoire ne correspond pas à ce que l'on peut attendre d'une perspective missionnaire dans la mesure où elle ne parle presque pas de religion et qu'elle mentionne au contraire fréquemment les activités sociales qu'elle partage avec des soldats français. Elle reçut la médaille française de la Croix de Guerre pour ce qu'elle entreprit afin de sauver des patients lorsque l'hôpital où elle était fut bombardé. Son histoire illustre les alliances compliquées d'une femme américaine travaillant à l'intersection de diverses communautés nationales, ethniques et religieuses, et elle démontre le parcours singulier d'une femme vers le travail missionnaire.
Abstract
Sylvia Thankful Eddy was a nurse with the Near East Relief in Turkey, based at an American mission hospital at Aintab. She kept a diary during 1919-1920, when she witnessed a conflict between Turkish and French forces and Turkish persecution of Armenians. Her story counters the expectations of a missionary perspective, as she rarely mentions anything religious but frequently reports on sharing social activities with French soldiers. She was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for her actions in saving patients when the hospital was bombarded. Her story illustrates the complicated alliances of an American woman working at the intersection of various conflicting national, ethnic, and religious communities, and demonstrates one woman's route to missionary work. Sylvia Thankful Eddy, infirmière, travailla pour le Near East Relief en Turquie où elle fut basée à Aintab dans un hôpital missionnaire américain. Elle rédigea un journal entre 1919 et 1920 alors qu'elle était témoin du conflit entre les forces turques et françaises et de la persécution des Arméniens par les Turcs. Son histoire ne correspond pas à ce que l'on peut attendre d'une perspective missionnaire dans la mesure où elle ne parle presque pas de religion et qu'elle mentionne au contraire fréquemment les activités sociales qu'elle partage avec des soldats français. Elle reçut la médaille française de la Croix de Guerre pour ce qu'elle entreprit afin de sauver des patients lorsque l'hôpital où elle était fut bombardé. Son histoire illustre les alliances compliquées d'une femme américaine travaillant à l'intersection de diverses communautés nationales, ethniques et religieuses, et elle démontre le parcours singulier d'une femme vers le travail missionnaire. | ||||
3581 | dbpedia | 3 | 45 | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/9/7/205 | en | “Vibrating between Hope and Fear”: The European War and American Presbyterian Foreign Missions | [
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"Scott P. Libson",
"Scott P"
] | 2018-07-02T00:00:00 | Scholars have argued that World War I and its aftermath caused a rapid transformation in American global philanthropy. The decline of the American “moral empire” coincided with the rise of professional, bureaucratic, and secular philanthropy. The reasons for this transformation appear almost self-evident: the crisis greatly exceeded the capabilities of all private organizations, leading to the growth of state-supported, public, and semi-public organizations like the American Red Cross. In fact, though, mainline foreign missions grew rapidly after the war and did not decline until the Great Depression. In 1920, for instance, they combined to receive over 80 percent of Red Cross receipts. Even amid the decline of the “moral empire”, therefore, mainline foreign missions remained major sources of philanthropic aid and primary representatives of American interests abroad. This article looks at the hopes and fears of Presbyterian (USA) foreign missions in the years before American entry into the (imprecisely named) European War, in order to understand the resilience of foreign missions during a period of crisis. The war created numerous practical, financial, and conceptual challenges. But, it also inspired the mission boards to seek greater sacrifices among donors, to coordinate with other boards and the federal government, and to find alternative methods to achieve its goals. These efforts in the first half of the 1910s prefigured a nationwide transformation in ideas about service and voluntary giving. After the United States entered the war, these “social goods” became nearly obligatory in the minds of many Americans. | en | MDPI | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/9/7/205 | Department of Arts and Humanities, Indiana University Libraries, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
Religions 2018, 9(7), 205; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9070205
Submission received: 31 May 2018 / Revised: 21 June 2018 / Accepted: 27 June 2018 / Published: 2 July 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philanthropic Traditions through Christian History: Common Themes and Contestations)
Abstract
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Scholars have argued that World War I and its aftermath caused a rapid transformation in American global philanthropy. The decline of the American “moral empire” coincided with the rise of professional, bureaucratic, and secular philanthropy. The reasons for this transformation appear almost self-evident: the crisis greatly exceeded the capabilities of all private organizations, leading to the growth of state-supported, public, and semi-public organizations like the American Red Cross. In fact, though, mainline foreign missions grew rapidly after the war and did not decline until the Great Depression. In 1920, for instance, they combined to receive over 80 percent of Red Cross receipts. Even amid the decline of the “moral empire”, therefore, mainline foreign missions remained major sources of philanthropic aid and primary representatives of American interests abroad. This article looks at the hopes and fears of Presbyterian (USA) foreign missions in the years before American entry into the (imprecisely named) European War, in order to understand the resilience of foreign missions during a period of crisis. The war created numerous practical, financial, and conceptual challenges. But, it also inspired the mission boards to seek greater sacrifices among donors, to coordinate with other boards and the federal government, and to find alternative methods to achieve its goals. These efforts in the first half of the 1910s prefigured a nationwide transformation in ideas about service and voluntary giving. After the United States entered the war, these “social goods” became nearly obligatory in the minds of many Americans.
1. Introduction
As Europe spiraled toward war in the summer of 1914, Protestant mission boards in the United States were nearly as ill-prepared as everyone else, but not quite. Americans quickly named it the European War, but the boards knew that to be a misnomer.1 Their stations covered the globe and the conflict had direct consequences for missions from the South Pacific to the Middle East to Africa. They also had experience in many of the philanthropic problems, if not the military ones, that the war greatly exacerbated, including fundraising, mobilizing the home front, and organizing a global workforce. The American Red Cross (ARC), for instance, quickly joined in the charitable effort in 1914, but it had no personnel in place, had a paid staff of twenty-five, and a membership of under 17,000. Doctors and nurses had to sail from New York, a process that took time and, given the American characterization of the war, initially focused on Europe. Much of the ARC’s international work in 1914–1916, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean, relied on foreign missionaries to carry out its on-the-ground work (Syria 1915). When the United States entered the war three years later, the ARC lacked the cash to succeed in its much-expanded mission. It launched a campaign to raise $100 million in a week, an extraordinary sum and in an extraordinarily brief period of time. Foreign mission boards again came to the ARC’s aid, as missionary societies across the country quickly reoriented their agendas to Red Cross needs. Historians have noted that American entry into the war created social obligations to serve one’s country and to contribute one’s wealth (Capozzola 2008; Hitchcock 2014, pp. 150–55; Irwin 2013, chp. 3–4; Zunz 2012, p. 66). Those were ideas that mission boards had been advocating for many years, a fact that historians frequently acknowledge but rarely explore.2
The Presbyterian (USA) Board of Foreign Missions (BFM), as the wealthiest American mission board by annual donations, exemplified the ways mission boards used their extensive experience in overseas philanthropy during the war. It evolved as a result of the conflict. The BFM came out of the war wealthier, and more committed than ever, to both foreign missions and non-sectarian philanthropy. That commitment is surprising, given the BFM repeatedly raised concerns about losing money and talented personnel to non-sectarian organizations. At the same time, it reflected broader trends within American philanthropy in the postwar era, where the division between religious and secular organizations was not always clear.
In August 1914, any hopeful outlook for the BFM would have seemed Panglossian. The initial weeks and months of the war sent mission boards scrambling. In the Ottoman Empire, the transnational financial system changed too quickly for the mission boards to keep up. Banks throughout the empire refused to honor the drafts on London banks that had been funding both BFM stations and those of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Congregational). London had entered financial chaos in late July as troops moved toward borders and war became increasingly inevitable. Similar to the financial crisis in 2007–2008, banks immediately sought to protect themselves. They held on to their cash reserves, particularly gold, and ceased to lend. In London, they closed for a week. Markets froze as well. To avoid further calamity, the London and New York Stock Exchanges closed on 31 July. The New York Stock Exchange remained closed for a month. The London exchange did not reopen until 4 January 1915 (Roberts 2013, pp. 3–6). Mission boards mainly faulted banks in Constantinople for not honoring their British or American drafts, but in any event, missionaries still lacked cash.
Similar problems arose around the world. In some regions, the BFM could do no better than ask Standard Oil for help. The Board paid the company’s treasurer in New York, who then directed operatives in Asia to distribute gold to the Presbyterian missionaries.3 In India, the missionaries were forced to pay skyrocketing rates of exchange.4 The boards circulated a call for additional contributions to pay for this “new peril to our finances arising from the war”. Donors responded with mixed results. “So it goes,” the American Board’s Cornelius Patton wrote, “vibrating between hope and fear”.5
Still, the situation in Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt attracted special concern. Within days of the banks closing, Charles A. Dana (unrelated to the nineteenth-century New York Tribune journalist) wrote to Russell Carter in desperation. Dana held a critical role for American Presbyterian missions in the Ottoman Empire. As the head of the American Mission Press in Beirut and the treasurer of the Syrian mission, practically every important transaction went through him. The financial crisis left Dana powerless. The Presbyterian mission had money and drafts on banks in London and New York as well as the Ottoman Bank and the Deutsche Palestine Bank, but his notes were “not worth the paper they are printed on”, because the banks were failing, and no one would honor the drafts.6 W. W. Peet, the American Board’s veteran treasurer in Constantinople faced the same problem and wired foreign secretary James Barton. “We are all suffering terribly for gold”, he complained. He wanted Barton to make a direct plea to President Woodrow Wilson for assistance. Barton contacted Arthur Brown of the BFM. He hoped that presenting a joint appeal with one of the wealthiest mission boards would bolster their case.7
On August 26, Barton met with Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan along with A. Woodruff Halsey of the Presbyterian board. Bryan asked them not to say anything except that “the government has this whole matter well in hand”.8 He then dispatched the USS North Carolina, a cruiser, to Constantinople from Falmouth in southwest England. It carried $150,000 in gold for the American Board, the BFM, and other missionary enterprises in the region, as well as for American tourists. The various boards reimbursed Washington, making deposits with the Treasury for the gold and for a previous loan of $17,800 that Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Sr. had personally offered for immediate assistance.9 Washington provided this aid at no expense to the mission boards.10
In hindsight, the emergency offers a window into the state of religious philanthropy at a moment of great change. In part, it demonstrated the federal government’s willingness to further the missionary project, both on an individual level and an institutional one. In an age of American global presence and nearly instant communication, through telegraph wires deep in the Atlantic, Peet’s frantic search for cash found quick resolution. Ambassador Morgenthau provided the initial loan. His position had been created only thirteen years prior. Then, less than a month after the start of the financial crisis, the federal government was already ordering ships thousands of miles away on a relief mission. Many Americans opposed foreign missions for various reasons, but the coming changes in American philanthropy would not result from any governmental antipathy for missions.
At the same time, the start of the war also highlighted the weakness of mission movement financing. The boards endured the volatility of the markets and the caprice of federal politics. Nothing obligated Morgenthau to lend his money or Bryan to dispatch the North Carolina; a different ambassador or secretary of state might not have taken any action. Indeed, a few years earlier, Morgenthau probably would have refused such a request, having felt disdain for “over-zealous advance agents of sectarian religion”. A transatlantic journey with some mission board administrators had convinced him to view missions as “a magnificent work of social service, education, philanthropy, sanitation, medical healing, and moral uplift” (Morgenthau and Strother 1922, p. 176). Also, the mission boards appeared to think that individually they might not have held enough clout to sway even the “godly hero”, William Jennings Bryan (Kazin 2006).
Regardless of these individual actors, though, the crisis demonstrated the limits of American power in the region. The US government certainly did not have “this whole matter well in hand”. The Turks prevented the North Carolina from entering the Dardanelles (with the excuse that mines made entry too dangerous) and the naval yacht Scorpion was forced to retrieve the gold on September 23. The gold remained in Constantinople, though, and would not get to other cities in the Ottoman Empire for some time. By mid-October, Beirut and Jerusalem in particular still needed funds. At that point, though, the bank restrictions had eased and the North Carolina’s “gold did us no good and was not accepted”, according to Katherine Jessup. Instead, it was sent back to Constantinople and mainly benefited the missionaries insofar as it showed their independence, not their reliance, on the American government. The advent of rapid communication had done nothing to expedite sea travel, and two or three months without cash could have caused serious damage to the missions. Nevertheless, Jessup felt relieved by the presence of US Navy vessels in the eastern Mediterranean (the North Carolina, as well as the Tennessee, which had been dispatched from the United States, both remained in the region). The American moral empire sometimes required a show of force.11
While the cash crunch ended quite quickly, other problems arose as the Great War spread and grew in intensity.12 The war impacted almost every aspect of missions work, both for missionaries abroad and organizers at home. For decades, the mission movement had tried to convince the public of its need for nationwide support. Interdenominational organizations, like the Laymen’s Missionary Movement or the Missionary Education Movement, had bolstered the non-sectarian claims of the movement. Fundraising campaigns and local missionary societies consciously created social obligations for support. The war, therefore, did not create the ideal of nationwide cooperation in philanthropy, but it did fuel it. Foreign missions benefited from a windfall in giving to war-related charities, and they capitalized on the added publicity for humanitarianism. As reflected in the case of the gold shortage in Constantinople, the mission boards expanded their preexisting cooperation with the federal government. Beyond that internal expansion, though, mission boards came to realize the great potential of non-sectarian philanthropy for accomplishing goals that missionaries had previously taken on themselves. That a sectarian organization like the BFM would encourage non-sectarianism was surprising, even to the BFM itself, as reflected in its periodic ambivalence about organizations like the ARC. The years preceding and during the European War nevertheless show that the ground had been prepared for this confluence of interests.
2. The Great War: A Turning Point for Philanthropy and Humanitarianism?
The classic timeline of World War I begins on 28 June 1914, the day Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Sophie, the Duchess of Hohenberg. It ends in 1918, when the Allies and Central Powers ceased hostilities, or 1919, when those adversaries signed the Treaty of Versailles. That chronology, however, minimizes global interconnections and the violent encounters that extended beyond the main period of conflict. The Italian invasion of North Africa in 1911 and the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 foreshadowed the worldwide conflagration. Conflicts in Egypt, India, Syria, and elsewhere after 1918 fed off dashed hopes of self-determination that the world war had sparked. The traditional narrative also emphasizes the nation-state instead of either the multi-ethnic empires that constituted much of the world in the 1910s or the nongovernmental organizations that were already starting to proliferate by 1914 (Gerwarth and Manela 2014; Iriye 2002, pp. 4–7, 18–21; Irwin 2013; Little 2009; Manela 2007). For these reasons and others, it makes sense to adopt an expansive periodization of missions in the World War I era, beginning in the early 1910s, with efforts to improve the effectiveness of mission movement financing, and ending in the 1920s, with non-sectarian philanthropies that employed the resources of foreign missions, such as the American Committee on Armenian and Syrian Relief.
The impact and consequences of World War I on voluntarism, humanitarianism, and philanthropy in the United States (and elsewhere) is undeniable, as recent historiography has underlined (Cabanes 2014; Hitchcock 2014; Irwin 2013; Little 2009; Watenpaugh 2010). Charitable organizations expanded, politicians and the press devoted more attention to the callousness of war, and philanthropy became more secular and scientific. Although the American state had played a role in these efforts since before the Civil War (McCarthy 2003), religion had continued to provide the main impetus for humanitarianism and proponents always identified this work as charitable. But the immense scale of World War I, as well as the events that surrounded it, forced a dramatic transformation in the resources devoted to humanitarianism, the role of the state, and the motivations for actions (Barnett 2011, pp. 1–5). Part of that transformation grew out of state demands of its citizens, as reflected in the draft, urban vice control organizations, and the quasi-public American Red Cross, each of which blurred distinctions between voluntarism and obligation (Capozzola 2008; Fronc 2009, chp. 6; Irwin 2013). Some historians argue that these developments formed a “key moment” in the history of modern human rights (Cabanes 2014, p. 10; see also Hitchcock 2014; cf. Moyn 2010, 2015).
The foreign mission movement adds a different perspective to the history of humanitarianism. Foreign missions bridged the war and evolved as a result of it, facilitating an analysis of both change and continuity.13 Both the quest for the “origins” of human rights and the confined examination of the war period predispose historians to emphasize change at this particular moment. Much of the continuity within American philanthropy consequently gets lost. Historians of Protestant foreign missions have done surprisingly little to address this lacuna. Several important works select 1914 or 1915 as an end date (Porter 2004; Robert 2008; Shenk 2004) or devote little attention to the impact of the war itself (Bays and Wacker 2003; Hutchison 1987; Robert 1997). Ian Tyrrell (2010) has argued that the war signaled the declining influence of leaders of the “moral empire”. There are certainly notable exceptions (Mislin 2015; Showalter 1998; Walther 2016), but it remains a topic worthy of greater attention.
To explore continuities in the 1910s is not to ignore the many changes that the war caused. It undoubtedly influenced philanthropies and humanitarian movements in profound ways, particularly through organizations, such as the League of Nations, Save the Children, and the American Red Cross. Many leaders in the postwar humanitarian movement, nevertheless, saw their work as a continuation of and elaboration on what they had been doing both during and before the war. Mission movement leaders had long encouraged the state to take a more active role in the moral empire (although they also wanted to maintain their own independence) and debated the benefits and drawbacks of social welfare programs (Hutchison 1987, chp. 4–6). That they hoped these efforts would eventually result in conversion to Christianity only further connects their prewar efforts with the postwar period’s views on the possibilities that European and American domination would promote “civilization”.
By any measure, missionaries played a bit part in the conflict and I am not arguing for a reinterpretation of the war itself. Missionaries and mission boards remained vitally important to millions of Americans, however, as demonstrated by the thousands of missionary societies and tens of millions of dollars donated each year. That was true before, during, and after the war, but is missing or minimized in histories that focus on the rise of non-sectarian philanthropy during and after World War I (Irwin 2013; Watenpaugh 2010, 2015; Zunz 2012, chp. 2). By overemphasizing change, we misrepresent the complexity of the American philanthropic landscape and the diverse interests of the American people. We also reinforce the truism that war is the major force behind historical change.
The evolution of mission boards during and after the war points to the gradual and complicated transformation of American global philanthropy from predominantly, or at least supposedly, religious and missionary in nature to non-sectarian and “humanitarian”. In the end, the bit part played by missionaries did little to influence the war and the mission boards could hardly be called war victims. They did, however, prepare the way for the larger organizations like the American Red Cross, through organizational structures both within the United States and abroad. The boards, in turn, took advantage of the war to raise additional capital and to grow. The BFM and other mission boards thus succeeded in their aims of both expanding their own international footprint and promoting a nationwide, non-sectarian humanitarian agenda.
3. Presbyterians and Foreign Missions
The cooperation between the American Board and the BFM at the start of the war was hardly coincidental. They were two of the largest and wealthiest mission boards, each headquartered in the northeast (the BFM in New York and the American Board in Boston).14 Over a century earlier, in 1801, the common Reform Church background of Congregationalism and Presbyterianism had led to the Plan of Union, in which the two churches had decided to cooperate in their evangelistic endeavors. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church consequently urged churches to support the American Board when it began operations about a decade later. The union never appealed to many Presbyterians and “Old School” Presbyterians formed the Board of Foreign Missions in 1837. In 1870, with the reunion of the “Old School” and “New School”, the BFM became the primary Presbyterian foreign missions board outside the former Confederacy. The American Board transferred numerous missions to the BFM to reflect the new circumstances. By World War I, the BFM had grown wealthier than the American Board,15 but each could claim a degree of importance within foreign missions circles in the United States. The prestige of each board was underlined by the prominence of its administrators, including Robert Speer, Stanley White, and A. Woodruff Halsey of the Presbyterian Board and James Barton, Cornelius Patton, Enoch Bell, and Harry Hicks of the American Board. All held important positions of leadership within the global mission movement and occasionally outside of it as well.
Presbyterian governance of foreign missions was relatively similar to the American Board. Each had a small executive committee of secretaries charged with overseeing missions abroad and promoting them at home, as well as a treasurer to oversee the finances.16 For both boards, the secretaries had pastoral and missionary backgrounds, while the treasurers were lawyers and businessmen. Women in each denomination formed their own organizations in the years after the Civil War. Larger and smaller bodies, comprised of leading members of each domination, supervised the executive committees in various ways.
Polity had always separated Congregationalists and Presbyterians and that distinction had major implications for fundraising. While the American Board passed budgets and expected contributions from churches, church authority ultimately rested with the congregation. The more hierarchical structure within Presbyterianism, with its sessions, presbyteries, and synods, allowed for more top-down decision making. If the General Assembly (the highest body within the church structure) established a fundraising campaign, it came as more authoritative, in some ways, than what a mission board might propose on its own. That is not to ignore the wide diversity within Presbyterianism (or the national bodies within Congregationalism) and the conservative-modernist debates that divided the Presbyterian Church in the early twentieth century, profoundly influenced fundraising and foreign missions.
4. Apportionments and the Every Member Canvass: Balancing Financial Goals with Donor Empowerment
Wartime and interwar philanthropic fundraising sought to instill a sense of social obligation to give.17 Although the historiography of fundraising has tended to emphasize non-sectarian precursors to that monetary mobilization, religious groups provide an equally useful example.18 In the case of the BFM and the Presbyterian (USA) Church more generally, it is a history of trial and error. These trials and errors helped prepare mission boards, congregants, and fundraisers for future changes. Mission boards adapted to or resisted forced cooperation within and outside their denominations. Meanwhile, fundraisers began delegating their responsibilities to congregants. Donating had ceased to be about anonymously putting money into an envelope. Neighbor was soliciting contributions from neighbor and even the charitable organizations themselves had lost some control over the fundraising drive. This dynamic, which Olivier Zunz (2012, p. 44) associates with a growing “culture of giving”, intensified the social obligation to donate, and it only grew in intensity with the start of the war as both religious and non-religious organizations employed similar tactics.
The fundraising errors within the Presbyterian Church derived largely from attempts to coerce individuals or groups to act more efficiently, instead of offering, at least, the illusory control implied by the “culture of giving”. For example, in 1912, the General Assembly proposed a centralized treasurer to oversee the budgets and fundraising of all Presbyterian benevolent associations, including the BFM, Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, home mission board, and others. The proposal failed, partly due to the strong opposition from the BFM. Secretary Robert Speer argued that the BFM’s treasurer had an extremely complicated job, managing donations, disbursement, investments, and overseas real estate, work that a centralized treasurer could not have handled alone. In more general terms, though, Speer lamented the growing tendency “to separate still further the donors from the actual work which their gifts support. Such a Treasurer … would have no living touch with the work which the money passing through his hands was doing. The palsy of a purely banking officialism would fall upon the administration of the benevolent accounts”.19
While the centralized treasurer scheme never came to fruition, centralized or cooperative fundraising did become a reality. By allowing donors to give to benevolences in general (not unlike a community chest), rather than to foreign missions one week, home missions the next, perhaps church erection the following, etc., these plans simplified church collections for both ministers and parishioners. Within the Presbyterian Church, it took several forms in the years before the war: the “cooperating plan”, apportionment, and the Every Member Canvass. The American Board adopted versions of each around the same time.20
A year before the centralized treasurer plan, in 1911, the General Assembly had created a “Joint Executive Committee” as part of its “cooperating plan” (later called the Presbyterian United Movement). The Joint Committee oversaw apportionments and budgets for the various benevolent organizations of the church. By centralizing money-management, the committee would supposedly increase efficiency. Fundraisers had “been working each for his own Board; hereafter, they are to work each for all the Boards”. More to the point, though, “the Boards [would] be relieved of the responsibility of seeking money from church organizations”, since that responsibility would rest on the new committee. It immediately suggested changing apportionments/allotments, the amount each church was asked to raise, and launched an “every-member-weekly-pledge system” (Minutes of the General Assembly 1911, p. 179, 181). To clarify the bureaucratic overhaul, the Assembly Herald eventually diagramed the United Movement’s structure (Figure 1).
These concerns were not misplaced. Problems arose from the start. First, the Joint Committee had little control over many factors related to the boards’ budgets, like the rate of return on their investments. Second, this added hierarchy could quickly interfere with local church structures, producing counterproductive tension. Of particular concern was whether women would be allowed to direct their donations to the allotment of their women’s societies (they could) and whether allotments as such would “evaporate the genuine spirit of scriptural giving, and transform the generous and gladsome giver into a reluctant and unwilling taxpayer”. The scheme also seemed to encourage frugality by reducing allotments to churches that gave less and increasing allotments to the generous (Minutes of the General Assembly 1912, pp. 251–55).
The BFM had some trepidation about centralized giving. So did the American Board for that matter. Both boards (staffed only by men) had recently used the same arguments about efficiency to promote more centralized financial control, specifically as it applied to their own control over the women’s boards.21 Clearly indifferent to the double-standard, they were loath to let church-wide bodies determine what percentage foreign missions deserved among all the donations for benevolences. Part of this concern was undoubtedly the natural response to a loss of power. In addition, though, both boards claimed their work appealed to the public more than, say, relief funds for retired ministers.22 Their missionaries traveled the wide world, risked their lives, and brought back stories and foreign goods that congregations consumed with enthusiasm (Hasinoff 2011). While the United Movement offered “great possibilities for good, … it is imperative … [to] keep our churches informed on Foreign Missions”, A. Woodruff Halsey warned his colleagues.23
Robert Speer led the opposition to the apportionment plan. Speer correctly noted that despite all the praise given to “systematic benevolence”, the concept was hardly new. He specifically referenced the American Systematic Beneficence Society, founded in 1856. Speer, like almost every church official, admonished parishioners for failing to support missions to a sufficient degree, but he also identified the problem as one of knowledge and a sense of proportion, not of systematization. Those who were giving too little did so because they required “objective information about the definite work to be done and … presentation of sufficiently distinct and concrete tasks”. Cooperative plans not only did nothing to help educate parishioners, but they also encouraged them to think of benevolences as “undifferentiated”. Speer argued that donors ought to be required to indicate exactly how money should be divided. He feared the “new plans instead of enlarging the giving of the Church are drying it up at its springs” (Speer 1914, pp. 302–3; Minutes of the General Assembly 1912, p. 260).
The BFM initially challenged coordinated giving by asking the General Assembly for more of the donations. When that failed, they protested the entire concept of apportionment. By 1915, the Every Member Canvass (EMC) had apparently made the system unnecessary and, after similar complaints from the various benevolence boards, the General Assembly abolished the Joint Executive Committee. It replaced it with a new committee, focused exclusively on the EMC, that had a slightly larger makeup and representation from each of the boards.24 Although the Church began the apportionment scheme with high hopes, by the time it abandoned it, apportionment was being described as “a mechanical and quite subordinate feature of the Budget Plan which has only served to divert attention from what is really primary, essential and vital, viz.: the application of Scriptural principle of enlisting every member to give as an integral part of the weekly worship” (The Presbyterian United Movement 1914, p. 183).
By 1916, nearly 80 percent of Presbyterian churches were participating in the EMC.25 Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, and others similarly adopted the approach quickly. Lyman Pierce, the developer of the EMC, had previously partnered with Charles Sumner Ward to raise money for the YMCA by employing a "whirlwind" method. The EMC grew out of that work. Rather than extended campaigns that lasted until a goal was met, whirlwind campaigns sought huge sums of money in very brief periods of time after “bombarding the public with surefire appeals”. Between 1850 and 1905, the Y had raised $35 million; in the decade after the first whirlwind campaign in 1905, they raised $60 million (Cutlip 1965, pp. 38–50, quote on 38; Pierce 1938, pp. 140–45).
Not surprisingly, when Pierce joined the Laymen’s Missionary Movement in 1908 and developed the EMC, churches and mission boards had great hopes. Unlike earlier schemes that had produced similar optimism, such as the double-envelope system, the EMC required parishioner participation (a “personal touch”) in addition to ministerial and administrative leadership. Like whirlwind campaigns, the EMC emphasized preparatory work. Ministers preached about missions while organized groups of parishioners spread information through publications and discussions. Canvassing committees divided up congregations so that small teams could visit each member at home within a short period of time (often one day) to solicit a pledge to give. The method intentionally encouraged competition, both among the solicitors and the donors. Donors then fulfilled their pledges on a weekly basis. Proponents of the EMC hoped the method would increase commitments, broaden the pool of donors, and particularly encourage greater giving from "nominal givers” (“paradoxical people who believe with their intellects, but not … their check-books”). For most denominations, the EMC covered both church expenses, including the pastor’s salary and building upkeep, as well as benevolences, such as foreign and home missions (The Why and How 1913, p. 14; Methods that Win 1913; Weber 1932; Hudnut-Beumler 2007, pp. 102–10).
While other fundraising schemes had previously employed elements of the EMC, the EMC distinguished itself in the manner of the canvass. The canvass forced each congregant to make a pledge of support to fellow members of the congregation, turning voluntary giving into a sort of social coercion. As a later director of the EMC for the Presbyterian Church (USA) noted, only somewhat disingenuously, “The canvass rightly conceived is a problem in human relations and not a plan for raising money” (Weber 1932, p. 11). The strategy sought to improve the image of fundraising by deemphasizing monetary conversations and underlining the role of the canvass in bringing people together.
A case from 1913–1914 illustrates the impact of the EMC. The White Plains, New York, congregation of the Westchester Congregational Church was facing a shortfall in giving to foreign missions. Coincidentally, a conference on the EMC was passing through town and so the congregation debated whether to hold a local canvass. The officers of the church unanimously approved, but they took no action until all the men of the church voted in favor. As a result of this “democratic” process, “the men naturally felt that this was their own idea”. Next, forty men formed a committee to perform the canvass and the church sent letters about the canvass to every church member. In this instance, men did not represent their wives and women received separate letters, urging their participation in the giving, if not in the soliciting. The men on the canvassing committee were told which families to visit and “were instructed to learn what they could about the families before making the visits”. On the morning of the canvass, the pastor preached about giving and the EMC, and then the men made their rounds. “In their eagerness to have some part in the campaign”, the women of the congregation prepared a supper for the canvassers. In the end, local support rose 20 percent and giving to benevolences rose 60 percent.
As evidenced by this case, the EMC claimed to promote greater personal investment in church and community. Indeed, church treasurer Crescens Hubbard argued that the “collective” decision-making reflected a “democratic” process. While that initial decision may have resulted from male suffrage, everything else suggested a hierarchy. Most significantly, the Westchester’s EMC sidelined the women in the church, who traditionally had gained power through their fundraising abilities (Gordon 1998; Bergland 2010, pp. 177–78; Beaver 1968, chp. 1; Robert 1997, pp. 188, 305). Church leaders appointed male canvassers and told them whom to visit. The church then sent donations for benevolences to the various boards, including the American Board. Hubbard clearly interpreted the campaign as a success, and the church did go from a shortfall to a surplus, but to identify the process as democratic mistakes nominal collective action for actual democratic power.26
The EMC succeeded in raising more money by converting voluntary actions (contributions to benevolence) into social demands. The “personal touch” of parishioner canvassing additionally created tiers of participation and the illusion of community control. The interdenominationalism of the EMC reflected trends against sectarianism. While Westchester sidelined women to a greater degree than other churches, the response of the women in the congregation was not unusual (Reeves-Ellington et al. 2010). They organized themselves and found a way to make their presence felt. Each of these aspects of the EMC matched developments that would occur during and after World War I, though on a much greater scale. Indeed, the possibility of philanthropic responses to the war depended upon the preexistence of structures that could raise money efficiently and organize large groups of “volunteers”.
5. Neutral “in Speech and Writing”, Though Perhaps Not in Deed
The value of those prewar experiences would take some time to bear fruit. In the first few months of the war, missionaries operating within the warring nations or their colonies faced certain immediate and pressing dangers, which preoccupied officials and supporters at home. Their challenges demonstrated that, unlike the philanthropies that grew out of the war, mission boards had an existing infrastructure at the start of the conflict. They were ready for what they called “the new internationalism”.27
In the early months of the war, channels of communication closed in parts of the Ottoman Empire, China, and in German colonies in Africa. The African colonies saw fighting particularly early in the war. French and British forces captured Togoland (roughly present-day Togo) within weeks of the declarations of war and on 15 August, the countries decided on a coordinated attack against German Kamerun (roughly present-day Cameroon). The fighting in Kamerun, which contained a significant missionary presence of American Presbyterians, lasted far longer and resulted in many more casualties than in Togoland (Farwell 1986, chp. 1–5). In September 1914, the English navy captured the German postal steamer Germania, which had been the American Board’s “only means of communication that our missionaries in [Micronesia] have with the outside world. It means that mail and provisions are cut off and they are dependent upon the native foods”.28 Only fourteen years after the Boxer Uprising, when mission boards similarly lost contact with their missionaries, the lack of word troubled missionary supporters within the United States.
In addition to freezing communication, the start of the war froze exchange markets, making it virtually impossible for the boards to send money to foreign missionaries. “Letters of credit, bills of exchange, bank checks, nearly everything in that line is held up these days”, American Board Home Secretary Cornelius Patton told his main fundraisers.29 The boards felt forced to consider costly alternatives, given the dire financial condition. Brown Brothers, for example, offered to send one thousand Turkish pounds to Constantinople at an exorbitant interest rate.30 The American Board also considered taking out insurance at rates as high as 25 percent to protect deliveries. While American Board officials preferred to temporarily halt all shipments, the Board already had $13,000 worth of goods on English and German ships at the start of the war and seriously considered spending $3000 to insure those assets.31
Frozen exchange markets proved especially problematic because some of the missions felt they needed to increase their workload at the start of the war. Some 140 British and Irish missionaries (both Protestant and Catholic), representing fourteen denominations, were operating in Ottoman Syria at the start of the war. With the United Kingdom and the Ottoman Empire on opposing sides, all of these British subjects returned home. The remaining missionaries, mostly American Presbyterians, felt they needed to fill the void while at the same time the lack of currency forced them to cease their own publications (The Syrian Situation 1914, pp. 643–44; War News from Workers 1915, p. 113).
The dangers of missionary work during war went beyond life and property. From the perspective of the denominational boards, the need to appear neutral was paramount. Mission boards faced a particular complication due to the independence of each missionary or, at least, each mission field. The interests of a mission in Kamerun, which had cooperated with the German colonial government and German missionaries for many years, differed greatly from the interests of a mission in British India. Mission boards could only respond tardily to missionaries’ comments or publications that seemed to promote one side of the war. Self-preservation frequently conflicted with collective goals.
In the opening months of the war, the Presbyterian BFM sent several circulars to all missionary fields encouraging them to remain neutral “in speech and writing”.32 The need to reiterate the directive and to specify the ways in which missionaries could appear partisan reflected the officials’ challenges. It also reflected the public value of missionary perspectives. By the end of 1914, the press had already received and published extracts of missionary letters, angering Arthur J. Brown. “We beg you”, he wrote the missionaries, “to be exceedingly careful when you write to your relatives. Please caution them not to print your letters even in their local papers. … It would be lamentable if the cause of Foreign Missions were to be identified with this strife”.33
To maintain total neutrality and to play the role of humanitarians, the missionaries were told to offer assistance to fellow missionaries from both sides of the conflict. Assistance came in many forms and often appeared to contravene the goal of neutrality. Basel Evangelical Missionary Society Secretary H. Dipper asked the Presbyterian board to send money to China on his behalf. Though Swiss, the Basel Society employed numerous Germans, relied on Swiss and German donations, and had offices across the border in German Alsace.34 Since the Basel Society’s treasurer was headquartered in Hong Kong, Dipper feared the British would cut off its flow of money. The most neutral course would have seemed to be for the BFM to refuse such requests. Otherwise, it placed itself in a position of negating a British action clearly designed to harm German interests. While Dipper eventually found an alternative solution, depositing money in the Deutsche-Asiatische Bank in Berlin and Canton, the Presbyterian board also agreed to help in any way it could.35
A similar arrangement arose in the German colony of Kamerun. At the very start of the battle for Kamerun, even before the capture of the coastal city of Douala, Karl Foertsch of the Gossner Missionary Society (headquartered in Berlin) was requesting that the Presbyterian board transmit its funds to its missionaries in the region. Following the capture of Douala and Allied advances in the region, the BFM agreed to supply the German missionaries with any money they needed and also agreed to forward German correspondence with its own. Throughout the battle in Kamerun in 1915, A. Woodruff Halsey sent Foertsch updates and called on Presbyterian missionaries in West Africa to aid local French, Swiss, and German missionaries.36
As the war stretched into 1916 and beyond, the goals of maintaining abandoned mission stations continued. Karl Foertsch continued to ask that the BFM maintain the missions in “Kamerun” (already renamed Cameroon/Cameroun by the French), care for missionaries if possible, and send information from the field.37 The Société des Missions Evangéliques de Paris (SMEP) also required financial assistance, partly as a result of taking over German stations, and A. Woodruff Halsey assured them of “the desire and aim of our Board in every way to cooperate with you”.38
The extended nature of the war, however, also made clear that no status quo ante would be possible. The West Africa Mission needed to adjust to French rule and repeatedly asked the BFM to send more French-speaking missionaries.39 The Board put off such a request until the French government could comment. When word came, indirectly via the SMEP, the message was clear: American missionaries were welcome only insofar as they would further colonization endeavors. Their main role would be to teach French and act “as auxiliaries of the French influence”.40 This dependence on the SMEP would help repay some of the SMEP’s debt to the BFM, as the SMEP extended its presence in West Africa and helped install BFM missionaries.41 “We trust that, if the Cameroons or some part of it become definitely french [sic]”, a SMEP official wrote to Halsey, “one of the happy results of our dear franco-american [sic] alliance will be that a greater liberty will be given in all our Colonies to American missionaries and we hope to see the day where several of the American Societies will come and occupy some of our large unoccupied fields in french [sic] Africa”.42
Though willing to offer both information and material support for German and French missionaries, A. Woodruff Halsey refused to express opinions about the war itself. In Karl Foertsch’s initial request for assistance, he mentioned the “great successes” of the German army to which “we can thank God” and “the entire German populus [sic] glows with intense enthusiasm”.43 Halsey immediately put an end to the conversation, noting, “We absolutely refuse to take any part even in discussion of matters relating to the War”.44 Halsey overstated the collective views of the BFM. A few months later, Julius Richter (a close associate of many American mission movement leaders and an organizer of the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh in 1910) complained at length of American arm sales to the Allies, claiming that “American Christianity” itself was “hopelessly discredited. … I hear now from day to day more doubtful remarks on the sincinerity [sic] and the seriousness of American Christianity”. Unlike Halsey, Arthur Brown was willing to engage the topic, sympathizing with Richter’s complaints about arm sales and emphasizing that “the Christian leaders of this country … are advocating peace and neutrality [and] have no more connection with the manufacture and sale of ‘guns and bullets’ than you have and no more influence over them”.45
In addition to creating difficulties relating to neutrality and transmitting goods, money, and information between the United States and the mission fields, the war created a more abstract problem in the minds of foreign missions administrators. Mission boards feared the idea of a conflict among Christian nations would make both evangelism and fundraising more difficult. The BFM told missionaries to emphasize that “this war is not due to Christianity nor to a failure of Christianity, but to a disregard to its precepts and the failure of men to obey its principles”.46 Paradoxically, the BFM argued that the war pointed to both the failure of Christianity and the possibility of the same. For believers in the “Gospel of Peace” to be “at each other’s throats” was a “horrible incongruity”, but the only solution to “end such monstrous incongruities” was to see Christianity as a “world opportunity” (Christmas is a World Opportunity 1914, p. 642). “Christianity will have to become Christian”, wrote a missionary in China (The European War 1915, p. 17). Cornelius Patton described “this war of horror and shame” as having “embarrassed” the American Board.47
These fears that non-Christian peoples would begin “misinterpreting Christianity” as a belligerent religion belied the colonialist mentality of mission board officials.48 The BFM expressed particular concern that “the war may leave the Chinese to interpret western civilization in terms of force and violence, rather than in terms of peace and good-will” (The Effect of the War 1915, p. 16). It is doubtful that anyone in China would have had trouble thinking of western civilization in terms of force and violence after a century of occupation and intervention by “western civilizations”.
Fears that non-Christians would see the war as an outgrowth of Christianity helps explain the mission boards’ near universal preference for neutrality and peace, rather than siding with the Allies or Central Powers. It also points to a reason mission movement officials had for decoupling their religious and national projects.
The challenges that mission boards faced with the outbreak of the war point both to broader American dilemmas regarding the meaning of neutrality and to the particular agendas of foreign missions. Although most Americans supported neutrality in the early years of the war, appearing neutral posed greater challenges for American organizations operating around the world. The Presbyterian board chose to enact its version of neutrality by confining assistance, whether for the benefit of Allies or Central Powers, to the realm of missions-related activities. They were willing to go to almost any lengths to help any missionaries, regardless of nationality, continue their work, but would not comment on the war itself beyond their hopes for peace.
6. Warlike in Speech and Writing
The Presbyterian board’s prohibition on war commentary did not inhibit its use of the war for fundraising purposes. Like almost every wartime organization, when it came to the quest for money, the war and American nationalism were front and center. The ARC pictured the American flag and the Red Cross flag side by side. The Commission for Relief in Belgium urged wartime thrift to help Belgian children. Both the American Board and Presbyterian BFM were actually somewhat surprised to discover that the war benefited their finances. Many of the concerns that the war elicited were immediately apparent with the start of hostilities, but how congregants would respond remained unclear for several months. At the same time, mission boards recognized that overseas conflicts had helped bring their work into the public consciousness in the past and, as it turned out, the Great War was no different. Giving to foreign mission societies appeared to be one of the most rapid means of offering support for the victims of the war, facilitating those fundraising efforts.
Both the American Board and the BFM compared the European War with the Civil War. Northern foreign mission boards had survived the Civil War with relatively little change. If such a large domestic conflagration could not stop the mission movement, surely congregants could answer the contemporary crisis with equal vigor. Robert Speer of the Presbyterian board viewed the war as a test, and quoted the General Assembly report of 1862, which called for “onward movement in the missionary work”.49 His colleague, Arthur Brown, expanded the comparison to include examples of mission boards succeeding amid other conflicts, particularly British mission boards founded during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, and missionary achievements during the Crimean War and Boer Wars. “Without question, American Christians of to-day can equal the devotion and self-sacrifice of Christians of former days,” he challenged donors.50
After addressing their concerns about frozen markets, the American Board quickly transitioned to a more optimistic attitude regarding the consequences of the war on missions financing. As Cornelius Patton wrote in September 1914, “We do not take war very much into account. The Board has lived through a great many political crises in Turkey, and the work grows apace. We seem to thrive on difficulties in this work. In fact, we try to make difficulties become opportunities”.51 By February of 1915, Cornelius Patton was feeling good about the financial position of the American Board. “I find that the Boards are not suffering in their finances in any marked way, and in several instances, the gifts are running ahead of last year. This general situation is true of all the leading Boards”. The war, according to Patton, was promoting a spirit of self-sacrifice, “a splendid test of the quality of the faith of our church members”.52 The Missionary Herald remarked that “it would be strange indeed if every individual was not moved to increase his contribution in times like these” (A Worthy Gain 1916, p. 23).
Initially, the Presbyterians seemed to face very different circumstances. The war could not have arisen at a worse possible moment for the BFM. With the close of fiscal year 1913–1914 on 31 March, the Presbyterian board found itself with a deficit of $292,000. It was one of the largest deficits in the board’s history. The war seemed to compound the problem, and the fact that both the home missionary society and publication society faced similar deficits made the situation even worse. In a fortuitous decision, the board had decided, months before the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, to name the campaign to close the deficit, the No Retreat Fund.
The debt frayed nerves. The BFM asked the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society to help fill the gap, claiming the general board was paying the salaries of many missionary women and, therefore, deserved the women’s support to close the debt. The women balked at the demand. They had more than exceeded their goals and argued that issuing emergency requests would be counterproductive.53 If the women would not participate collectively in the No Retreat Fund, the BFM asked them to assume the support of more missionary women. They also demanded that focus remain on “the emergency that is upon us. … There can be no question that the primary urgency is that we should meet this budget and avert the disaster of another deficit”.54 Whatever the interests of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, whatever success they might have been achieving, the men prioritized the needs of the BFM.
Not helping the situation, the two groups disputed how the BFM calculated giving. Since the BFM issued the official publications of giving, the woman’s societies had to continually battle to get their statistics printed as they desired. In 1914, Mary Wood and Henrietta Hubbard wrote repeatedly to Robert Speer to complain about the BFM’s calculations of giving. Among the disagreements, would giving to Christian Endeavor Societies, when submitted through the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, be included in the receipts? How was the BFM calculating donations of the Young People’s Societies? Depending on what was included in annual giving, the disparity totaled between one and two hundred thousand dollars.55 The women had little desire to contribute to a No Retreat Fund anyway, but the fact that they might not even receive recognition for their work certainly did not make them more eager to help.
War metaphors had infused missionary rhetoric for decades, so it was not prophecy that led the Presbyterian board to reference “retreat” in their debt-raising scheme.56 The cover of the January 1914 edition of The Assembly Herald (the Presbyterian monthly covering all benevolent societies, Figure 2) epitomized these war metaphors. It featured a woman as a Roman soldier with a banner reading, “Presbyterians all together … in simultaneous effort for all boards and causes”. The gray background and the woman’s cloak (a Roman paludamentum) blowing through the air suggested a mighty storm. Within the gray clouds, though, appeared to be rays of light and the woman’s strength and steadiness made clear that no storm would dislodge her. In front of her stood a Roman shield with the word “Presbyterian”, implying the protection of the church. She is, one assumes, the personification of the church itself.57
Once the war actually began, the use of war metaphors increased markedly. For many Americans, the European War seemed both very distant and yet ever-present, creating a prime opportunity for the mission boards. To capitalize on that sentiment, the Presbyterians launched a campaign for a week of “self-denial” to close their debt. Like the “No Retreat Fund”, the “self-denial” week reminded congregants of the actual suffering resulting from the war. The BFM emphasized the “solemn duty” of everyone to contribute, and that this was an “extra emergency fund” that did not count toward the budget generally. Repeated use of the word “emergency” (e.g., “The Boards of Home and Foreign Missions are facing a great emergency”, “The emergency is now accentuated … by the War”, “Present the emergency on 3rd January”) also reminded congregants of the war, which was regularly described as an “emergency”.58 Elsewhere, Robert Speer used a fundraising appeal to ask the Shadyside Presbyterian Church for “courageous and sacrificial loyalty”.59 Although war metaphors were not uncommon, the usage here undoubtedly reminded congregants of the European War and, for those who believed the rhetoric, donations to foreign missions appeared to offer a means of participating in the self-sacrifice of soldiers without endangering oneself or abandoning neutrality.
If congregants failed to connect the BFM’s war metaphors with the Great War, the board made its point explicit with direct references to the war in its fundraising appeals. In a list of “examples of self-denial” to be used in potential advertisements, first on the list was the Canadian Pacific Railway, whose employees collectively sacrificed a day’s wages to give to the government for the war effort.60 The war had disproven that the imperial powers of “Great Britain and Germany and France were the true representatives of Christianity” and given missionaries, whether American, British, or German “an opportunity of moral advantage”. “This is our opportunity”, A. Woodruff Halsey told pastors in Pittsburgh, and they needed to close the deficit to take advantage.61 Noting that the war had added additional costs both to “care for its own missionaries” and “to relieve the suffering and distress of missionaries of Continental Societies who have been entirely cut off from their support”, the BFM asked for increased giving.62 In addition to the cost of helping other missionaries, specific causes for the increased expenses included the cost of transportation, rising costs to exchange money, and the cost of drugs and other goods.63 Elsewhere the board asked for “sacrificial” giving in response to the war.64
The BFM’s rhetoric allowed congregants to imagine themselves as participants in the efforts to alleviate suffering. In launching the “Sacrificial Emergency Call”, Maitland Alexander issued a call to arms, on behalf of God, he seemed to say. The “tremendous sorrows and sufferings of the war” and “the favor enjoyed by our own land through the blessings of Peace” created an opportunity that demanded a response. Thus far, the Church had built a “great machine” for “world-wide influence”. The war demanded humanitarian actions and the fact that Europe stood at the center meant that Americans would need to be the ones to respond. It needed “to meet the splendid opportunity with splendid gifts”, though, to exert its power at this moment of opportunity. Alexander called on “every one of our 10,000 churches [to] resolve that their full resources should be thrown to the help of the armies of the living God”. Preaching, praying, and giving, according to Alexander, were the weapons of God’s army (Alexander 1915, pp. 1–2).
The givers themselves were only part of the “army”. Missionaries stood at the frontlines and the BFM made sure supporters knew of the bravery of these “soldiers”. In January 1915, a special edition of the BFM’s regular Bulletin pamphlet announced that “not one of the 1226 missionaries has asked to come home on account of the war”, that none had suffered bodily harm or lost property, and that the missionaries mainly complained that new missionaries were not being sent to the field. Indeed, missionaries were interpreting the war not “merely as a great EMERGENCY, but a GREAT OPPORTUNITY for setting forth as never before the ‘truth as it is in Jesus.’” The Bulletin closed by noting, “The WAR EMERGENCY has brought into clear relief the SACRIFICIAL spirit of missionary and native Christian in non-Christian lands. It is a noble CHALLENGE to the home Church”, thus bringing together the war with the fundraising schemes.65
The excerpted letters in promotional materials emphasized the connections between missions and the war. Missionaries in West Africa reported on the movement of troops and German missionaries. In China, “life in the war zone continues to be full of excitement”. Introducing the letters from Syria, the Bulletin described the situation as a “storm center”. “In no one of the Missions is the condition of the people more pitiful, the work of the missionary more arduous, and the Christian spirit more manifest.” The Bulletin made clear that the war had not in the least diminished the work for missions and indeed, giving to foreign missions directly helped those suffering from the war without being partisan.66
The overall message of both the excerpted letters and the fundraising campaign in general was that missions represented a third alliance in the war, fighting for peace. Arthur Brown went even further, calling “foreign missions … the antithesis of war, standing for everything in the relations of different peoples which would make war between them impossible”. God, according to Brown, identified “only one race and that is the human race”. Brown acknowledged the many noble charities that provided immediate relief for Europeans suffering directly from the war, but he emphasized that donors needed to help him expand giving to foreign missions if they wanted to put an end to war for good. He even accused donors of dishonesty if they chose to give to war charities instead of missions. “The conjoint exhibit of moral failure, moral need and moral opportunity in the military tragedy to-day convulsing humanity calls Christians to a supreme test of how much they … will dare and do to make [Christ] King and Peacemaker over this distracted earth.”67
Brown’s message reflected a conception of Christianity as peace-loving and mission boards certainly saw their work as promoting spiritual, social, and transnational harmony. That message translated into one of bringing together the warring nations. Writing from Bata in Spanish Guinea (modern-day Equatorial Guinea), a missionary referred to the English and Germans “get[ting] on well together”. Missionaries in India were taking collections from both English officials and Indians for the preservation of the German missionaries. In China, the story was of a German missionary taking the hands of a British missionary to say, “Brother were our nations bound together in love as you and I are, this terrible slaughter could not occur”. The Bulletin described missionaries in China as one “body, German, English, American”. While German and British armies fought in Europe, Africa, and Asia, the Bulletin suggested, peace reigned over the mission movement.68
War rhetoric facilitated the BFM’s argument that it presented a “great opportunity” to participate in the war effort in support of peace. The Presbyterian board’s “No Retreat Fund” ended up being highly successful, and the BFM significantly reduced its deficit by the end of the fiscal year on 31 March 1915. Advertising, which regularly used war metaphors, proved particularly effective. “Many [donors] said frankly, that the only reason they were sending the contributions was because of the advertisements.”69 The board praised congregants for their “unselfish service” and “self-denial”, especially amid financial unrest and the “titanic war”.70
7. American Entry into the War
When the United States joined the war as an active combatant in 1917, it impacted American missionaries in many ways. Some, particularly those in the Turkish territories, feared they would find themselves in enemy territory. More abstractly, American entry into the war challenged ideas about service and the degree to which missions could be considered a noble endeavor during wartime. Practical implications stemmed from such questions, such as whether missionaries would need to register for the draft.
Even before the United States formally declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917, mission boards contemplated the ramifications of a war with Turkey. Dozens of American missionaries were stationed in the region and acted as the primary American response to the ongoing genocide of Armenians. They feared that war would prevent further relief work.71 The American Board and BFM worked together, as they had at the start of the war, to convince the US government that its quarrel was with Germany and not Turkey. In February, the American Board’s James Barton and the BFM exchanged letters, encouraging each other that war with the Ottoman Empire was not inevitable and would be greatly undesirable. They enlisted Henry Morgenthau and Charles Crane to persuade the State Department and Woodrow Wilson of their views and they coordinated their letter-writing to Secretary of State Robert Lansing. By the middle of the month, the State Department had told Morgenthau that it would heed the advice of “Crane, Cleveland Dodge and representatives of the Presbyterian and American Boards”.72
While American missionaries in the Ottoman Empire faced the greatest anxiety, missionaries around the world suddenly found themselves to be belligerents. How that new status would impact missions was an open question and one mission boards quickly sought to answer. The ideas that they presented to their missionaries and to the US government provide useful insight into the value they perceived in the foreign mission movement.
On 18 May 1917, a little over a month after the war declaration, President Wilson signed the Selective Service Act into law. Over the following week, the BFM’s Arthur Brown traveled to Washington on behalf of the Foreign Missions Conference of North America, met with General Enoch Crowder (who was overseeing the draft), and submitted a lengthy explanation to Crowder of the mission movement’s perspective on the draft. Crowder had asked Brown to provide facts about foreign missionaries and to express his views on missionary exemptions. The government required most men aged twenty-one to thirty to register for the draft, but clergy and seminarians were among the few classes of people that the draft had exempted from the start. That criteria alone exempted nine-tenths of foreign missionaries (men and women), but still left over a thousand missionaries potentially subject to the draft. Brown urged Crowder to grant them an exemption too. He believed, based on his conversation with Crowder, that Americans living outside the United States or its territories would not need to register in any case. That seemed to be a misreading of the statute, but it nevertheless raised several interesting questions. The Philippines, for instance, were not included on the list of the territories. Furloughed missionaries were in the United States at the time, but only briefly.73 Even if Brown had a misread the legislation (it required “registration by mail” for men “temporarily absen[t] from actual place of legal residence”), the law did not seem to account for the global presence of Americans. What was an American missionary’s legal residence? How would registration by mail work if one were registering from Tokyo or Douala?
The Selective Service Act prompted these interesting questions about the status of missionaries, but Brown had no interest in basing his argument for exemptions on legal ambiguities or oversights. Instead, he argued that missionaries rendered a service to the United States akin to, possibly even greater than, that of a soldier in war. In writing to Crowder, whom Chris Capozzola has described as a “snippy martinet who had little interest in taking orders from civilians” (2008, p. 27), Brown emphasized the desire of mission boards “to carry out the wishes of the Government”. That said, he subtly urged Crowder to understand missions work as itself in line with the wishes of the government.
Missionary work … is of indispensable value as a humanitarian as well as a Christian enterprise. … Indeed missionary work is one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful influence in creating and strengthening the bonds of sympathy and good feeling between the United States and other nations. … It is not a question whether foreign missionaries are to serve their country; of course they are to do this. The question is whether they are not doing so to better advantage in their missionary work than if they were to enter the ranks in the army or navy.74
Forwarding the letter to several of his colleagues, Brown stressed the point even further, identifying the continuing service of missionaries as “absolutely essential to the cause of humanity and righteousness and liberty”.75 Foreign missionaries ought to be exempted from selective service, Brown argued, because they had already volunteered to serve God and country.
Although Brown’s letter remained private, mission boards made the argument publicly. Presbyterian publicity identified missionaries as being “in the Great War … [as] accredited agent[s] for the distribution of world famine relief in non-Christian lands”. The deaths of wartime missionaries, it called “heroic” sacrifices in the line of “duty”.76 To missionaries in the field, the BFM and American Board urged that they remain at their stations and not volunteer for the military. “The war is a conflict between forces of evil and forces of righteousness and everyone who has consecrated himself to the eternal warfare of humanity must feel the pull of the conflict and long to have a personal share in it.” By framing it as a “conflict between … evil and … righteousness”, James Barton could claim the missionaries had no need to take up arms; they were already fighting for the side of righteousness.77
8. The American Red Cross: Non-Sectarian, State-Supported Philanthropy as a Better Way?
In the United States, the American Red Cross (ARC), and not a foreign mission board, was and continues to be the nonprofit most associated with World War I. From the start of the war, Red Cross societies had far more visible roles than missionaries. The ARC had access to resources unlike other American humanitarian organizations, particularly the overt support of the federal government. After assisting in the aftermath of the Charleston, SC, earthquake of 1886; the Johnstown, PA, floods of 1889; and other domestic disasters, Clara Barton had taken the organization abroad in early 1896 to aid Armenian Christians. Though the campaign had not been entirely successful, the government still granted the organization official status to assist Cubans in the aftermath of the American invasion of that island in 1898. Barton was then ousted from the organization and the ARC became more scientifically oriented and more closely aligned with the federal government, developments that would continue until the start of World War I (Irwin 2013, chp. 1–2). It should come as no surprise that mission boards were forced to define their wartime work in relation to the ARC. Equally expected, mission boards publicized their cooperation with the ARC far more frequently than the ARC noted its reliance on foreign missionaries. This fact may explain why missionaries stand in the background, if they appear at all, in the literature on World War I.
Near the start of the war, the Syrian Protestant College (which was independent of any mission board, but closely aligned with the movement) volunteered to support the Red Crescent, offering an American surgeon, a missionary, nurses, and students. “It ought to be of tremendous service,” wrote Bayard Dodge, son-in-law of the college president, Howard Bliss. They were to “work under the regular symbol of the Red Cross, which will give prestige to the mission work and popularity to the American interests. … The opportunities for Red Cross work for the soldiers is tremendous and the needs of the army challenge us to exert ourselves to the utmost”.78 Elsewhere in the city, missionaries made bread and distributed it where needed using Red Cross funds (Echoes from the War Zone 1915, pp. 500–1; War and Missions 1915, p. 550). Several months later, the Turkish government officially accepted the aid of the American Red Cross (ARC), working alongside the Red Crescent. The Constantinople chapter of the ARC quickly asked for fundraising help from mission movement leaders, as well as the Rockefeller Foundation, Ambassador Morgenthau, and others.79
The Presbyterian BFM and the ARC also coordinated efforts to serve as banking agents for Syrians living within the United States. When the war broke out, the immigrants sought ways to send money to their relatives in Syria. Syrian Societies of the United States, the ARC, and the BFM jointly provided that service. By the end of 1915, the BFM alone had helped transmit close to $500,000 to individuals in Syria (War Relief Work 1915, pp. 691–92) and “the Red Cross Chapter in Beirut is made up almost entirely of American missionaries”, the Assembly Herald proudly proclaimed (Syria 1915, p. 500).
The American Board and the ARC shared resources as well. In Constantinople, American Board medical missionary Alden R. Hoover served as the director of ARC work (Ambassador Henry Morgenthau held the title of president, reflecting the official support of the federal government). Hoover oversaw seven hundred beds in various hospitals across the city during the winter of 1915–1916. He performed his ARC work alongside another American Board medical missionary, Frederick D. Shepard, who had been stationed in Aintab (present-day Gaziantep, near the Turkish border with Syria). Shepard worked for several months in Constantinople but died in early 1916. Hoover and Shepard are pictured in Figure 3, a photo of the Red Cross hospital, alongside many American Board missionaries (Shepard is directly behind the seated woman at center and Hoover is the mustachioed man to his left). Yet another American Board medical missionary took over Red Cross relief work in the city of Adana (west of Gaziantep).
With its public–private partnership, the ARC should have been well positioned to respond to the outbreak of the war in Europe. In fact, though, they only had $200,000 in working funds in 1917 and a disorganized structure. Knowing they would need far more money, Woodrow Wilson created the Red Cross War Council, which hired Charles Sumner Ward and famed Rockefeller publicist Ivy Lee to build the organization’s coffers. Ward, the former partner of Lyman Pierce (discussed above in relation to the Every Member Canvass) essentially created another whirlwind campaign. With assistance from the president and the leading publicist in the country, as well as the nation’s rapt attention, the drive succeeded like nothing before. The 1917 drive achieved its seemingly impossible goal of $100 million in a single week only to repeat the feat again the next year (Cutlip 1965, pp. 110–35).
Although the BFM and American Board cooperated and coordinated with the ARC, the mission boards did so with some trepidation. Cooperation had mutual benefits, but the BFM and its supporters also feared the power, popularity, and prestige of the ARC. Some clergy worried about their ability to meet expenses in light of the ARC’s successful fundraisers. As this view fell outside the official position of the BFM, E. Fred Eastman (1917, pp. 544–47) printed a strong response in praise of the Red Cross in the Assembly Herald. Associating the ARC with the Good Samaritan (even renaming it the “American Society of Good Samaritans”), Eastman compared ARC opponents with those who had heard Jesus tell the parable and nonetheless disapproved of the Samaritan. Elsewhere in the same issue, Warren H. Wilson (1917, p. 538–39) called on “every minister of Christ [to] champion this organization of mercy”. At the same time, though, he urged those ministers not to join the ARC or the military. Their service at home, he claimed, was “equal to that of a captain in the Army”. Similarly, in writing to missionaries, Arthur Brown argued for staying put. Noting that many potential missionaries had already chosen to work for the ARC, he feared the value of missions was being ignored. “Without foreign missionaries in Syria and Persia, the Armenian and Syrian Relief Committee and the Red Cross could not do their work”, he wrote.80 In other ways, the dominance of the ARC cast a long shadow on other organizations. The Bureau of Enemy Trade refused to let the BFM send aid directly to Syria, because unlike the ARC and several other non-sectarian organizations, the BFM was not an “approved society”.81
Even if the BFM sometimes perceived non-sectarian philanthropy as a foe, their allied interests made them friends far more frequently. Their goals abroad, of course, frequently overlapped, but so did their interests at home. They were mutually invested in getting Americans to feel obligated to give their time and money, and also in rewarding those who did give. Soon after the passage of the Selective Service Act, Congress looked for additional funds to pay for the war and passed the War Revenue Act of 1917. The Act greatly increased taxation on income and initially offered no deductions for charitable giving. The proposal set off alarm bells, with nonprofit administrators warning of dire consequences. The uproar again aligned the interests of the ARC and mission boards. Senator Henry Hollis (D-NH) proposed an amendment to allow for charitable deductions up to 20 percent of income, an amount that was seen “as very modest”, but acceptable. ARC “campaign agencies throughout the country are being enlisted in support of the movement”, Edwin Bulkley wrote happily to BFM Secretary George Scott.82 The board was perfectly satisfied to ride on ARC coattails from time to time. In the end, a 15 percent deduction passed, which the BFM praised as a demonstration of “the importance our Government puts upon maintaining the work of the Church”, comparing it favorably with the concept of tithing (The Presbyterian United Movement 1917, p. 571). Whereas government assistance in the first days of the war had come through personal solicitation, the Hollis Amendment solidified the financial foundation that would allow church benevolence to flourish in the decade after the war.
9. Conclusions
By 1919, the war was over, but mission boards were holding out hopes that the wartime gains would continue into the future. Certainly, the passage of the Hollis Amendment made the future look more promising. Their prewar fundraising attempts to create a social obligation to give had only strengthened during the war and had been replicated by larger philanthropies like the ARC. Unlike wartime aid societies, such as the ARC or the Committee for Relief in Belgium, the mission boards had no intention of demobilizing and their financial needs continued to grow. Donations to fifteen of the largest Protestant mission boards more than tripled in the 1910s, growing from a cumulative $9.6 million in 1910 to $29.7 million in 1920. Much of that advance occurred during the war itself, with growth jumping from an average of 5.6 percent in the first five years of the decade to almost 20 percent in the last five years. Giving largely held steady during the 1920s (Fahs 1929, p. 46).
It certainly did not seem like Christian philanthropy was on the wane. Instead, it was the ARC that faced internal conflict and “a rapid decline in American enthusiasm for the ARC and its foreign relief projects” (Irwin 2013, p. 143). The various philanthropic war agencies disbanded altogether. Meanwhile, missionaries attempted to use what influence they had (some, but not much) to help define geopolitics in peacetime. The American Board’s James Barton attended the Lausanne Conference in 1922/23 that resolved ongoing conflicts between the Republic of Turkey and western European nations. He not only lent his expertise, having worked in and with the Ottoman Empire for many years, but he also provided a commentary on the conference for supporters at home. The countries and issues were different, but missionaries had played similar roles in other contexts in the decades before the war. Indeed, in contrast with much of the literature on philanthropy that emphasizes great change resulting from World War I, the mission movement suggests a large degree of continuity.
At the same time, the collaborative work of the mission boards during the war seemed to point toward a future of Christian philanthropy less rooted in denominations. The prewar missionary activities could have also predicted that outcome, particularly in the form of numerous interdenominational associations and world missionary conferences, but the prominence of non-sectarian or interdenominational organizations had grown as a result of the war. While the American Board and BFM had approached Secretary Bryan on their own at the start of the conflict, by the end, interdenominational groups like the Foreign Missions Conference of North America (still led by the same BFM and American Board secretaries, among others) had largely taken over those conversations. They concluded that the war had allowed foreign missions to demonstrate its social value and that the “new internationalism” that they anticipated in the 1920s was, to a great degree, something that missionaries already practiced. Not surprisingly, their conclusions were infused with a belief in the ultimate necessity of Christianity, but they were also able to articulate a value in non-evangelical work, particularly relief efforts in response to the Armenian Genocide. Those interests would later translate into support for non-sectarian philanthropy in the 1920s and 1930s.
As foreign missions vibrated between hope and fear during the European War, the movement evolved. Its transformation was not radical, but it was profound. It reminds historians that as revolutionary as war might be, change can occur slowly even in war. When Cornelius Patton wrote, “so it goes, vibrating between hopes and fears”, he was speaking of money. Receipts were good one week, bad the next. That simple logic, hoping for money and fearing its absence, explains much of the history of American philanthropy, religious, secular, and everything in-between. Protestant foreign missions continued, in large part, because donors continued to give the boards money. They changed as a result of global circumstances and in an effort to tip the balance toward hope and away from fear. World War I, unlike the Great Depression, left open those possibilities.
Funding
This research was partially funded by a research fellowship from the Presbyterian Historical Society.
Conflicts of Interest
The author declares no conflict of interest.
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1
Which is not to say missionaries or missionary officials used a different term even when discussing “critical” situations in Africa and the “most serious situation” in China. “Presbyterian Missions and the European War”, Bulletin No. 7, September 1914, United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records, RG 81, box 6, folder 23, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (hereafter Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records).
2
Julia Irwin (2013, p. 14), for instance, notes that Evangelical Christianity had been a “mobilizing impulse for … humanitarian activities, at home and abroad” in the nineteenth century and lumps missions together with “charitable assistance” and “social reform” as “humanitarian activities”. She makes this point while claiming that “American humanitarians increasingly defined their work in non-sectarian and social scientific terms”. What is left unsaid is that sectarian organizations themselves also promoted non-sectarianism and social scientific approaches.
3
In numerous instances where the global banking structure temporarily halted, Standard Oil provided American transnational nonprofits with a source of money. It was one of the few American corporations whose reach extended almost as far as foreign missions and whose wealth vastly exceeded any charitable society. Arthur Brown to “friends”, 23 September 1914, box 6, folder 23, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
4
Arthur Brown, “Bulletin No. 1”, 24 August 1914, box 6, folder 23, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
5
Cornelius Patton to E. L. Smith, 17 August 1914, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archives 1810–1961 (ABC 4.1, vol. 20) Houghton Library, Harvard University (hereafter ABCFM Archives).
6
C. A. Dana to Russell Carter, 8 August 1914, box 6, folder 22, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
7
James Barton to Arthur Brown, 21 August 1914, box 6, folder 22, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
8
A. Woodruff Halsey to D. Stuart Dodge, 27 August 1914, box 6, folder 22, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
9
Circular from James Barton, 28 August 1914, ABC 9.5.1, box 8, folder 12, and Cornelius Patton to Brewer Eddy, 27 August 1914, ABC 4.1, vol. 20, ABCFM Archives; Correspondence between Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions and the US State Department, August–September 1914, box 6, folder 22, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
10
A. Woodruff Halsey to Cleveland Dodge, 2 September 1914, box 6, folder 22, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
11
“U.S. Cruisers to Remain in Europe”, New York Tribune, 24 September 1914; “Syrian Ports Fear Attack by French”, New York Tribune, 19 October 1914; “U.S. Ready to Aid Americans in East”, New York Tribune, 31 October 1914; Katherine Jessup to Ralph E. Prime, 20 December 1914, box 6, folder 22, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records; Russell Carter to the BFM secretaries, quoting a letter from Charles Dana, 4 March 1915, box 6, folder 24, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
12
By the following summer, the American Board was using its ability to get funds to mission stations throughout Turkey as a fundraising method. James Barton, “Bulletin on the Turkish Situation”, 3 July 1915, box 6, folder 24, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
13
John Branden Little and Akira Iriye have drawn opposite conclusions about the history of World War I nonprofit work, but each emphasizes rupture rather than continuity and evolution. Little notes that “few relief organizations founded in World War I remained active internationally in the 1920s and 1930s” (2009, p. 7). Focusing on other groups, Iriye emphasizes that, “with a few exceptions … both intergovernmental organizations and international nongovernmental organizations stopped functioning during the war. … The growth of international organizations in the aftermath of the Great War was not so much a reaction against the brutal and senseless fighting as a resumption of an earlier trend that had been momentarily suspended” (Iriye 2002, pp. 19–20).
14
The American Board also had a major office in New York, which it sought to expand in the years before the war. Cornelius Patton to the Corporate Members of the American Board, 12 June 1912, box 27, folder 8, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
15
Indeed, about twice as wealthy (as measured by annual donations) and twice as large. The BFM was the largest foreign mission board in the United States. The American Board was comparable in size to the boards of other large denominations outside the former Confederacy (e.g., Adventists, American Baptists, and Methodists).
16
Though one could equally say that the American Board was an outlier in that it had six executive officers, while the BFM and almost every other American foreign mission board employed four. Fred C. Klein, “Report of Committee on Credentials”, in “Report of the Committee on Home Base”, [1912], box 27, folder 5, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
17
Regarding the federal government’s efforts to increase charitable giving during the war, Olivier Zunz writes, “The intensity of the effort reinforced the perception that giving was part of being an American” (2012, p. 56, see also pp. 56–66).
18
Zunz, exemplifying a tendency among many scholars, briefly notes the history of giving through churches before turning to focus on “occasions … when fundraisers … bypassed the church and lodge” (Zunz 2012, p. 44, see also pp. 44–55; Cutlip 1965, chp. 1–3).
19
Robert Speer to David G. Wylie, 23 December 1912, box 50, folder 15, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
20
While this section focuses on centralized giving within the Presbyterian Church, other bodies (including the Foreign Missions Conference of North America, the Laymen’s Missionary Movement, and the Missionary Education Movement) were promoting interdenominational fundraising campaigns. In the case of an interdenominational campaign, the funds would go to denominational church bodies, but participating denominations would all adopt the same themes, promotional texts, and timelines. In 1914–1915, for instance, the theme was to be “the social force of Christian missions” and William Faunce’s The Social Aspect of Foreign Missions (1914) was to be the key text for church groups to read. See, for example, “Minutes of the Meeting of the Committee of Twenty-Eight” and “Report of the Committee of Twenty-Eight”, 1914–1916, Foreign Missions Conference of North America Records, NCC RG 27, box 3, folder 11, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
21
Control over women’s fundraising was a longstanding issue that had originally quashed women’s efforts to create their own interdenominational boards. Only a few years after World War I, the male-dominated denominational boards would force the women’s boards into mergers, further asserting their control of women’s financial resources (Robert 1997, pp. 129, 302–7).
22
Indeed, that was precisely the point of cooperative plans. The plans overcame the greater appeal of some endeavors over others, permitting a more systematic budgeting process without impacting the methods of raising money.
23
A. Woodruff Halsey to Members of the Executive Committee, 12 October 1914, box 50, folder 17, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records. The American Board felt similarly, as Home Secretary Cornelius Patton underlined, “We cannot afford to have this work merged in their minds with that of the other denominational agencies, simply one more thing that Congregationalists are doing”. Cornelius Patton to James Barton, 18 September 1915, ABC 4.1, vol. 23, ABCFM Archives.
24
Abolition of the Joint Executive Committee, 1913–1915, box 50, folder 17, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
25
“Sixth Annual Report”, [1917], box 51, folder 4, Ecumenical and Relations Records.
26
The methods that Hubbard described only continued to expand in complexity and systematization (Leach 1958, pp. 219–28).
27
“Tentative Rough Outline of a Report on the Missionary Outlook in the Light of the War”, n.d., box 30, folder 14, Ecumenical Mission and Relations Records.
28
Mabel E. Emerson to Theodore H. Wilson, 28 September 1914, ABC 4.2, vol. 11, ABCFM Archives. The sh | |||||
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CILICIA (VILAYET OF ADANA AND
SANDJAK OF MARASH).
Cilicia occupies the south-eastern corner of Anatolia, overlooking the Gulf of Iskanderoun (Alexandretta), and falls into two sharply contrasted regions---the fertile, malarious coastal plain of Adana, traversed by a section of the Baghdad Railway, and the hill-country inland to the north-east of it, where the lines of Taurus are broken by the upper courses of the Sarus and Pyramus (Sihoun and Djihoun) and spread out fanwise into a maze of high valleys and mountain blocks.
Until the spring of 1915, Cilicia was one of the chief centres of the Armenian race in Turkey, and there was no region, with the possible exception of Van, which they succeeded in making and keeping so thoroughly their own. The Armenian Dispersion in north-eastern Anatolia and the suburban districts round the coasts of Marmora, numerous and wealthy and influential though it was, still constituted no more than an urban class, and even in the towns was usually in a minority. The Cilician highlands, on the other hand, were sown thick with Armenian peasant communities---small but prosperous hill towns and villages, of which the most important were Hadjin and Zeitoun in the north, but which stretched in an unbroken chain from the Taurus to the southern spurs of the Amanus, until, at Dört Yöl, they touched the north-eastern corner of the Mediterranean.
The Cilician Armenians were mainly shepherds and husbandmen, but they were also one of the most civilised and progressive sections of the Armenian race. Schools both Armenian and American, had been established in the mountains, and, the mountaineers were in close contact with Adana, Tarsus, Mersina and the other ports and cities of the Adana plain, where commerce and industry were almost entirely in the hands of the Armenian element---an element constantly reinforced from the reservoir of Armenian population in the highlands.
The Cilician Armenians seemed destined to play an important part in the future development of the Ottoman Empire. Their country was of peculiar strategical and commercial importance, for it was to be traversed by the main artery of the Empire, the Baghdad Railway, in the most vital section of its course, where it has to negotiate two mountain-barriers and approach most nearly to the Mediterranean coast. And meanwhile the Armenian Population itself was here steadily increasing in numbers, while in almost every other part of Turkey it had been receding under the continuous repression to which it had been subjected since 1878. This increase was the more remarkable became Cilicia had been especially visited by the last outbreak of massacre, which occurred in. 1909.
All this, however, only rendered the Cilician Armenians more in the Ottoman Government's eyes, and the war gave it the opportunity it coveted for rooting them out. A universal deportation of all the Armenians in the Empire may or may not have been contemplated before the breach between the Turks and Armenians in Van, in the middle of April, 1915 ; but, as far as Cilicia is concerned, there is no doubt whatever that the scheme was devised and put in train before any of the events at Van occurred. Fighting began at Van on the 20th, April ; the first Armenians had been deported from Zeitoun on the 8th April, twelve days before, and by the 19th a convoy of them had already arrived in Syria (Doc. 138). The Cilician deportations, at any rate, must therefore have been planned at least as early as March, and probably earlier still.
And there is one special feature about the execution of the scheme in Cilicia which makes it evident that it was carried out deliberately and thought out far ahead. Immediately the Armenians were evicted front their villages, their houses were assigned to Moslem refugees. We have occasional evidence of the same practice, during June, in the Vilayets of Erzeroum and Trebizond ; but in these cases the Moslem where we can trace their origin, generally prove to have been Turks or Kurds from the adjoining districts on the east, who had just evacuated their own homes in consequence of the first occupation of Van. Their installation in Armenian houses was apparently extempore and conceivably only provisional. On, the other hand, the "mouhadjirs " brought by the Ottoman Government to Zeitoun, Hadjin and the other towns and villages of the Cilician highlands, were all of them Moslem refugees from Europe ---from the Roumelian Vilayets ceded by Turkey in 1913, as a result of the Balkan War. They had been on the Government's hands for over two years, and during all that time they had remained stranded in Thrace or along the Aegean littoral. But now they had been transported from these western fringes of the Empire to the other extremity of the Anatolian Railway, and by the 8th April, 1915, they were in readiness to occupy the homes of the Armenians in Cilicia immediately their rightful owners had started on their road to exile. This is clear proof that, at any rate in Cilicia, the deportation was not only planned systematically, but planned a long time in. advance.
Its execution began at Zeitoun in April, and was extended to all the highland villages in the course of May and June. In the cities of the plain and the coast, on the other hand, it did not become drastic till the first week in September---a tacit avowal that the official pleas of Armenian disloyalty and strategical necessity were a pretext hardly intended to be taken seriously even by their authors.
The Zeitounlis were deported in two directions ---half of them to Sultania (see Documents 123 and 125) in the Anatolian Desert, and half to the Mesopotamian Santdjak of Der-el-Zor (see Document 145). The exiles at Sultania were subsequently removed to Der-el-Zor to join the rest, and the later convoys seem all to have taken the south-eastward road. The deportation was conducted by the gendarmerie with the same brutality as elsewhere, but the Cilician country Is free of nomadic Kurds, so that there was here less wholesale massacre on the way. On the last stages of their journey to Zor the exiles were harassed by the Arab nomads of the steppe, but these are a milder race than their Kurdish neighbours. The chief alleviation of the Cilicians' fate was their geographical position. The distance they had to traverse was comparatively short, and they only began to die in large numbers after reaching their destination.
119. CILICIA : ADDRESS (WITH ENCLOSURE), DATED 3rd JULY, 1915, FROM THE ARMENIAN COLONY IN EGYPT TO HIS EXCELLENCY LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR J. G. MAXWELL, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF HIS. BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S FORCES IN EGYPT.
(a) Address from the Armenian Colony.
We addressed ourselves recently to your Excellency to obtain your authorisation to send three emissaries to Cilicia, in order to inform ourselves of the true situation in that country.
While we are profoundly grateful to your Excellency for your courtesy in granting this authorisation, we now desire to inform you that trustworthy information, furnished by official persons who have arrived from Syria in the course of the present week, shows that the situation in Cilicia has undergone a complete transformation. On this account the despatch of the emissaries is, for the moment, postponed; the actual state of affairs calls for altogether different measures.
Cavalliere Gauttieri, the Italian Consul at Aleppo, and certain foreign residents at Alexandretta and Adana, as well as others from Bitlis and Harpout, who travelled across Cilicia and all arrived here last Monday on board a neutral vessel, give the following account of what has occurred :---
The town of Zeitoun, which was exclusively inhabited by Armenians and is famous for its heroic struggles against the Turks, took warning by the manifest intention of the Ottoman Government to take advantage of the favourable moment created by the war for effecting the extermination of the Armenian race, and revolted several months ago. Dört Yöl and Hassan Beyli (a large Armenian village half way between Marash and Dört Yöl) were preparing to take the same action. The Turkish Government tried to subdue Zeitoun by military force, but all its efforts remained fruitless ; its troops were decimated, and had to beat a retreat several times over. At that stage of affairs the local authorities, by order of the Central Government, employed the following stratagem : they threatened the Katholikos of Cilicia, an old man of 75 years, that if the Zeitounlis refused to capitulate they would have the whole Armenian population massacred, while they assured the Zeitounlis that, in case they laid down their arms, they would be in no way interfered with. On the urgent recommendation of the Katholikos, the Zeitounlis, thinking that they were fulfilling a patriotic duty, laid down their arms to save their compatriots ; and the inhabitants of Dört Yöl and Hassan Beyli did the same thing for the same reason. Thereupon the Government treacherously proceeded to deport the inhabitants of Zeitoun and the afore-mentioned places en masse, and to replace them by Moslem emigrants from Macedonia. At the same time they began to persecute the peaceful populations of the plains---those of Marash, Aintab, Sis and Adana, and so on---who are thus threatened now with imminent massacre. It is worth noting that the towns situated on the coast---Mersina, Alexandretta, Selefka and Kessab---continue to enjoy relative tranquillity. Notwithstanding all these persecutions, there are certain localities, scattered over the whole extent of Cilicia, where groups of Armenian fighting-men have entrenched themselves solidly in the mountains and are putting up an indefatigable resistance to the Turkish troops. Whenever they can, they leave their positions to go to the rescue of the defenceless people of the cultivated lands, always hoping that aid will come to them from abroad, and that, thus reinforced, they will be able to drive their historic oppressor from the country. The same hope is cherished by the whole Christian population of these regions, and one may say that the Moslems themselves are convinced that all this country will, before long, be occupied by the Allies.
That is the present situation in Cilicia, as it was unfolded to us by the official persons whom we have mentioned above.
(b) Resumé of Travellers' Reports, enclosed with the Address.
My official informants are unanimous in asserting that the object pursued in Cilicia by the Turkish Government is neither more nor less than the complete extermination of the Armenian element. The philanthropic efforts put forward by the Italian and American Consular Bodies, with a view to preventing the execution of this sinister plan, have remained without fruit, since the mandate for destruction and massacre emanated from the Central Government itself. The Turks, with the Government officials at their head, everywhere declare openly that the extermination of the Armenian element in Turkey is for them one of the necessities of national salvation, it being understood that the Allies protect the Armenians, and that they afford a permanent pretext for foreign intervention in the country's affairs. The Governor of Aleppo, a fair and liberal-minded man, who is personally opposed to this criminal policy, has avowed it to the European Consuls, declaring that the military commanders have only executed faithfully the orders received from the Sublime Porte, and emphasising this in the case of Fakhri Pasha, who is the representative of Djemal Pasha, the supreme commander of the military forces in Syria and Palestine. Among the other official persons responsible for the atrocities that have been committed, they mention the Mutessarif of Marash and the Kaimakam of Zeitoun. Latterly Marash and Zeitoun have been consolidated into an independent Sandjak by order of the Central Government, and so the above-mentioned functionaries are no longer under the control of the Vali of Aleppo.
The German Consul at Aleppo, of whom we shall have more to say below, made an extremely significant declaration to the Consul of a Power which has since joined the Allies :--
"However painful and deplorable the condition may be to which the Armenians find themselves reduced, the Turkish Government could take no other course towards them, in view of the fact that they have everywhere cast in their lot with the enemies of Turkey."
Zeitoun.---The Turkish troops which marched against Zeitoun and presided, after the capitulation, over the deportation of the Zeitounlis, were commanded by German officers. The Turks have torn from their homes in this way all the inhabitants of Zeitoun, Furnus, Alabash, Geben and the neighbouring districts, and have sent them off in batches to Der-el-Zor, to Djibal Hauran, and towards various unexplored regions of the desert. The women have been sent to Konia, an exclusively Turkish district. In place of the Armenians they had installed at Zeitoun a number of Moslem refugees from Macedonia.
Marash---This town was relatively tranquil till a short time ago ; now it is the scene of all kinds of atrocities and persecutions. Hundreds of Armenian families have been driven out and marched away, no one knows where. These atrocities have been committed in the presence and with the connivance of the German Consul at Aleppo, according to the testimony of a large number of Armenians which has been recorded by the European Consular authorities.
Hassan Beyli.---This unfortunate village, which had been already so cruelly tried during the Cilician massacres of 1909, has this time been destroyed root and branch. The inhabitants have been deported.
Dört Yöl presents the same tragic spectacle. Though there have been no massacres here in the literal sense of the word, the arrests and expulsions en masse continue without abatement. The story is already well-known of the German spy who came to Dört Yöl disguised as a British officer---how he incited them to revolt against the Turkish Government, and the arrests and partial massacre that came of it. The story of this piece of treachery is also confirmed by the Italian Consul from Alexandretta. The village of Dört Yöl, once so prosperous, is now plunged in frightful misery.
At Aintab, Sis and Adana the Armenians have so far been less molested and persecuted than elsewhere. The arrests are less numerous ; but sinister rumours are current, which are propagated by the Turks, and the terror of imminent butchery haunts the inhabitants of these towns, who are strong in numbers but absolutely bereft of all means of defence and of all protection against the danger of extermination by which they are menaced.
Ourfa groans under a Governor of the name of Haidar Bey, who, as his own wife avows, has committed atrocities of all kinds wherever he has exercised authority. He is the notorious organiser of the butcheries at Mardin. The Armenian monastery at Ourfa has been confiscated by the authorities and transformed into an asylum for the British and Russian subjects who have been put under arrest in Cilicia.
The Turkish Forces.---The Turks do not dispose of military forces of any importance in Cilicia ; the troops they have there are not a permanent garrison, and their number is not constant.
120. CILICIA: LETTER, DATED 20th JUNE, 1915, FROM DR. L., A FOREIGN RESIDENT IN TURKEY; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
The deportation began some six weeks ago with 180 families from Zeitoun, since which time all the inhabitants of that place and its neighbouring villages have been deported, also most of the Christians in Albustan and many from Hadjin, Sis, Kars Pazar, Hassan Beyli and Dört Yöl.
The numbers involved are approximately, to date, 26,500. Of these about 5,000 have been sent to the Konia region, 5,500 are in Aleppo and the surrounding towns and villages, and the remainder are in Der-el-Zor, Rakka and various places in Mesopotamia, even as far as the neighbourhood of Baghdad.
The process is still going on, and there is no telling how far it may be carried. The orders already issued will bring the number in this region up to 32,000, and there have been as yet none exiled from Aintab, and very few from Marash and Ourfa.
The following is the text of the Government order(158) covering the case:-"Art. 2nd.: The commanders of the Army, of independent army corps and of divisions may, in case of military necessity, or in case they suspect espionage or treason, send away, either singly or in mass, the inhabitants of villages or towns and install them in other places."
The orders of commanders may have been reasonably humane, but the execution of them has been for the most part unnecessarily harsh and in many cases accompanied by horrible brutality to women and children, to the sick and the aged. Whole villages were deported at an hour's notice, with no opportunity to prepare for the journey---not even, in some cases, to gather together the scattered members of the family, so that little children were left behind. At the mountain village of Geben the women were at the wash-tub, and were compelled to leave their wet clothes in the water and take the road barefooted and half-clad, just as they were. In some cases they were able to carry part of their scanty household furniture or implements of agriculture, but for the most part they were allowed neither to carry anything nor to sell it, even where there was time to do so.
In Hadiin well-to-do people, who had prepared food and bedding for the road, were obliged to leave it in the street, and afterwards suffered greatly from hunger.
In many cases the men (those of military age were nearly all in the Army) were bound tightly together with ropes or chains. Women with little children in their arms, or in the last days of pregnancy, were driven along under the whip like cattle. Three different cases came under my knowledge where the woman was delivered on the road and, because her brutal driver hurried her along, she died of haemorrhage. I also know of one case where the gendarme in charge was a humane man and allowed the poor woman several hours' rest and then procured a wagon for her to ride in. Some women became so completely worn out and hopeless that they left their infants beside the road. Many women and girls have been outraged. At one place the commander of gendarmerie openly told the men to whom he consigned a large company that they were at liberty to do what they chose with the women and girls.
As to subsistence, there has been a great difference in different places. In some places the Government has fed them ; in some places it has permitted the inhabitants to feed them ; in some places it has neither fed them nor permitted others to do so. There has been much hunger, thirst and sickness and some real starvation and death.
These people are being scattered in small units, three or four families in a place, among a population of different race and religion and speaking a different language. I speak of them as being composed of families, but four-fifths of them are women and children, and what men there are, for the most part, are old or incompetent.
If means are not found to help them through the next few months, until they get established in their new surroundings, two-thirds or three-fourths of them will die of starvation and disease.
121. BM. : LETTER FROM A FOREIGN EYE-WITNESS, DATED 6th JULY, 1915, ON BOARD A STEAMSHIP; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
Central Turkey has reached a crisis in its history. There are grave problems to face. In many parts the accumulated work of years has been washed away in a few weeks by the great and terrible flood of deportation, and we are again on bed-rock. We understand that, between the middle of May and the middle of June, 26,000 people were deported, and that the number is to reach 32,000. When I left BM., on the 14th June, Zeitoun had been practically emptied of Armenians. Only one, or perhaps two families, who were originally not of Zeitoun and who were in the employment of the Government and necessary to it, were left in Zeitoun, and even they were not allowed to live in houses, but were living in a church. The place is now occupied by Macedonian Moslem refugees. They began by cutting down the fruit trees, laden with green fruit, and using them for firewood, and by cutting down the green grain and using it for fodder. One man demanded the mule that had carried him there from the Moslem katerdji, who had been asked by the Government to convey the man to Zeitoun---or Yeni Shehr, as I think it is now to be called. When the katerdji naturally demurred, the man killed the katerdji and took the mule. So lawless are they that the Government seems afraid of them, and so leaves them strictly alone. As far as I know, at that date not an Armenian was left in Albustan and all its region, in Furnus and all its region, in Geben and all its region, or in Gourksoun and all its region (I don't remember the other places that have been swept clean), and Fundadjak and DerÈ Keui and all that region expected to move any day. Indeed, the Government says that the plan is that all Cilicia shall be entirely cleared, except for Sis, Adana and BM., where the serving class shall be left. Some officials say that all but about three hundred rich and influential families of BM. shall be left, but no one believes them and all from the highest to the lowest are preparing to leave. The same officials say that Sis and Adana will not be touched, but we know that some from there have been taken already. As you may know, Marash was this year made an independent "Sandjak," like Ourfa, and this has made this infamous work more easy. The Vali of Aleppo resisted all efforts at deportation in his district, but the day we left Aleppo we were informed by him that he had been removed to Konia, so by this time deportation is very probably in full swing in the Aintab field. When we were in Aleppo I saw some of the first one hundred families to be deported from Hadjin, and the rest of Hadjin were expected the day we left, or within the next few days. The man who has been deporting in Diyarbekir, and, worse, has been killing people by beating or scalding them to death---one person said: "He is killing them alive!"---was transferred about the middle of June to Ourfa, with the evident purpose of letting him continue his work there. To go out into other fields, I might add that a private code telegram from Mardin received about the 24th June said that massacres had begun there.
Why is there this deportation? There are many theories. When the people asked, the answer was : "It is an order from Constantinople." One official, who is being worked nearly to death by this extra work of deportation, said one day : "It is all right for people in. Europe to deport. They simply put people on a train and send them wherever they wish"--and much more along that line, which led us to believe that Germany has a hand in it. Indeed, we know that, when Turkish officials are easing up on these poor people, German officials step in and make things hard.
Where are they going ? Some are being scattered, one or two families to a village, among Moslem villages, evidently with the idea of forcing them to become Moslems; others are being taken from their mountain homes and are being driven across the desert towards Baghdad. German officers, who came into Aleppo one night on their way from Baghdad to Constantinople, said that they first met this weary train two days out of Baghdad, and that the road the thousands they had met were marching along was marked or outlined by the bodies of their dead.
Who are these people ? Women and children, tottering old men and babes. The men, twenty-one to thirty-five or forty years old, have practically all gone to the war, so these women are at the mercy of those in charge of them. Some soldiers are as kind to them as circumstances permit ; others farm the women out for the night to the men of the villages near which they camp, or march in themselves, as a bull might into a herd of cows. This is not guesswork, but well-known fact. Some women kill themselves by jumping into the rivers, to escape, but others, for the sake of their children, endure.
Some of the circumstances that make this deportation especially cruel are these. As a general rule village people get their new clothes in the autumn. Now they are expecting to go up into the mountains with their flocks, and so will wear out the old rags of last year's clothes and be ready for the new clothes after harvest. So, at best, they are very ill-provided for a journey. Not only this, but the Government takes special pains in many, if not most, instances to prevent their taking what clothes they have. The first to be summoned were some families in Zeitoun. Early one Saturday morning, as usual, the industrious housewives donned their old washing clothes and began their Saturday's washing. Without warning, all of a sudden, a terrible knocking was heard at many doors. In a minute the soldiers came pouring in, saying that the people in those houses were wanted immediately at the Government House. Not a moment was given to don dress or shoes, but, in night-clothes or washing rags, the mothers and a few fathers snatched sleeping children out of their beds, the women throwing a shawl over their heads as they ran. Of course, many children were left behind, and there are many pathetic stories of little boys and girls, eight or nine years old, stumbling. along the road, hardly able from sheer weariness to walk, yet carrying their little baby brother or sister, because, as their mother was being taken away by the soldiers, she had said, "Look after baby and never leave him (or her)."
Geben's turn came later, so the people had heard of the deportation and gotten ready, although the Government assured them again and again that that district was not to be deported, Time went on, and no order came. The Government said: "Why will you not believe? Why do you sit here waiting for that which is not coming? See, your flocks are suffering for want of pasture. Be sensible, and go to the mountains as usual." Some brave ones started out, and nothing happened. So, in great joy, the flocks started for the mountains. One morning the women were putting into the tub the clothes that had got dirty during all those weary weeks of waiting, that they might go to their mountain places with clean clothes. Such was the need of washing that they wore the fewest clothes possible, that they might take everything nice and clean. Hardly an hour had passed, or at least a very short time, before some soldiers presented themselves to these women with the command "March!" while others accosted those who had gone to the mountains with the flocks with the command "Leave all and march! " So they were forced to leave all their clothes in the tub and their flocks on the mountains, and march !
In Albustan, when friendly Moslems wished to buy things of the Armenians and so give them ready money for the road, the Government stationed soldiers in all the Armenian streets to prevent this, so all they could sell was what they smuggled out by the back door.
Another factor that adds horror to the situation is the fact that most of the horses, mules and donkeys have been taken by the Government for the use of the Army. So now the people have practically no animals to carry their own loads, and the Government can furnish few. Sometimes they force an Armenian from a distant village, who happens to have kept a poor old lame horse or two, to help transport people. He hears on the way that orders have come for the deportation of his own family. Of course, if he can steal away in the night to go to the help of his own family, he does so. Or the soldiers make a raid on some neighbouring Moslem villages and gather up the few donkeys that, are left. Their owners know that, if these donkeys once reach some large centre, they will never see them again. So these poor people, who have been tramping along all day, must keep awake all night to keep the donkeys from being stolen by their owners, who are sneaking round watching their chance. So the mothers are obliged to walk and carry their little children as best they can. Some throw their little ones into the river or leave them under a bush by the road, that they may be able to manage those that are left. One mother threw one child in and jumped in with the other in her arms. The heart-breaking cry is: "Won't you take my daughter and save her from the horrors of the road? She was educated in your schools; surely you can take her and save her? " Or : "My little one, my darling! Take her, take him! How can I trudge on, day after day, over the rocks or the burning sands of the desert, and carry and feed and keep my darling ?"
There is not an Armenian family in BM., I suppose, but has given clothes and money and food, till now they say: "We have nothing left but what we shall need on the road when we are summoned." They could not stand the bitter cry of the mothers, and many, many have taken children, saying: "If we put a little more water in the soup, it will be enough for all," and yet they say: "When we are summoned, what is to become of these children? To be sure, they have had a few more days of security and life, but then---what ? " . . . .
Still another factor adds to the horror, and that is : a Government that is not able to feed even its soldiers, how is it to obey the beautiful paper instructions and see that the people are well fed and lack for nothing ? In BM., for over a month, Christian churches have been giving two meals a day to the three thousand people to whom the Government gives two small stale loaves of bread a day, and I suppose it is safe to say that those fed are never for any two or three days running the same people. Each party stays two or three days, or even a week, but nearly every day some are coming and others going. This, as you may suppose, is a terrible drain on those from whom the Government has used nearly every means to extract the last penny, even hanging a man in the market-place because he did not pay ten pounds when asked for it! Hanging is so common in BM. now that it creates little stir. It is only when someone happens to mention having seen a man hanging in the market yesterday or the day before that we even hear of it. The people are looking into their fast-emptying larders, and asking: "How long will it last ? " In Aintab the people are not even allowed to feed the refugees, who are now sent by a long detour round the town to prevent anyone's seeking to feed them. Some good Aintab people took a lot of water-bottles right out to the cross-roads two hours or more away, to give to the refugees as they started out on their desert journey; but they were not allowed to give them, and had sadly to take them home again.
And how are the people going? As they come into BM., weary and with swollen and bleeding feet, clasping their babes to their breasts, they utter not one murmur or word of complaint; but you see their eyes move and hear the words: "For Jesus' sake, for Jesus' sake ! "
The Albustan people were brought by a roundabout way which no one knew, because, we think, the soldiers were afraid to follow the direct road past what used to be Zeitoun. So, instead of coming in two days they wandered for eight days in the mountains, many of them having not a morsel to eat for the last two days. After they had been in BM. for nearly twenty-four hours, Badvelli V. came up to see us. Even then he was so weary and his lips were so parched that it seemed a great effort for him to speak. Suddenly he threw up his head and squared his shoulders, and a new tone came into his voice, as he said : "I want to tell you of my great joy. As my people left their houses, their lands, their all, there was not one murmur or complaint, but with joy---yes, with joy---we left all! And I can say that I believe my people to-day to be nearer to Christ than they have ever been before."
I saw the wife of the Gourksoun preacher. She was so tired that, in spite of herself, perhaps even unknown to herself, her lips quivered as she spoke, and yet there was nothing but a smile or a cheery word to be seen or heard from those lips. Someone asked her how she came, and she said that for a few hours they hired an animal for one pound (I think that was the sum), but that most of the time she walked. I looked at her---a delicate woman, who could hardly be expected to walk three or four miles, to say nothing of all those miles, climbing up over the mountains or tramping among the rocks---and I said: "Walk! How could you ? " She turned to me, and a look of almost child like trust and wonder came into her face, as she answered : "I don't know. We felt no weariness; the road was not hard. It just seemed as though God put out His arms and carried us." . . .
122. ZEITOUN : ANTECEDENTS OF THE DEPORTATION, RECORDED BY THE REV. STEPHEN TROWBRIDGE, SECRETARY OF THE CAIRO COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN RED CROSS, FROM AN ORAL STATEMENT BY THE REV. DIKRAN ANDREASIAN, PASTOR OF THE ARMENIAN PROTESTANT CHURCH AT ZEITOUN.(159)
On the 10th August, 1914, the Turkish authorities in Zeitoun made a declaration of "seferbeylik," which in Turkish military parlance means that every man in the district under 45 years of age should be prepared to leave at short notice for active service in the Army. Every man, Moslem or Christian, was required to secure a "vesikÈ" or certificate from the Government stating that he had fulfilled the preliminary conditions and was ready for military service.
Hundreds upon hundreds, chiefly Moslem Turks, from the surrounding country came to the Zeitoun Government Building, and while going through the formalities were entertained hospitably by the Armenians of the town. These Armenians were also summoned, and they began seriously to consider whether it would be best to agree to this. (It is only since 1909 that any Christians have been allowed in the Turkish Army, though in ancient times the Janissaries were a very important section of the Ottoman troops.)
Many of the Zeitounlis took to the mountains to escape military service. Among these were about twenty-five thoroughgoing ruffians who made their living by deeds of violence. This small band, sincerely disliked and dreaded by the peaceable and thrifty people of Zeitoun, came down upon a company of new Turkish (Moslem) recruits, stripped them and enraged them by the insolence of their language. Thereupon Haidar Pasha, the Mutessarif of Marash, came out about the 31st August with 600 soldiers. He brought with him some Christian notables from Marash to "persuade" the Zeitounlis.
<The people of Zeitoun knew of this; and Yeghia Agha Yenidounyaian, one of the notables, advised Nazaret Tchaoush, his cousin, to meet Haidar Pasha with 500-600 armed young men, as he felt that Haidar Pasha's motives were not good. But Nazaret Tchaoush. answered: "No, it may be that his coming means death to me; but I would rather die than see Zeitoun ruined, as I know well that this is not the time for opposition." All the party leaders were of the same opinion, for they knew that they were not ready for a prolonged struggle, and that the European Powers were not in a position to come to their help. So> no opposition was offered to this force.
The Pasha demanded the surrender of the twenty-five outlaws who had attacked the new recruits. Every one of these was secured and actually handed over to the Turkish Government. This would seem to have answered the Pasha's utmost demand, but, as a matter of fact, he was not satisfied, and made a proclamation demanding the surrender of all weapons and firearms. On the pretext of making the Armenians own up to the possession of rifles, torture and the bastinado were used with terrible cruelty. Many prominent citizens had their feet beaten into a mangled pulp. Those who had no rifles made desperate efforts to purchase some from their neighbours, in order to be able to deliver them up and escape the torture(160).
There were in all about 200 Martini rifles among the 8,000 people of Zeitoun, and some 150 of these were seized in this fashion by the Turkish officers. A quantity of old-fashioned guns and pistols were collected and confiscated. The Pasha in returning to Marash took away with him a number of the Armenian notables, allowing the soldiers to insult and beat them on the road. Certain classes of the Armenians were also taken to the Marash barracks "for military service," but after terrible experiences many of them escaped and returned to Zeitoun.
The old troubles began again. On the pretext of finding deserters, houses were searched in the most lawless manner, and relatives and even neighbours were cruelly beaten. The fathers of some "deserters" almost died under the beating, <among them Nazaret Tchaoush himself>. The women and girls in the "deserters'" families were attacked and violated. Again and again young Armenian girls were outraged by the coarse Turkish soldiers. Even the young men who were not deserters were beaten "lest they might desert later." Of course, trade had long been at a standstill, and now large quantities of private property were being confiscated on these various pretexts. Then, <about the end of February,> some ignorant hotheads met one night and planned to attack the Government Building. This plot was frustrated by the Armenian notables, <among whom was Baba Agha Besilosian, the most influential of them all,> because they felt it would be doomed to failure. The Arashnort (Armenian bishop and head of the community) felt it his duty to notify the Government of this plot.
These are the facts. How can anyone charge the people of Zeitoun with desiring or attempting an insurrection ?
About twenty-five of the young men who had been brutally treated by the Turkish officers took to the mountains. These twenty-five attacked and killed nine Turkish mounted police on the way to Marash. The whole Armenian population of Zeitoun was against this, and openly said so. A night attack by this reckless band, <who had taken refuge in the adjacent monastery,> was frustrated by Government troops aided by a great mass of the Armenian people. Yet it became evident that the Government was only watching for pretexts to destroy Zeitoun root and branch.
Gradually 5,000 soldiers were gathered about the town, <and on the 24th March/6th April an Armenian delegation was sent to Zeitoun from Marash. Among these were the Rev. A. Shiradjian, Father Sahag, a Catholic monk, and Herr Blank, who persuaded the Armenians to inform the Government of the whereabouts of the insurgents and follow the instructions of the Government, to ensure their own safety and the safety of the other Armenians in Cilicia. The Armenians unanimously accepted the proposal, and told the Government that the insurgents were in the monastery.
The next day, the 25th March/7th April, the attack on the monastery began. The new Mutessarif of Marash wished to invest the monastery, but Captain Khourshid opposed him, saying that he would be able to get hold of all the insurgents dead or alive "within two hours."
The fight continued until nightfall, when the Turks decided to burn the monastery. But during the night the insurgents rushed out, killed an officer and many soldiers and escaped to the mountains, leaving only a few of their men behind them. The Turks lost between 200 and 300. On the 26th March/8th April the Turks burned the monastery, thinking that the insurgents were still there.
After this,(161)> fifty prominent families wore sent into exile; a few days later, sixty more, then a whole quarter, and another and another. Finally the remainder were all sent at once. By the time the Rev. Dikran Andreasian left, no families whatever remained. Even the Armenian inscriptions over the arches of churches were hacked to pieces by order of Khourshid
Bey, the commander of the troops, and the name of Zeitoun was changed to Souleimania (after a Turkish officer who was killed on the Marash road). The Turkish Mufti of Zeitoun, in his report, stated that in the course of all these events, such as the storming of the monastery, 101 Turkish soldiers were killed and 110 wounded. Over against this we may add that 8,000 Armenians who had no evil intention against the Government were outraged and despoiled beyond all endurance, and were at last driven out according to a methodical plan born of the Germans---driven out into hideous misery and suffering in the arid plains of Mesopotamia.
The Zeitounlis were longing for the Allies to carry all before them at Gallipoli. They were hoping for a sweeping defeat of the Turks; but there was no insurrection. The one or two seditious plots were opposed and frustrated chiefly by the Armenians of a saner mind. The evidence is convincing that the destruction of the people of Zeitoun was a deliberate Turco-German plan.
123. EXILES FROM ZEITOUN: DIARY OF A FOREIGN RESIDENT IN THE TOWN OF B. ON THE CILICIAN PLAIN ; COMMUNICATED BY A SWISS GENTLEMAN OF GENEVA.
Sunday, 14th March, 1915.
This morning I had a long conversation with Mr. ----- about events at Zeitoun. He has managed to obtain some information regarding the little Armenian town, although all direct communication with it has been interrupted. Turkish troops have left Aleppo for Zeitoun---some say 4,000, some 6,000, others 8,000. With what intention, one wonders? Mr. -----, who has been there himself during last summer and this winter, assures me that the Armenians have no wish to revolt and are prepared to put up with anything the Government may do. Contrary to the old-established custom, a levy was made at Zeitoun at the time of the August mobilisation, and they did not offer the slightest resistance. None the less, the Government has played them false. In October, 1914, their leader, Nazaret Tchaoush, came to Marash with a "safe conduct" to arrange some special points with the officials. In spite of the "safe conduct" they imprisoned him, tortured him, and put him to death. Still the people of Zeitoun remained quiet. Bands of zaptiehs (Turkish gendarmes), quartered in the town, have been molesting the inhabitants, raiding shops, stealing, maltreating the people and dishonouring their women. It is obvious that the Government are trying to get a case against the Zeitounlis, so as to be able to exterminate them at their pleasure and yet justify themselves in the eyes of the world.
-th April, 1915.
Three Armenians from Dört Yöl were hanged last night in the chief squares of Adana. The Government declare that they had been signalling to the British, warship or warships stationed in the Gulf of Alexandretta. This is untrue ; for 1, know, though I dare not put the source of my information on paper, that only one Armenian from Dört Yöl has had any communication with the English.
-th April.
Two more Armenians from Dört Yöl have been hanged at Adana.
-th April.
Three Armenians have been hanged at Adana. We were out riding to-day, and the train came into the station just as we reached the railway. Imagine our indignation when we saw a cattle-truck filled with Armenians from Zeitoun. Most of these mountaineers were in rags, but a few were quite well dressed. They had been driven out of their homes and were going to be transplanted, God knows where, to some town in Asia Minor.
It seems we have returned to the days of the Assyrians, if whole populations can be exiled in this way, and the sacred liberty of the individual so violated.
-th April (the next day).
We were able to see the unfortunate refugees, who are still here to-day. These are the circumstances of their departure from Zeitoun, or rather this is the tragedy which preceded their exile, though it was not the cause of it.
The Turkish gendarmes outraged several girls in the town, and were attacked in consequence by about twenty of the more hot-headed young men. Several gendarmes were killed, though all the while the population as a whole was opposed to bloodshed and desired most earnestly to avoid the least pretext for reprisals. The twenty rebels were driven out of the town and took refuge in a monastery about three-quarters of an hour's distance from the town. At this point the troops from Aleppo arrived. The Zeitounlis gave them lodging, and it seemed that all was going excellently between the populace and the 8,000 soldiers under their German officers.
The Turks surrounded the monastery and attacked it for a whole day; but the insurgents defended themselves, and, at the cost of one man slightly wounded, they killed 300 of the regular troops. During the night, moreover, they managed to escape.
Their escape was as yet unknown to the town when, about nine o'clock on the following morning, the Turkish Commandant summoned about 300 of the principal inhabitants to present themselves immediately at the military headquarters. They obeyed the summons without the least suspicion, believing themselves to be on excellent terms with the authorities. Some of them took a little money, others some clothing or wraps, but the majority came in their working clothes and brought nothing with them. Some of them had even left their flocks on the mountains in the charge of children. When they reached the Turkish camp, they were ordered to leave the town at once without returning to their homes. They were completely stupefied. Leave ? But for where ? They did not know.
They had been unable even yet to learn their destination, but it is probable that they are being sent to the Vilayet of Konia. Some of them have come in carriages and some on foot.
-th April.
I heard to-day that the whole population of Dört Yöl has been taken away to work on the roads. They continue to hang Armenians at Adana. It is a point worth remembering that Zeitoun and Dört Yöl are the two Armenian towns which held their own during the Adana massacres of 1909.
-th May.
A new batch of Zeitounlis has just arrived. I saw them marching along the road, an interminable file under the Turkish whips. It is really the most miserable and pitiable thing in the world. Weak and scarcely clothed, they rather drag themselves along than walk. Old women fall down, and struggle to their feet again when the zaptieh approaches with lifted stick. Others are driven along like donkeys. I saw one young woman drop down exhausted. The Turk gave her two or three blows with his stick and she raised herself painfully. Her husband was walking in front with a baby two or three days old in his arms.
Further on an old woman had stumbled, and slipped down into the mud. The gendarme touched her two or three times with his whip, but she did not stir; then he gave her several kicks with his foot; still she did not move; then he kicked her harder, and she rolled over into the ditch ; I hope that she was already dead.
These people have now arrived in the town. They have had nothing to eat for two days. The Turks forbade them to bring anything with them from Zeitoun, except, in some cases, a few blankets, a donkey, a mule, or a goat. But even these things they are selling here for practically nothing---a goat for one medjidia (3s. 2d.), a mule for half a lira (nine shillings). This is because the Turks steal them on the road. One young woman who had only been a mother eight days, had her donkey stolen the first night of the journey. What away of starting out! The German and Turkish officers made the Armenians leave all their property behind, so that the mouhadjirs (refugees) from Thrace might enter into possession. There are five families in -----'s house! The town and the surrounding villages (about 25,000 inhabitants) are entirely destroyed.
Between fifteen and sixteen thousand exiles have been sent towards Aleppo, but they are going to be taken further. Perhaps into Arabia ? Can the real object be to starve them to death ? Those who have passed through our town were going to the Vilayet of Konia ; there, too, there are deserts.
-th May.
Letters have come which confirm my fears. It is not to Aleppo that the Zeitounlis are being sent, but to Der-el-Zor, in Arabia, between Aleppo and Babylonia. And those we saw the other day are going to Kara-Pounar, between Konia and Eregli, in the most and part of Asia Minor.
Certain ladies here have given blankets and shoes to some of the poorest. The local Christians, too, have shown themselves wonderfully self-sacrificing. But what can one do ? It is a little drop of charity in the ocean of their suffering.
-th May.
News has come from Konia. Ninety Armenians have been taken to Kara-Pounar. The Zeitounlis have arrived at Konia. Their sufferings have been increased by their having had to wait---some of them 8, some 15, some 20 days---at Bozanti (the terminus of the Anatolian Railway in the Taurus, 2,400 feet above sea level). This delay was caused by the enormous masses of troops passing continually through the Cilician Gates ; it is the army of Syria which is being recalled for the defence of the Dardanelles.
When the exiles reached Konia, they had eaten nothing, according to our news, for three days. The Greeks and Armenians at once collected money and food for their relief, but the Vali of Konia would not allow anything of any kind to be given to the exiles. They therefore remained another three days without food, at the end of which time the Vali removed his prohibition and allowed food to be served out to them under the supervision of the zaptiehs.
My informant tells me that. after the departure of the Armenians from Konia for Kara-Pounar, he saw an Armenian woman throw her new-born baby into a well; another is said to have thrown hers out of the window of the train.
-th May.
A letter has come from Kara-Pounar. I know the writer of it, and can have no doubt of his truthfulness. He says that the 6,000 or 8,000 Armenians from Zeitoun are dying there from starvation at the rate of 150 to 200 a day. So from 15,000 to 19,000 Zeitounlis must have been sent into Arabia, the total population of the town and the outlying villages having been about 25,000.
-th May.
The whole garrison of ------and of Adana have left for the Dardanelles. There are no troops left to defend the district if it should be attacked from outside.
-th May (the next day).
New troops have arrived, but they are untrained.
-th May.
The last batch of Zeitounlis passed through our town to-day, and I was able to speak to some of them in the han where they had been put. I saw one poor little girl who had been walking, barefoot, for more than a week; her only clothing was a torn pinafore ; she was shivering with cold and hunger, and her bones were literally pushing through her skin.
About a dozen children had to be left on the road because they could not walk any further. Have they died of hunger ? Probably, but no one will ever know for certain. I also saw two poor old women without any hair left, or with hardly any. When the Turks drove them out of Zeitoun they had been rich, but they could not take anything with them beyond the clothes they were wearing. They managed somehow to hide five or six gold pieces in their hair, but, unfortunately for them, the sun glinted on the metal as they marched along and the glitter attracted the notice of a zaptieh. He did not waste any time in picking out the pieces of gold, but found it much quicker to tear the hair out by the roots.
I came across another very characteristic case. A citizen of Zeitoun, formerly a rich man, was leading two donkeys, the last remnants of his fortune. A gendarme came along and seized their bridles; the Armenian implored him to leave them, saying that he was already on the verge of starvation. The only answer he received from the Turk was a shower of blows, repeated till he rolled over in the dust ; even then the Turk continued beating him, till the dust was turned into a blood-soaked mud; then he gave a final kick and went off with the donkeys. Several Turks stood by watching ; they did not appear to be at all surprised, nor did any of them attempt to intervene.
-th May.
The authorities have sent a number of people from Dört Yöl to be hanged in the various towns of Adana Vilayet.
-th May.
There is a rumour of a partial exodus from Marash. It is going to be our town next.
Dört Yöl has also been evacuated and the inhabitants sent into Arabia. Hadjin is threatened with the same fate. There has been a partial clearing out of Adana; Tarsus and Mersina are threatened too, and also Aintab.
124. EXILES FROM ZEITOUN : FURTHER STATEMENT BY THE AUTHOR OF THE PRECEDING DOCUMENT; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
About the middle of April, about 150 Armenian families belonging to Zeitoun came to B. This is what they told us about the circumstances under which they had to leave their village.
After a battle that took place one day before their departure, between the Ottoman troops and 25 young men of Zeitoun, who had rebelled when they were asked to join the Army (a battle in which 300 soldiers perished, but in which the population of Zeitoun took no part), these families were called to the Government Building without any previous explanation and without any other information. Most of them were rich and went to the Government without misgivings. There they were informed that they had to leave their village instantly. They were then all obliged to abandon all that they had in their houses, their cattle and even part of their families (for, not knowing why they had been called away, many of them had left their children at home). This is what I heard from one of the Armenian exiles in the first convoy from Zeitoun. They came to B., but when some of them went to the American Mission in this town, they did not yet know where they were to be planted. Most of them were in the greatest anxiety on account of the children whom they bad left tending the cattle and whom they had not been able to take with them.
The first group was not in a very bad state, because it was composed of the first families of the city, and they could in large part provide for their immediate needs (carriages and food). But, a few days later, new bands appeared in a most deplorable condition; their number was nearly two thousand people.
Many, in fact, most of them, went on foot, getting food every two or three days, and in general lacking the most necessary clothes. The Christian population of B. tried to help them, but, whatever their efforts, what they could do was like a drop of water in the ocean. Also, they were not all allowed to enter the city; they had to sleep out of doors in no matter what weather, and the soldiers that guarded them put all sorts of difficulties in the way of the population of B., who wanted to help the refugees. We saw some of them on the road. They went slowly, most of them fainting from want of food. We saw a father walking with a one-day-old baby in his arms, and behind him the mother walking as well as possible, pushed along by the stick of the Turkish guard. It was not uncommon to see a woman fall down and then rise again under the stick. Some of them had a goat, a donkey, or a mare; when they reached B., they were obliged to sell them for five, ten, or fifteen piastres,(162) because the Turkish soldiers took them away from them. I saw one who sold his goat to a Turk for six piastres. I saw an Armenian pushing two goats ; a policeman (zabit) came and carried away the animals and, because the poor man protested, beat him mercilessly, until he fell in the dust senseless. Many Turks were present; no one stirred.
A young woman, whose husband had been imprisoned, was carried away with her fifteen-days-old baby, with one donkey for all her baggage. After one day and a half on the road, a soldier stole her donkey and she had to go on foot, her baby in her arms, from Zeitoun to Aleppo.
A reporter, Mr. Y ., told us that, while the refugees were on the way to Bozanti, his carriage was stopped all the time by refugees asking for bread.
The third and last band numbered 200 people. It reached B. on the 13th May, about seven o'clock. They were put in a han, where I went to visit them. The had all come on foot from Zeitoun to B., and had had nothing to eat for two days---days when it rained abundantly. Accompanied by one of my pupils, I made one or two translations from the Armenian, because we were under the surveillance of a policeman.
As soon as the Armenian refugees left their houses, mouhadjirs (Moslem refugees) from Thrace took possession of them. The Armenians had been forbidden to take anything with them, and they themselves saw all their goods pass into other hands. There must be about 20,000 to 25,000 Turks in Zeitoun now, and the name of the town seems to have been changed into that of Yeni Shehr.
I saw a girl three and a half years old, wearing only a shirt in rags. She had come on foot from Zeitoun to B. She was terribly spare and was shivering from cold, as were also all the innumerable children I saw on that day (Monday, the 14th May[163]).
An Armenian told me that he had abandoned two children on the way because they could not walk and that he did not know whether they had died of cold and hunger, whether a charitable soul had taken care of them, or whether they had become the prey of wild beasts. I learned later that this was far from being a unique case. Many children seem to have been thus abandoned.. One seems to have been thrown into a well.
As I passed through Konia, I went to see Dr. AB.(164) and this; is what he told me : When the first refugees from Zeitoun came to Konia, the Christian population bought food and clothes for. them ; but the Vali refused to allow them any communication with the refugees, pretending that they had all that they wanted.. A few days later however, they could get the help they needed.. The fact is that the Government gave them only very bad bread, and that only every two or three days. Dr. AB. told me that a woman threw her dying baby from the window of the train.
The refugees from Zeitoun have been directed to Kara-Pounar, one of the most unhealthy places in the Vilayet of Konia, situated between Konia and Eregli, but nearer the latter. Many of them have died, and the mortality is increasing everyday. The malaria makes ravages among them, because of the complete lack of food and shelter. How cruelly ironic to think that the Government pretends to be sending them there to found a colony ; and they have no ploughs, no seeds to sow, no bread, no abode; in fact, they are sent with empty hands.
Only part of the Zeitounlis seem to be at Kara-Pounar ; the others seem to have been sent to Der-el-Zor, on the Euphrates ; there their condition is still worse, and they ask as a favour to be sent to Kara-Pounar.
The Armenians of Adana received orders to leave the town, without being told where they were to go. Many of them came to B., others went to Osmania. But they were all recalled to Adana. Is it intended to send them somewhere else, or are they to remain in Adana ? I could not find this out for certain before leaving B.
A great panic reigns among the Armenian population in B., because it was said that they also were to be exiled. But nothing has happened there yet.
From Konia, again, more than 200 Armenians have been sent to Kara-Pounar. Among them is Mr. AC. On Thursday, 90 people were notified to be ready to leave on Saturday, the 26th May.(165) The Armenians dare not leave their houses.
125. EXILES FROM ZEITOUN : LETTER, DATED KONIA, 17th JULY, 1915, FROM A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT KONIA TO MR. N. AT CONSTANTINOPLE; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
In hope of having opportunity to send by Miss FF., I can write freely. Have you any means by which you can send me as much as fifty liras for relief of the Zeitounlis in Sultania ? .The Government has now left them to starve. At first, rations of bread were given; then 150 drams of flour to each per day (children under five not being counted at all) ; then their amount was ,reduced to 100 drams. It is now four weeks that this has been cut off entirely. The people are not allowed to scatter over the country in search of work. They can only search the fields for roots and herbs, and there have been several cases of poisoning from this food. The exiles from Konia, numbering 107 (men who have money and supplies sent to them from their homes) took up a subscription among themselves and subscribed 1,400 piastres a week towards supplying bread for the starving. I have sent personal gifts from ourselves and our friends of five or six liras a week; but these sources are becoming exhausted. Later Mr. GG., whom Dr. EE. knows, has been "pardoned" by the Vali and has returned here. He has been the leader among the exiles in trying to secure food for the Zeitounlis. I called on him this evening to get accurate information of their state. It is worse even than I knew. The number is over 7,000, 2,200 having been sent without coming through Konia, so that I had no account of them. The facts about the cutting off of all food for them are as I have stated. A bin-bashi, an Arnaout,(166) who went there on military service, was greatly moved by what he saw, and sent a strong telegram demanding rations to be given to the families of the men (about 300) who were drafted into the Labour Regiment after being sent to Sultania. This he could do in his military capacity, and it was accepted by the War Department. This provided for about 1,600, leaving, however, nearly 6,000 with nothing. The number of deaths up to last week was 305. Dr. Stepanian, of Baghtchedjik, has distinguished himself by self-sacrificing work for the poor. He testifies to seeing deaths from starvation already.
The refugees are "housed" principally in great camel stables and such like. It is a great camel region, the Government having requisitioned 4,000 of these animals from there. The cattle and animals of the Zeitounlis were mostly requisitioned by the Government en route. What they managed to conceal and bring with them has been put under requisition, but not taken. Meanwhile, the owners are forbidden to sell, are unable to use, and are compelled to feed these animals, because the Government holds them responsible to deliver them when called for. I have before heard of refinements of devilry, but I have seen instances this year that have burned into my soul. The manifest purpose to destroy these people by starvation cannot be denied.
I find that it is the exiles from Ak Shehr and. Baghtchedjik, who are also at Sultania, who have been more generous than those of Konia in giving of their own means. The Kaimakam has been very good, giving out of his scanty purse to help and favouring the efforts of others, in spite of the official attitude in Konia. Dr. Stepanian, of Baghtchedjik, whom you perhaps know, is one of the "Commission" there for distributing all assistance that may be sent. Can you in any way get money to put at my disposal, so that I can send ten liras a week ? With this we may be able to get enough from others here to provide ten paras per person. Of course this is nothing, but may we not do something ?
126. AF. : STATEMENT, DATED 16th DECEMBER, 1915, BY A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT AF. ; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
The events connected with the banishment of the Armenians of the AF. region by the Turkish Government began on the 14th May. On that day the Alai Bey, or Justice of the Court Martial, arrived in AF. from Aleppo, the seat of the Court Martial. The three days following his arrival were spent in seclusion, very probably in consulting with secret agents. On the 18th, 19th and 20th May he had conferences with the elders of the city. He demanded in a very courteous manner that the city should deliver up all arms, and all deserters from the army and other outlaws. He desired that they should comply with his request within the next three days. He took an oath on his honour that, if his demands were obeyed, all would be well for the people of AF. and in no way should harm come to them. In case of disobedience, however, he said that he had at his call three thousand soldiers, who would enforce his demands.
Towards the last of the conferences, however, the Alai Bey's attitude grew threatening, and the people were filled with alarm. The elders and spiritual heads of the communities were at a loss what counsel to give. If they delivered up their arms and were betrayed, they might all be massacred; if they retained them, it would mean open opposition to the Government. A number of the leaders came to consult with Miss B. and me, and. we supported the party which stood for full compliance with the requests. It was finally almost unanimously decided that this should be done, and a general response seemed to follow.
By Sunday, the 23rd May, all but three or four of the deserters had delivered themselves up and about seventy Martinis had been surrendered. C. Bey seemed pleased with the results, and the people were beginning to grow more tranquil. At three o'clock in the afternoon, about two thousand soldiers, cavalry and infantry, entered the city. The local centurion had prepared for their coming by taking forcible possession of the Gregorian Boys' School, the Monastery (which was used for orphanage purposes, the orphans being sent out as the soldiers entered), and the Protestant Boys' Academy. Miss B. immediately put in a protest at the Government House against occupying the last-named building. The cavalry was sent to another building belonging to a certain philanthropic society, for whose properties Miss B. was responsible. As the buildings were empty and not in use, it seemed best to allow this without a protest. The following morning we called upon the cavalry officer, D. Bey, were very courteously received, and were given assurances that the property should be well cared for, which assurances were kept. The Boys' Academy building was not freed of soldiers, but only a very few were stationed there, and all rooms we desired we kept locked. Guards of soldiers were placed in all conspicuous parts of the city, a squad being on duty night and day at the head of the private road which leads to the American Board Compound.
Towards evening on Monday, the 24th, the ammunition and load-animals of the troops came in. The soldiers with these were sent to a building belonging to another institution in the city. This building, though unoccupied because of the absence of the missionaries, was filled with property. Word was sent to Miss B., but before she could get there the attendant had been forced to open the door. She protested to the police in charge, and, finding it useless, sought audience with the justice of court martial. He promised to empty it the following day, and this was carried out.
On the 25th May, Miss B. again called on the Alai Bey to present several personal requests, such as permission to take flour to the mill without molestation, to have our road and premises free from the trespass of soldiers, etc. All was readily and courteously granted. She also reported the gun in our possession, which had been registered in the name of our steward. He smiled graciously and asked whether we did not want a few more ; he had plenty, he said, to give us. In the days that followed there was repeated pressure, always more drastic, for ammunition of all kinds and the delivery of deserters. C. Bey gave repeated assurances that, if the deserters were delivered up, no one would be exiled. On the 27th May a large number of the leading men were imprisoned, and, after that, every day added to their numbers.
The strain upon the people was now so great that the majority could neither eat nor sleep. We were in the same case, and were up from very early until late in the evening to meet the many who came to consult with us. On the morning of the 28th, a party of women from the city besought our aid. The husbands of nearly all of them had been thrown into prison, and they and their children were left defenceless in their homes, with no suggestion of what the future held in store. At their request, then, Miss B. and I interviewed both C. Bey and E. Bey, the military commander. We besought them to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty, and asked mercy for the women and children. We were again received with entire courtesy, but had no satisfaction. The Alai Bey took pains to explain to us that, as we had come from a land of freedom, where people lived in a more enlightened way, we could not fully understand the necessary actions of the Turkish Government ; that there existed a Committee among the Armenian people which was harmful to the Government, but that our hearts and minds were pure and the people easily deceived us.
The last of the deserters was delivered up on the 30th May, and the total number of guns was one Mauser and ninety Martinis. The Alai Bey, however, insisted that there were yet many more guns hidden by the people. either in the city or on the mountains. The soldiers were accordingly set at work to dig into walls and refuse heaps and search all the houses for guns. With the exception of some powder, the results were insignificant. The people of the city charged the soldiers with themselves hiding guns and ammunition in and about the walls of dwellings, for the purpose of securing convictions.
Meanwhile, the atmosphere grew worse and worse, and on the 3rd June it became known that the deportation was about to begin. In response to the desire of the people we, together with Miss R, a German lady, made a last plea before the officers. The only result was that we received permission to send telegrams. We sent messages to Mr. N. and the Ambassador, but afterwards learned that no such messages were ever transmitted. The men to be exiled the following morning were released from prison in the afternoon. Miss B. and I, together with the Protestant pastor, called upon all the families who were going. In the morning we asked permission for the school-girls of the exiled families to remain with us, and were refused on the ground that only the Vali could give such permission. We immediately telegraphed to the Vali, but, as usual, received no answer. The Alai Bey, however, personally gave us permission to keep three girls, as well as the privilege of receiving gifts from our friends who were going away.
Thirty leading Protestant and Gregorian families were marched away in the first batch. Gendarmes were placed to prevent relatives and friends from accompanying those sent out, but Miss B. and I always passed freely among them, giving aid wherever we could. Four days later G. Effendi, our steward and chief servant, received notice to go. Miss B. again Interviewed the Alai Bey with respect to the case of G. Effendi. She said that we were greatly dependent upon him, and asked that he might be left among the last to be sent. The Alai Bey granted one day's delay, but his decision was not carried out in fact. The following morning he was the first to be driven from his house by the soldiers.
By the 10th June, about 150 households had been deported, and new papers were being distributed every day. Some of the men had now been imprisoned fifteen days. They were usually released the day before leaving, and had no chance of making preparations for the journey. The Alai Bey left the same day, delegating the work of further deportation to the military commander and the Kaimakam of AF. The soldiers left some two weeks later. The deportation of the people of AF. continued throughout the summer, until, by the 1st October, only a very few men and their families and about 250 widows and soldiers' families remained.
It was the intention of the Government to provide animals for those sent into exile, as the people of AF. had very few animals of their own and were obliged to journey over rough mountain roads. Horses, mules, camels and donkeys were levied upon all the surrounding villages, whether Christian or Turk. The owners were obliged to go with the animals. It can readily be seen that many of them bore the travellers no good will, and vented whatever cruelty they pleased upon them. Gendarmes were also sent along with the convoys, presumably for protection, but very often they themselves became the greatest menace, and almost never succeeded in preventing the raids made upon the defenceless exiles by marauding bands. Towards the latter part of the summer the supply of animals was so diminished, so many having died upon the road. that Circassian carts were used for transporting the people. The exiles from AF. were sent first to AG., and from there by slow degrees to Aleppo. There is a well-travelled caravan road to AG. by way of AH., which can also be used by the rude mountain cars. This, however, the exiles were not permitted to use, but were forced to travel over a stony and very difficult road leading over a high mountain pass. The entire village of Shar and the Armenian population of Roumlou were deported soon after the deportations began in AF. Being agricultural villages, they came for the most part with their own carts. When they reached the pass, they begged to be allowed to go by way of AH., so that they might have the benefit of their cars ; but this was denied them. All the carts had to be abandoned at the river, and, throwing most of their possessions into the stream, they took what little they could carry, and started up the stony way on foot.
At the beginning of September a very large percentage of the remaining population of AF. was deported, consisting for the most part of the very poor, and including many widows. As very few animals and carts came in response to the call of the Government, a large number of men, women and children started on the long journey on foot, carrying on their backs or strapping to their persons the very few articles deemed most necessary.
Miss B. and I found our position in the face of such terrible events a most difficult one. We felt obliged to help the Armenian people in every way possible, and at the same time felt we could not have a break with the Government, nor give up our cordial relations with the Moslem families. We felt responsible for the American property situated in and about AF ., and also had Armenian orphan teachers and girls in the compound, for whose protection our lives were not too costly. One of the great problems was in connection with the property of the exiled families. They had been told by the Alal Bey that they could place the property left behind wherever they pleased . Naturally everyone wished to put it under our care. We could have filled our whole compound full of all imaginable household articles and treasures, to say nothing of horses, cows, goats, etc. As we had no American gentleman to advise us, and, moreover, wished always to deal in such a way as not to involve the Consul or the Embassy, we decided in general against the taking of property. That which we did accept we paid for, and the purchasing was always to help those in such desperate need. The Government came to understand this, and respected us accordingly.
From the time when the first people left, in early June, until October, we were very fortunate in having the opportunity to render some financial help. Miss B. passed through the line of gendarmes guarding the villages of Shar and Roumlou, and was enabled to leave some pounds with the head men of the villages for the aid of the very poor. To the outgoing people of AF. we gave freely, according to our limited means, and even occasionally could help exiles from other villages passing through from the Kaisaria country. We succeeded also, with the aid of a Greek and a Turk, in sending some relief to the villagers of AJ. and AK. before they left. We felt confident that the authorities knew something of the extent to which we were helping the people, but we encountered no open opposition.
Our servants were nearly all sent away early in the deportation, so that extra and unaccustomed work was imposed upon us. Miss B., for example, always had to take the post in person to the Government Building. Providing for the food supply, and dealing with our shepherd and the villagers who came to sell things, often fell to us personally. A large part of the time we had no cook. Another tax upon our strength and time was the battle with the swarms of locusts which visited Syria and Cilicia. They first appeared in early June and ravaged the country till September. They destroyed our vineyards, and we had to fight day after day to keep them out of the compound. When we destroyed those hatched on our premises, their places were quickly filled by armies coming down the mountain side. When I left, many of the villages were suffering from the lack of food due to the locust scourge.
Another problem was how to relieve, in some small measure at least, the suffering in the city caused by lack of food. A great many widows and orphans and soldiers' families were left with no means of support, after the more well-to-do families had been deported. Moreover, the industrial work, which employed a considerable number of widows, was closed with the coming of the court martial officer. The two Bible Women, up to the time when they also were deported, worked heroically, with the little means that we could spare them each week, to meet and provide for the cases of greatest need. We bought large quantities of cheap wheat to help towards this end. The only shop left open was that of the druggist, so there was no way of obtaining any supplies. The lack of soap and salt was very keenly felt. As our own supply was limited, we could not give freely as we wished, but finally Miss B., in spite of all the demands upon her strength and time, made considerable quantities of soap, so that at least the women might wash their clothes occasionally. All who received it were most grateful, and the supply was never sufficient.
Miss B. and I personally never suffered any discourtesy from either the official or village Turk. Our situation was often delicate, and, in such a case as the affair connected with the Government Industrial, the Kaimakam ignored our rights and courteously took everything into his own hands ; but, on the whole, we were well treated. When we asked Mr. H. to come to our aid from Marash and the Government prevented him from coming, the Kaimakam sent the chief of police to explain the case to us, and assured us that we need not fear, that we were the guests of the Government, and that not a hair of our heads should be injured. When I left AF, although I had the escort of Miss J., the Consul's kavass and their gendarme, the captain in AF. sent with me as a personal escort his best horseman. The postal official showed himself very friendly, and did us many personal favours. When money was sent us through the post office, he tried always to pay in gold or silver, and in such a way that we might get it quickly into the hands of the people. He knew we used it to help those condemned to be exiled. When the first convoys of exiles were driven out of AF. his mother was unable to leave her bed for two weeks, she was so depressed by what she saw and heard. She spoke with great vigour against the terrible events that were happening.
Our head teacher, Miss K., and her mother were with us in the compound. They have Moslem relatives, two of whom were officers' families in AF. These were especially friendly to us, and visited us frequently. They were all outspoken against the horrors. One time U. Effendi had failed to visit us, as was his custom, and, when we asked the reason, he said he was ashamed to come because he could bring us no good news. We saw Moslem women loudly wailing with the Christians when the first families were sent out. When the Alai Bey first came, he called the Mufti and asked his approval of what he was about to do ; but the Mufti refused to sanction it, and said he could see no good in it. This same Mufti was a strong personal friend of one of the leading Protestant Armenians (our special friend and adviser), and he tried in every way to save him from exile, but in vain. When M. Agha left, the Mufti took possession of his house and all his properties for him. He also said he would stand as protector of the Americans and the American compound after M. Agha was gone. Some of the village aghas also expressed themselves freely to us, both on the matter of the war and on the calamity which had befallen the Armenians. They said that such cruelty would not go unavenged, and that their day of reckoning would come.
They complained bitterly that there were now no artisans or shopkeepers left to supply their wants, and that in a short time they themselves would be in desperate want. Our watchman at the summer residence showed us his foot half-naked, because he could not find a shoemaker in all AF. to mend it. All the surrounding Turkish, Kurdish and Circassian villages were in the same need.
A Kurdish Sheikh, N. Effendi, from a village not far from AF., visited the city twice only during the summer. The first time he only remained about an hour, and, with the tears streaming down his cheeks, he said he would return to his village at once; that he could not endure such sights. The second time he came to bid farewell to O. Effendi, his Armenian friend. He kissed each of his children, pressing them to his heart, and left again in tears. A Kurd also brought us the secret information that the new Shar church building had been partially destroyed by dynamite.
The Moslems of AK. and AJ. were very much opposed to the exiling of the Armenians from those villages. They said they were not guilty of anything, possessed no weapons, lived peacefully and were friends with them, and were, besides, their artisans and tradesmen. Through their efforts they put off the deportation about three months; but, in the end, even they were unable to save them. The Turks of AK. ought to have special mention for their honourable attitude throughout the whole affair. Miss K.'s uncle, an officer in AK., broke a water jar over the head of a young Moslem who had entered into a room to molest an Armenian soldier's wife. He said he was obliged to defend the unprotected who dwelt under the shadow of his house. Once when Miss B. was passing through the streets of AF., she was appealed to by two gendarmes who had been ordered to expel from their home for deportation an aged man and his wife and their bed-ridden son. The gendarmes said: "How shall we do this thing ?" and begged Miss B. to beseech the authorities for mercy. These are samples of faint gleams of light in the midst of four months of horrible darkness. Pages and pages might be written on the barbaric and relentless cruelty of the many.
Throughout the summer Miss B. and I were confronted with the question whether we had come to Turkey only to work for the Christians, or whether we would also be willing, now that the Armenians were gone, to take Moslem children into our school. These inquiries finally resulted in expressions on the part of several officers' families of a desire to place their daughters in our school. Every week there were inquiries as to when a decision would be made as to the opening of our school. One Moslem woman even went so far as to inquire about the clothing necessary to prepare for her daughter. Whether they were sincere or not, of course, we cannot tell; but the desire seemed to be a general one.
There is yet one more phase in connection with the summer's events. Shortly after the deportation of the Armenian families of AF. took place, about thirty families of Mouhadjirs were sent in by the Government to take their place. These unfortunate people were refugees from Roumelia since the time of the Balkan War. For two years they had been wandering, always sent on by the Turkish Government from place to place, and finally placed in the houses just vacated by those who were likewise to face months of wandering and homelessness. Four families came to live close to our end of the city. We at once decided to show them friendliness. They responded in a touching way, came frequently to call, and poured out their over-burdened hearts. When they first came, the men were too weak to work; all were subject to chills and fever, and, of the whole village from which these people had come, only two children were living. One of the women spoke with horror at having to live in a house with such associations, saying that only they knew what such suffering meant. The morning when I left and bade them good-bye, one of these Mouhadjir women threw her arms about me and begged me not to go.
Miss Vaughan and I saw the departure of hundreds of Armenians into a hopeless exile. It was heart-breaking and too awful even to imagine in detail ; yet we praise the God of all mankind, whether Moslem or Christian, that we were permitted to see the spirit of Christian faith and humility manifested by so many in the darkest period of Armenian history. There may have been examples of hard-heartedness and cursing against God and an utter losing of faith, but we did not personally come in contact with them. How often did we pray together with those about to go and, with the tears streaming down our faces, beseech God to keep our faith sure ! How often did men and women clasp our hands at parting, saying: "Let God's will be done. We have no other hope!" P. Effendi, the Protestant preacher, came to our compound the morning of his leaving and asked that, with the girls and teachers, we might all have worship together. His young wife, who was about to become a mother, was left to our care. Whether they were ever reunited I do not know. With entire calm he read from God's word, and prayed God's protection for all of us who were left behind. At the close he asked that the girls should sing " He leadeth me."
"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.."
127. AF. : RECORD OF INDIVIDUAL CASES, DRAWN UP BY THE AUTHOR OF THE PRECEDING STATEMENT, AND DATED 17th DECEMBER, 1915.
1. Q. was a young man who had graduated from the law school at Constantinople, and in the winter and early spring of 1915 had served in the Mounted Imperial Guard. Not being well, he returned to his home in AF. a few weeks before the deportation began. Upon the arrival of the court-martial and army officers, he was at once chosen to serve them as a military attendant, and was dressed in full uniform. He was in constant attendance upon them till the evening of the 3rd June, when he was roughly stripped of his uniform and told to be ready for exile in the morning. We saw him go off with the convoy on foot, not even an animal having been granted him.
2. R. was for years a Government officer at AF. At the time when the officers and army entered AF., he was away in the villages on Government business. Two days before the day set for deportation, his wife was notified. She and the four small children were left alone to prepare for the journey. The husband returned from the villages a few hours before the time when the families were deported, having had no information whatever of what was taking place.
3. S.'s husband had been in Syracuse, N.Y., for two years, and she was left alone in AF. with two small children. He intended to send for her as soon as conditions were favourable. Her parents were deported early in the season, and, at the time, she asked permission of the Alai Bey to go with them, as otherwise she was left friendless. She even begged to go. He refused and said: "Have no fear, my daughter, you will not be sent off. Remain quietly in your place." Early in September, she was deported in company with a great many other defenceless women.
4. When the soldiers were digging for ammunition and guns in the walls and refuse heaps of AF., they found in a wall close to a house an iron ball wrapped in a piece of cloth. The woman of the house, a young bride, happened to be standing before the door, and the soldiers noticed that the cloth of her apron was the same as that in which the ball was wrapped. The woman was seized, sent to Adana and thrown into prison. This was on the last day of May, and in October she was still in prison. The Bible Woman in Adana discovered her there, and said her condition was horrible. She is confined in a small room with three or four Turkish women of desperate character, living in terrible filth and mostly without food.
5. The pastor of Tchomakly, a village near Everek, passed through AF. en route for the desert. He is a Marsovan graduate and a pastor in the Kaisaria district. He had been assured by the Everek Kaimakam that nothing should happen to him, and that, even if the village were deported, he would not be included, as he was not a native of the place. At three o'clock in the morning soldiers entered the village, roused all the inhabitants and told them to be ready to depart in two hours. When they came to the pastor's door, they said: " You also must go. You went to Talas to talk with the Americans a few days ago." His wife, not having suitable shoes, had her feet bound up in skins
6. Lydia was the wife of a soldier who, at the time when the court-martial officer came to AF., was a deserter and in hiding. However, he surrendered to the authorities, was pardoned, and was sent to the coast with the labour gang. She was assured by the court-martial officer (and, after his departure, by many of the local officers) that she should never be deported, in consideration of her being a soldier's wife. Throughout the summer, however, they played with her. Again and again she was given notice to leave, and then, upon entering a personal petition at the Government House and stating her case, she would be assured upon their word of honour that she would never be deported. The chief of police gave us the same assurance. Finally, early one morning, gendarmes came to her door and roughly told her to be ready to go in a few hours. She again took her three small children and went to the Government House. All in vain. She was given two camels for herself, the loads and the children. A fourth child was born under the burning sun of AG., and when she arrived in Aleppo with the child dead, she was only able to reach the hospital.
7. T. was for four years in charge of the Government Industrial in AF. This was closed when deportation began. He did his work so well that this Industrial was the best business in AF. He was living quietly in the building, guarding the property and stock of the Industrial. In the middle of September, when almost all the rest of AF. were exiled, he also received notification to go. Gendarmes came in the evening after dark and drove him, his invalid wife, and four children to the Government Building. There they were to wait for animals or a cart to take them on their journey. In company with hundreds of others, they sat down on the bare ground in front of the Government Building, gathering their few possessions close to them lest they should be stolen. He and his family remained there two days and three nights before being sent on, and were exposed during one of these nights to a terrible rainstorm. They were within ten minutes of their home, but were not permitted to go there for shelter. His wife secretly made her way to our compound to ask for a little bread, as their supply for the journey was already gone.
128. ADANA : STATEMENT, DATED 3rd DECEMBER, 1915, BY A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT ADANA; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
When Turkey became a belligerent in the November of last year (1914), there were Armenians and other Christians serving in the Army under arms. Many of these came under fire both at the Dardanelles and in the expedition against Egypt. Later, the arms were taken away from the Armenians, and those in the Army were converted into "Labour Regiments," to which were attached the very considerable number of Armenians drafted into the Army later. These men were employed in road building, transport, trenching, etc., and rendered extensive and very important service. When the arms were taken from them, a feeling of anxiety took possession of the Armenians, in the thought that this action of the authorities might portend something. However, much was done in the Adana Province to reassure the people that Governmental action would be discriminating and severity exercised only against blameworthy or suspected people. In pursuance of this policy a number of men whose names had been listed during and after the massacre period of 1909 were put under arrest or surveillance.
In the early winter, the British and French war-vessels in the Eastern Mediterranean bombarded some points on the Gulf of Alexandretta notably the town of Alexandretta and the branch line of the Baghdad Railway that runs to Alexandretta. The town of Dört Yöl---almost entirely Armenian---lies quite near the head of the Gulf on the plain of Issus about 20 miles from Alexandretta, and is a station on the line. That branch line of the railway was put out of commission. The Government officials made charge that the Dört Yöl people had communication with the hostile ships, affording them valuable information. A number of them were brought before the court-martial and imprisoned, of whom some were executed by hanging. Men were arrested and imprisoned in other places, notably Hadjin, and brought before the court-martial, These and other acts of the Government officials increased the anxiety, but in April the exiles from Zeitoun on their way to Konia (Iconium) passed through the city of Adana. They had suffered terribly, but they had considerable property with them, and also cattle and sheep. It was announced that these people would be settled on lands in the Konia district. This was somewhat reassuring, and there was hope that wholesale deportation or massacre was not in contemplation.
However, this assurance was converted into consternation. At midnight, in the latter part of April, gendarmes went through the city rapping at certain doors, searching the houses for arms and informing the inmates that in three days they were to be deported. In the third week in May, 70 families (three to four hundred people---men, women and children) were sent off in the direction of Konia. They had not reached the Cilician Gates pass in the Taurus Mountains when they were turned back with the announcement that they had been pardoned and were to return to their homes. The joy of their return was almost equal to the consternation caused by the order for deportation. However, exiles from north of the Taurus (Marsovan, Kaisaria, etc.) in considerable numbers were passing through Adana to the Aleppo district. The explanation given was that that was being done because of revolutionary agitation in those districts. As nothing of overt import had been done on the part of the Armenians in Cilicia, the people of the district were reassured. There was an influential element among the Moslems---including influential officials---who opposed oppressive measures. The Governor was, to all appearances, strongly opposed. Insistent orders from Constantinople forced the deportation of groups of Armenians. Early in the movement towards Aleppo, men were left free to take their families or leave them. No massacring was done, though there was an uneasy feeling that it might occur. In this way various batches were deported, from whom word was received of their safe arrival in the Aleppo district. However, the suffering of deportation---abandonment of home and property and friends, the exposure and hunger on the road, the insanitary state of the concentration camps, and the rough treatment by gendarmes, and in many cases outrage and pillage---all this, though heart-breaking in itself, was not as bad as, or rather was much less horrible than, the torture of the crowds that suffered in the north and east.
Later in the year there was a distinct effort to save many of the Armenians. This effort synchronised with the order to exempt Catholics and Protestants. It seemed a success, and everybody was greatly encouraged. But an emissary from the Committee of Union and Progress at Constantinople arrived at that time, and was able to overturn the arrangement and secure an order for the immediate deportation of all. Exception was later made of some widows, of the wives and children of men serving in the labour regiments, and of men working in mills under Government contract and in the Baghdad Railway construction.
The great drive took place in the first week of September, when two-thirds of the Armenian population of Adana City were deported. Hadjin and Dört Yöl were treated very much more harshly, both in the process of eviction and on the road. The people were allowed to dispose of some of their properties, which they did at a great sacrifice ; still, they had to abandon the great mass of their properties, which was later confiscated. I would call attention to the fact that the appalling nature of the deportation is none the less appalling because there was comparatively less torture and outrage. It is only fair to state that one Moslem was scourged to death for participation in the robbery of some Christians that were being deported.
It is not merely the suffering of the outlawed and deported people that is appalling, but the effect of it all on the country. Two-thirds of the business of Adana City was dependent on Armenians, and the markets seemed deserted after they were driven out. The disaster to the whole province from the material standpoint is beyond calculation. However, it would appear that the whole scheme was intended to be a relentless effort on the part of the central authorities either to exterminate the Armenian nation or to reduce them to a condition like that of the people of Moab, as described by Isaiah in the last clause of the 10th chapter: "A remnant very small and of no account." The enormity is not so much in the torture, massacring, outrage, etc., as in the intention and effort to exterminate a nation. The Armenians have endured massacre and outrage and persecution and oppression; this, however, shatters all hope of life and a future.
The Armenian Protestant communities are all deported with the pastors and leaders, but the men deported are a tower of strength to the suffering people in their exile. Let me quote from W. Effendi, from a letter he wrote a day before his deportation with his young wife and infant child, and with the whole congregation: "We now understand that it is a great miracle that our nation has lived so many years amongst such a nation as this. From this we realise that God can and has shut the mouths of lions for many years. May God restrain them! I am afraid they mean to kill some of us, cast some of us into most cruel starvation and send the rest out of this country; so I have very little hope of seeing you again in this world. But be sure that, by God's special help, I will do my best to encourage others to die manly. I will also look for God's help for myself to die as a Christian. May this country see that, if we cannot live here as men, we can die as men. May many die as men of God. May God forgive this nation all their sin which they do without knowing. May the Armenians teach Jesus' life by their death, which they could not teach by their life or have failed in showing forth. It is my great desire to see a Reverend Ali, or Osman, or Mohammed. May Jesus soon see many Turkish-Ch | ||||||||
3581 | dbpedia | 0 | 11 | https://www.deremilitari.org/RESOURCES/SOURCES/taghri1.htm | en | The Invasion of Syria by Tamerlane | [] | [] | [] | [
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and Ibn Taghri Birdi's description of the life of Tamerlane
Tamerlane, also called Timur Leng or Timur the Lane, was born near Samarkand in 1335. Of Mongol origin, but Turkish in speech and culture, Tamerlane was also Muslim. A skilled and ruthless military tactician, he would conquer Transoxiana, Persia, Iraq, India, Syria, Armenia and Georgia. In 1398 he sacked Delhi, and two years later he invaded Syria, as is described ibn Taghri Birdi. This was followed by his conquest of Baghdad in 1401 and the defeat and capture of the Ottoman ruler Bayezit I (in the text below he is referred to as Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman) a year later. He died in 1405 while preparing to invade China, and his empire fragmented soon after. Our source gives a good description of his invasion of Syria, as well as efforts by the Mamluk Sultanate to deal with this threat. Afterwards Ibn Taghri Birdi recounts the life of Tamerlane, although not with complete accuracy.
[A] report was brought from Aleppo that Tamerlane had besieged Siwas and fought a battle with Sulaiman ibn Abu Yazid ibn Uthman. Sulaiman had then fled to his father in the city of Brusa together with Qara Yusuf, and Tamerlane had taken Siwas, killing a vast number of its inhabitants.
A short time after this report, ambassadors from Ibn Uthman arrived at Cairo; the letter they brought asked for an understanding between him and Egypt, and stated that he would support the Sultan in combating this tyrant Tamerlane so that Islam and the Muslims might cease to be troubled by him. In the letter Ibn 'Uthman used ingratiating terms and pressed strongly for the alliance. No attention was paid to his request, however; the Egyptian emirs said: "Now he is ready to be our friend; but when our master az-Zahir Barquq died he marched against our land, and took Malatya from our control - he is no friend of ours; let him defend his own land; we will defend ours and our subjects." This was the tenor of the letter which was sent to him.
What Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman proposed, however, was the wisest policy; for afterward Asanbai az-Zahiri, warden of the armory, whom Tamerlane had made prisoner and treated with favor, making him his own warden of the armory, said: "Tamerlane said to me in substance that during his lifetime he had met and fought many armies, but among them had never seen the likes of two of them, the army of Egypt and the above-mentioned army of Ibn 'Uthman: the former however, was a mighty force without anyone to direct it, because of the youth of al-Malik an-Nasir Faraj and the lack of military knowledge on the part of the emirs about him, while Ibn Uthman was sagacious, adroit, and energetic, but had not the forces to aid him." It is for this reason that I have said that good policy demanded peace with Bayazid ibn 'Uthman; for the Egyptian armies would then have had someone to plan for them, while Ibn 'Uthman would have had the Egyptian forces to reinforce his own, and Tamerlane would have been powerless to oppose them; each of the two forces would have strengthened its own resistance to him. But there happened what we have narrated; and whatever God wishes happens. No one in Egypt made any preparation for war against Tamerlane after the reply mentioned above was written to Ibn 'Uthman, nor was any attention given to the matter. On the contrary, the highest aim of each one was for that which would help him attain the sultanate of Egypt and for the removal from the scene of everyone else - and let the world be turned topsy turvy! For at the same time that the distressing reports mentioned arrived in Egypt the Sultan and emirs received reports also that Emir Qani Bai al-'Ala'i az-Zahiri, an emir of the second class and head of guards, proposed to instigate a revolt; when the Sultan summoned him and ordered him to put on a robe in honor of his appointment as viceroy of Gaza, he refused to wear it. He was therefore apprehended and given into custody of Emir Aqbai the chamberlain, who took him down to his own house. Qani Bai remained there until the end of the day, when a party of the Sultan's mamluks assembled with the purpose of taking him away by force from Aqbai the chamberlain. In fear Aqbai took him up again to the Citadel, where the Sultan summoned the emirs; they considered the case, and agreed to leave Qani Bai in his emirate and office.
Muharram 25, 803 [September 15, 1400]: The post brought word to the Sultan from Aleppo that Tamerlane had taken Malatya. And on the following morning another report arrived by post that the advance guard of Tamerlane's army had reached 'Ain Tab; and in the letter were the words: "Aid the Muslims or they will perish."
The Sultan two days later summoned the Caliph, the Cadis, the emirs and foremost administrators, and they were informed that Tamerlane's vanguard had reached Mar'ash and 'Ain Tab. The purpose in calling this assembly was to secure money from the merchants as a means of aiding the distribution of funds among the army. The Cadis said: "It is yours to command and forbid, and no one can withstand you in this. But if a legal opinion on the subject is desired, confiscation of the property of anyone is not permitted, lest a curse fall upon the army." Then they were told: "We will take half of the trust funds of the country and use the money to bestow fiefs upon the troopers who are now out of service; for the troops are few because the trust funds are so many." To this the Cadis replied: And what would be the value of that? For if you rely in war upon soldiers out of service, it is to be feared that Islam will be lost." The matter was discussed for a long time, until finally the decision was reached to send Emir Asanbugha the executive secretary to investigate the reports received, and to send the Syrian forces toward Tamerlane. Asanbugha left by horse post on Safar 5 of the year 803 [September 25th]; but neglect and inattention marked affairs at Cairo because of the absence of centralized authority and because of the varied opinions that were held.
In the meanwhile the people of Syria were in a state which God alone could know, because of the fear and terror which had seized them; all wished to desert the towns, while the officials in charge of each restrained them, and promised that the Egyptian forces were coming to their defense.
Some days later the post brought a letter from the viceroy of Aleppo, Emir Damurdash al-Muhammadi, and with it a letter also from Asanbugha the executive secretary, stating that Tamerlane was maintaining the siege of the citadel of Bahasna after having taken the city itself, and that his armies had reached' Ain Tab. This report reached Cairo on Safar 24. Then preparations began for the Sultan's campaign, and the signal flag for departure was raised on I Rabi' 3.
Asanbugha the executive secretary had arrived at Damascus on Safar 7 [September 27th], and in the Umayyad Mosque had read the Sultan's letter ordering the Syrian forces to be armed and to take the field against Tamerlane. On the 9th the ambassador of Tamerlane had come to Damascus with official communications from him to the shaikhs, cadis, and emirs; the letters stated that he had gone to Iraq the proceeding year to punish those who had killed his ambassadors at ar-Rahba, and then had returned to India. The news of az-Zahir's death had reached him there, and he had returned and attacked the Georgians. Then when he received word of the incivility of that boy, Sulaiman ibn Abi Yazid ibn 'Uthman, he had set out for Asia Minor that he might twist his ears. He had gone to Siwas, and had done there and elsewhere in Asia Minor the things of which they had reports; then he had turned toward Egypt in order that he might strike coins there and have his name mentioned in the Friday sermon; thereafter he would return home. In his letter he demanded that Atilmish, one of his emirs who had been captured earlier during the reign of al-Malik az-Zahir Barquq, should be sent back to him, adding: "If you do not send him, you will be responsible for the blood of the Muslims." Sudun, viceroy of Damascus, paid no heed to Tamerlane's words; on the contrary, at his orders Tamerlane's ambassador was cut in two at the waist.
Asanbugha proceeded to Aleppo, and found that the reports which had been received at Cairo were correct: he sent to Egypt a report of what he saw and knew, enclosed with the letter of the viceroy of Aleppo. The letter in question reached Cairo on I Rabi' 3. It narrated that Tamerlane had besieged Buza'a, outside of Aleppo, while all the Syrian viceroys had assembled in Aleppo; and it urged that the Sultan and his forces should go from Cairo to Syria. It added that when Tamerlane had encamped at Buza'a, Emir Shaikh al-Muhmudi, viceroy of Tarabulus (he was the future al-Malik al-Mu'ayyad) had gone out toward Tamerlane's vanguard with seven hundred horsemen while the Tatars numbered about three thousand; the two forces, after shooting at each other with arrows, had fought a short while, Shaikh capturing four of the Tatars; each of the two parties had then returned to its own position. The four prisoners were then halved at the waist at the gates of Aleppo in the presence of all the assembled viceroys. Those gathered in the city were: Sudun, the viceroy of Damascus, with its army, enlisted troops, and [Druze] tribesmen; Shaikh al-Mahmudi, viceroy of Tarabulus with its army, enlisted troops, and infantry; Duqmaq al-Muhammadi, viceroy of Hama, with its army and Arabs; Altunbugha, viceroy of Safad, with its army and tribesmen; and 'Umar ibn at-Tahhan, viceroy of Gaza, with its army. The forces thus gathered in Aleppo were vast, but authority was divided and opinion unsettled because of the Sultan's absence. Tamerlane, when he had encamped at 'Ain Tab, had sent his ambassador to Emir Damurdash al-Muhammadi, viceroy of Aleppo, promising him continuance in his office and ordering him to seize Sudun, viceroy of Damascus, because he had put to death the ambassador whom he had before this date sent to Damascus. Damurdash took this messenger into the presence of the viceroys, and the messenger, disregarding the matter of the seizure of Sudun, to Damurdash: "The Emir (meaning Tamerlane) came to this country only because of your correspondence with him inviting him to encamp against Aleppo; you informed him that there was no one who could defend it." Damurdash was enraged at him when he heard say this; and he went toward him and struck him, then gave a command, and he was beheaded. It is said that the ambassador's remarks were a design of Tamerlane's craftiness and cunning to sow dissension among the army; that the emirs were aware of this, so that it failed of its purpose. However, a number of the Aleppans tell me how now that Damurdash did write to Tamerlane and held back from the battle; God knows best whether this was so or not.
The emirs and viceroys then agreed to make war on Tamerlane and each one prepared for the fray; for they now had lost hope that the Sultan and his forces would come to Syria; they knew that the emirs who were administering the government of Egypt had no plan, while the Sultan himself was too young and it was now too late. They themselves, however, had extremely meager forces in comparison with the armies and followers of Tamerlane. The most fitting procedure would have been for the Sultan to take his army from Cairo and arrive at Aleppo before Tamerlane marched from Siwas, az-Zahir Barquq (God have mercy on him) did on the occasion which has been mentioned before.
He the viceroys were putting their affairs in order for the battle, Tamerlane encamped his forces at Hailan, outside of Aleppo, on Thursday, I Rabi' 9 [October 28], and surrounded the city of Aleppo. The next morning, Friday, he assaulted the city and beleaguered its walls. On these two days there were many battles and engagements between him and the people of Aleppo, with arrows and with naphtha and other inflammable missiles; the people mounted the walls of the city and fought him vigorously.
At sunrise on Saturday the viceroys of Syria took all their forces as well as the populace outside Aleppo. They drew up their battalions and armies for the battle against Tamerlane; Sayyidi Sudun, viceroy of Damascus, with his mamluks and the Damascus army, was stationed on the right; Damurdash, viceroy of Aleppo, with his mamluks and the Aleppo army, on the left, and the rest of the viceroys in the center; they placed in front of them the people of Aleppo who were unmounted - this was the worst possible tactical blunder, despite Damurdash's claim to be an expert in tactics. As soon they had all taken their assigned positions Tamerlane attacked with armies which filled the landscape; he advanced against the Aleppo army in a mighty charge. He was met by the viceroys, who at first stood firm against the charge; although the left wing then was routed, Sudun, viceroy of Damascus, still held his position on the right supported by Shaikh, viceroy of Tarabulus; and they fought a mighty battle.
In the course of the battle Emir 'Izz ad-Din Azdamur, brother of Commander-in-Chief al-Yusufi, and his son Yashbak ibn Azdamur, advanced from the ranks with a number of horsemen; having offered their lives on the path of God, they fought mightily and displayed the greatest valor. Indeed, Azdamur and his son Yashbak ibn showed a degree of courage and valor which will perhaps be recalled until the judgment day, for Azdamur continued hurling himself against the enemy and wheeling among them until he was killed. At the time there was no report of what happened to him, for he was killed only when he had penetrated into the enemy's center. His son Yashbak fell among the slain also, covered with wounds; his head alone received more than thirty saber and other strokes, in addition to wounds in other parts of his body. He was then seize, and carried before Tamerlane, who on seeing the extent of his injuries marveled extremely at his bravery and endurance and, it is said, ordered that he be given medical treatment.
Only a short time passed before the Syrian forces turned in flight toward the city of Aleppo, with Tamerlane's men in hot pursuit; and a countless number of the inhabitants of Aleppo and others who were on foot perished under the horses' hoofs, for the citizens of Aleppo had gone out from the city to fight Tamerlane, even the women and boys; moreover, as they tried to enter through the city gates people crowded so closely together that they trampled upon one another; and corpses lay there man-high while crowds walked over them. The Syrian viceroys made for the Aleppo citadel and ascended to it, hordes of the inhabitants entering with them; they had previously transported to the Citadel all the property of the men of Aleppo.
Tamerlane's army had in the meanwhile immediately assaulted the city, lighted fires in it, and began to take prisoners, to plunder, and to kill. The women and children fled to the great mosque of Aleppo and to the smaller mosques, but Tamerlane's men turned to follow them, bound the women with ropes as prisoners, and put the children to the sword, killing every one of them. They committed the shameful deeds to which they were accustomed; virgins were violated without concealment; gentlewomen were outraged without any restraints of modesty; a Tatar would seize a woman and ravage her in the great mosque or one of the smaller mosques in sight of the vast multitude of his companions and the people of the city; her father and brother and husband would see her plight and be unable to defend her because of their lack of means to do so and because they were distracted by the torture and torments which they themselves were suffering; the Tatar would then leave the women and another go to her, her body still uncovered.
They then put the populace of Aleppo and its troops to the sword, until the mosques and streets were filled with dead, and Aleppo stank with corpses. This continued from the early forenoon of Saturday until the middle of Tuesday, I Rabi' 14 [November 2]. In the meantime the citadel was being subjected to the closest siege and attack, for Tamerlane's armies had mined its walls in a number of places and filled up its moat, so that it was all but captured.
Then the viceroys and other prominent men who were in the citadel held a council and agreed to ask for amnesty. They sent the request to Tamerlane, who demanded that some of the viceroys come down from the citadel to him. When Damurdash did so, Tamerlane bestowed on him a robe of honor, gave him letters of amnesty and robes for the viceroys, and sent with him to the citadel a vast number of his men. They went up and brought out the viceroys and the emirs and notables who were with them, shackled them together in pairs, then brought them all to Tamerlane. When they were made to stand before him he gazed at them a long time as they stood there, with Sudun, viceroy of Syria, as their head; then he began to upbraid and censure them, reproaching and threatening Sudun repeatedly for the murder of his ambassador, after which he gave each one of them into the charge of a custodian. Then the women were driven before him as captives, and money, jewels, and precious objects were brought to him, which he distributed among his emirs and intimate followers. The robbery, enslavement, and murder continued in Aleppo daily; trees were cut down, houses were ruined, and mosques were burned. The stench of corpses filled Aleppo and the environs; bodies lay on the ground, overspreading it like a carpet - one could step nowhere without finding dead bodies under his feet. Tamerlane constructed out of the heads of Muslims a number of pulpits about ten cubits in height and twenty in circumference; the human heads which they contained were counted and found to be more than 20,000; the structures were built with the heads protruding and seen by every passer-by.
Tamerlane remained in Aleppo - for a month, then departed; he left the city "fallen on its roofs," empty of its inhabitants and every human being, reduced to ruins; the muezzin's call and the prayer services were no longer heard; there was nought there but a desert waste darkened by fire, a lonely solitude where only the owl and the vulture took refuge.
Tamerlane next set out for Damascus, passing by the city of Hama, which his son Mirim Shah had taken. Miran Shah had encamped against Hama on the morning of Tuesday, I Rabi' 14 [November 2]. He had first plundered the surrounding territory, taken the women and children captive, and imprisoned the men, while his followers subjected the women and virgins to the most shameless treatment. When they had reduced everything outside the walls to ruin, Miran Shah encircled the walls themselves with his men. The people of Hama had in the meantime prepared for the conflict; men stood on the city walls and refused to surrender the city all night. The next morning Tamerlane's son induced them by a pretext to open one of the gates of the city for him; he then entered and issued a proclamation of security. Men came to him and brought him various sorts of food, which he accepted from them. He decided to appoint one of his followers to take charge of the city, for he was told that its prominent men had left it. Then he went to his camp, where he passed the night; and on Thursday he departed from Hama, promising that the people would be treated with kindness. The citadel of Hama, however, had not yet been taken by him, but had held out against him; and in the night before Friday its defenders went down to the city and killed two of the followers of Tamerlane's son whom he had placed in charge of it. On hearing the news Tamerlane's son returned to the city, attacked it, and set fire to it; his followers took to killing, capturing, and plundering until Hama was left like Aleppo. To the people of Aleppo, however, he had been [comparatively] mild. He had interrogated the Cadis of Aleppo, when they became his prisoners, concerning his war and asked them: "Who is a martyr?" To this Muhibb ad-Din Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn ash-Shihna the Hanafite had replied: "The prophet of God (God bless him and grant him peace!) was asked this question, and he answered: "He who fights that the word of God be supreme is a martyr." The answer pleased him, and he engaged them in further conversation; they asked him then to pardon the people of Aleppo and put none to death; he granted safety to all, and swore to them to that effect, so that some received merciful treatment in comparison with others.
At Damascus, when news of the taking of Aleppo was received a proclamation was issued that people should move from the environs to the inside of the city and prepare to fight the Godforsaken enemy. As they began their preparations the fugitives from Hama arrived so that, filled with fear, the Damascenes thought to leave. From this they were prevented, and this proclamation was made: "Whoever sets out will be subject to plunder." All those who had gone outside then returned; Damascus was fortified, the catapults were mounted on the citadel, and the naphtha throwers on the city walls; the preparations thus made to fight were excellent. Messengers from Tamerlane then came to the interim viceroy in Damascus, demanding the surrender of the city. The interim viceroy wished to flee, but the populace turned him back ignominiously. Then there was a loud outcry among the men, and they also agreed to leave the city; the women and children cried to God for aid, and the women went out with uncovered heads, going they knew not whither, until the interim viceroy issued the proclamation to prepare for defense. In the meanwhile the report arrived that the Sultan was coming to Syria, and determination of the men to depart from Damascus, held as long as the Sultan was not present, weakened.
In Egypt on I Rahi' 18 [November 6], seven days after Tamerlane had taken Aleppo, expense money for the journey was distributed among the Sultan's mamluks; on the 20th the enlisted troops were by proclamation ordered to appear on Wednesday for review at the palace of Emir Yashbak ash-Sha'bani the executive secretary.
I Rabi' 25. The report of the capture of Aleppo by Tamerlane and his siege of the citadel arrived at Cairo, but it was not believed, and the bearer of the news was arrested and imprisoned awaiting future punishment on the charge of falsification.
The distribution of money among the mamluks then began, each one of them receiving 3,400 dirhams. The night before Wednesday, the 29th [November 27], Emirs Sudun min Zada and Inal Hatab set out on dromedaries to investigate the report that had been received.
Shaikh Siraj ad-Din 'Umar al-Bulqini, the Chief Cadis, and Emir Aqbai the chamberlain then rode through the city preceded by a herald proclaiming a holy war on the path of God (Who is exalted) "against your greatest enemy Tamerlane; for he has seized the land, and, arriving at Aleppo, has killed children at their mothers' breasts, has destroyed the mosques and made them stables for their animals; and now he is coming against you to destroy your land and kill your men." Cairo was thrown into commotion at this proclamation; men's fears mounted and there was much weeping and lamentation among them, while tongues were loosened with vituperation against the government leaders.
II Rabi' 3 [November 19]: Emir Asanbugha, an executive secretary, arrived at Cairo and reported that Tamerlane had taken Aleppo and its citadel by agreement with Damurdash; he narrated the disasters which had descended on the people of that city, and that he had told the interim viceroy of Damascus to leave men free to depart from the city, for conditions were very difficult there.
The same day the Sultan an-Nasir set out from Cairo and encamped with his emirs, the army, and the cadis, at ar-Raidaniya. He designated Emir Timraz an-Nasiri, emir of the council, to be interim viceroy in Egypt, and stationed in Cairo Emir Jakam min 'Iwad and several other emirs. Timraz remained there to spur on the enlisted troops and to gather a thousand horses and a thousand camels to send on with the troopers who should be chosen for the expedition.
It was then ordered that Emir Aristai min Khuja 'Ali, former chief head of guards, should be appointed viceroy of Alexandria because of the death of the viceroy Faraj al-Halabi. Aristai from the time that he had been liberated had been in retirement in Alexandria, and the news of his appointment reached him there.
At Cairo Emir Timraz began to review the enlisted troops and gather the horses and camels; he also summoned the Arabs from Northern and Southern Egypt to fight against Tamerlane. This took place while the Sultan was still in ar-Raidiniya.
Friday morning, II Rabi' 8 [November 26]: The vanguard set out, including of the prominent emirs of the first class Baibars, commander-in-chief; Nauruz al-Hafizi, head of the corps of emirs; Baktamur ar-Rukni, emir of arms; Aqbai, grand chamberlain; Yalbugha an-Nasiri; and Inal Bai ibn Qajmas, together with a number of emirs of the second and third classes. The Sultan with the remainder of the emirs and soldiers then likewise set out from ar-Raidiniya in the direction of Syria to wage war on Tamerlane, and continued the march to Gaza.
II Rabi' 20 [December 8]: The Sultan encamped at Gaza, and summoned my father and Aqbugha al-Jamali al-Utrush, former viceroy of Aleppo, from Jerusalem. He invested my father with the vice-regency of Damascus in succession to Sudun, kinsman of Sultan az-Zahir Barquq, because the latter was then Tamerlane's prisoner; this was my father's first appointment as viceroy of Damascus. Emir Aqbugha al-Jamali al-Utrush was invested with the vice-regency of Tarabulus in place of Shaikh al-Mahmudi, who, also was a prisoner; Tamurbugha al-Manjaki was similarly made viceroy of Safad, succeeding Altunbugha al- 'Uthmani, also a prisoner; Tulu min 'Ali Basha was made viceroy of Gaza, in succession to 'Umar at- Tahhan; and Sadaqa ibn at-Tawil became viceroy of Jerusalem. The Sultan then sent all to their respective provinces.
My father then said to the Sultan and the emirs: "I have an opinion which I wish to express, for it will be of value to the Sultan and the Muslim people." On being asked what it was he replied: "It is my opinion that neither the Sultan nor his forces should undertake any movement from the city of Gaza, but that I should go to Damascus, encourage its people to fight, and fortify the city; for it is a mighty city which has not suffered disaster since ancient times, and it contains supplies enough to suffice its people for many years; moreover, its people are now filled with the greatest fear, so that they will fight to the death. Tamerlane will not he able to take it from me quickly, and he has an extremely large army which he cannot maintain long in anyone place. He will then either leave Damascus and proceed to Gaza against the Sultan, and when he penetrates far into the land, will be between two armies and this I do not think he will do; or he will return to his own country; like a fugitive. Moreover, his armies are unacquainted with the Syrian country, and there are few provisions on his path because the land has been wasted. Then let the Sultan with both the Egyptian and Syrian armies ride hot on the heels of Tamerlane's forces to the Euphrates and he will achieve his aim and more."
This plan was approved by all men, including Tamerlane himself when it was reported to him after he had taken Damascus. The order to carry it out had been all but given when some of the stupid emirs who had retained some grudge against my father from the affair of Aitamish and Tanam conversed secretly with one another and said: "You put his associates to death, and then hand Damascus over to him; by God, his purpose is surely to go to Damascus, come to an agreement with Tamerlane, and then return to make war on us, so that he can take vengeance on us for his companions' deaths." Nauruz al-Hafizi was opposite my father at the time, and when he heard this conversation, though he hesitated to repeat it to him, signaled to him to keep silence and refrain from urging his plan. The council then disbanded, and my father left the ceremonies and, after arranging his affairs, set out, for Damascus. There he found that Emir Damurdash, viceroy of Aleppo, had fled before Tamerlane had come to Damascus, whose inhabitants were terrified when they heard of the near approach. My father then undertook to organize the affairs of the people; he found them well armed and determined to fight Tamerlane until they all should perish. He grieved then that the Sultan had not accepted his advice - but he could do nothing now except remain silent.
II Rabi' 24 [December 12]: The Sultan's vanguard set out from Gaza, and the Sultan with the remainder of the army followed on the 26th; all continued their march until they reached Damascus.
On Thursday, I Jumada 6, the Sultan entered Damascus; it was a day made tragic by the cries of men, their tears, and their supplications to God for his succor. He went up to the citadel, and remained there until Saturday, the 8th, when he descended again and went out with his armies to his tent at the Dome of Yalbugha, outside the city. He and his army prepared to give battle to Tamerlane; the Zahiri mamluks had cut the shafts of their lances short so that they might be able to stab Tamerlane's men one after the other - such was their contempt for his soldiers.
At noon of that day Tamerlane's vanguard approached from the direction of Mount Hermon, consisting of about a thousand horsemen. A hundred of the Sultan's soldiers sallied forth to meet them, delivering one attack in which they scattered and routed them ignominiously and killed a large number of them, after which they returned. A number of Tamerlane's men then came to offer submission to the Sultan, and reported that Tamerlane had encamped in the Azizi Valley, adding: "So be on your guard, for Tamerlane is very wily and crafty." So the people took the greatest precautions against him.
Five emirs of Tarabulus then brought to the Sultan a letter from Asandamur, its interim viceroy, stating that Ahmad ibn Ramadan, emir of the Turcomans, together with Ibn Sahib al-Baz and the sons of Shahri had conspired together and proceeded to Aleppo, which they had taken from Tamerlane's followers and had killed of them more than 3,000 horsemen; that Tamerlane had sent to Tarabulus an army which had been attacked by the villagers and been killed to the last man with rocks (hurled upon them) as they entered between two mountains; that five of Tamerlane's soldiers had come and reported that half of his army intended to submit to the Sultan though this report was but a ruse of Tamerlane's. Asandamur added that letters had come from the rulers of Cyprus and Famagusta stating that they were awaiting permission to send ships by sea to fight against Tamerlane as a support to the Sultan. No attention was paid to this letter, for discord prevailed among those in Damascus.
On Saturday Tamerlane encamped at Qatanci with his armies, which were so numerous that they filled the land. A detachment of them rode forward to reconnoiter and found the Sultan and emirs prepared, with their lines drawn up for battle. Tamerlane's followers advanced and delivered a violent attack; both sides held their position for a while, then a battle followed in which the Sultan's left was routed and the Gaza army and others fled toward the Hauran, while a number were wounded. Tamerlane himself then led a mighty and violent attack in order to get possession of Damascus, but the Sultan's right repelled him at the point of the lance until it forced him back to his position.
The two armies then encamped in their respective camps, and Tamerlane sent to the Sultan requesting an armistice; he asked that Atilmish, one of his followers, be sent to him and offered in return to send to the Sultan the emirs who had been taken prisoner at the battle of Aleppo and were now with him. My father, Damurdash and Qutlubugha al-Karaki advised the acceptance of this offer, because of the discord which they knew existed among themselves, not because of the weakness of their forces. Their advice was not accepted, however, and it was insisted that the war should continue. Tamerlane then sent another messenger asking for peace, and repeated what he had said before, but although the emirs and all the men believed that his offer was sincere and was meant in earnest, the emirs refused to accept it, and fighting continued between the two sides daily.
On I Jumada 12 [or I Jamada 19, February 5th] a number of the Cairene emirs and Sultan's mamluks disappeared, including Sudun at-Tayyar, Qani Bai al-'Ala'i, head of guards, and Jumaq; and of the Sultan's intimate emirs Yashbak al-'Uthmani, Qumush al-Hafizi, Barsbugha an executive secretary, Tarabai, and a number of others. Dissension then arose among the emirs, and they returned to their bickering in regard to offices, fiefs, and control of the government, leaving the matter of Tamerlane as though it did not exist; and they also discussed among themselves the reason for the disappearance of the emirs and others mentioned above.
During all this Tamerlane continued w put forth his utmost endeavors to take Damascus and devise a ruse to that end; and when, he was informed of the quarrels of the emirs his position was strengthened and his efforts increased, though he had been on the point of marching off and had made his preparations accordingly. The report was then spread in Damascus that the emirs who had disappeared had gone together toward Cairo to raise to the sultanate Shaikh Lajin al-Jarkasi, one of the outside enlisted troopers. This gave great concern to the emirs who were carrying on the government, and because of their poor judgment it outweighed for them in importance the war against Tamerlane. They therefore agreed among themselves to take Sultan al-Malik an-Nasir in a lightly equipped detachment by night back to Egypt, informing only a few of their plan. But the matter of Lajin did not deserve the attention given it, for Tiniraz, the interim viceroy in Cairo, was fully able to deal with the conspirators on behalf of the Sultan; but what happened was done so that God might accomplish that which was to be done.
In the latter part of the night before Friday, II Jumada 21 [January 8th], the emirs took Sultan al-Malik an-Nasir Faraj suddenly, without the knowledge of the army, and rode in the direction of Egypt by way of the pass of Dummar, leaving the army and the Muslim subjects as sheep without a shepherd. They pressed the march by night and day until they arrived at Safad, whose viceroy, Tamurbugha al-Manjaki, they summoned and took with them. Many of the government officials and emirs also met them, and together they proceeded until they overtook at Gaza the other emirs who had set out for Egypt - may God punish them as they deserve! When they interrogated the emirs in regard to what they had done, they made excuses which could not be accepted either in this world or the next. The emirs then repented, when repentance was useless, that they had left Damascus; they had left that city to be devoured by Tamerlane, a city which at that time was the most beautiful and flourishing city of the world.
The remainder of the emirs and leading cadis and others of Egypt, when they learned of the departure of the Sultan from Damascus, immediately followed in groups, hoping to overtake him; but the [Druze] tribesmen captured most of them, plundering them and killing many of them.
Several of the chief Zahiri mamluks said to me: "When we learned of the Sultan's departure we immediately rode out, and we were delayed from overtaking him only because of the many arms lying on the ground along the way, thrown there by the Sultan's mamluks to lighten their horses' burden; if their horses were swift they escaped; otherwise Tamerlane's soldiers overtook them and made them prisoner. Among the latter was Chief Cadi Sadr ad-Din al-Munawi, who died while a captive, as will be narrated in the necrologies.
The stragglers - Sultan's mamluks and others - continued to arrive one after the other at Cairo in a desperate condition by reason of walking, lack of clothing, and hunger; and the Sultan ordered that each of the mamluks should be given a thousand dirhams and two months' subsistence pay.
The emirs likewise entered Cairo, accompanied only by one or two mamluks, having left in Damascus property, horses, battalions, and everything else which they possessed, for they had departed suddenly, without any mutual agreement, when they learned of the Sultan's going, and each one thought only of escape.
The armies which they left in Damascus, its own residents, and others for there were gathered in it many from Aleppo, Hama and Hima, as well as villagers who had fled before Tamerlane when on Friday morning they found the Sultan, emirs, and viceroy missing, closed the gates of Damascus, mounted on the city walls, and proclaimed a holy war. The people of Damascus prepared to fight, and when Tamerlane led his armies in an attack the inhabitants fought vigorously from on top of the walls, forcing the enemy to withdraw from both the walls and the moat, making prisoners of a number who had assaulted the Damascus Gate, seizing a large, number of their horses, and killing about a thousand men whose heads they brought within the city. They had the advantage now; and Tamerlane, baffled by them and aware that he would find the matter long drawn out, resorted to a ruse to take the city. While the Damascenes were fighting with all their strength and straining themselves in fortifying their city, two of Tamerlane's men approached beneath the walls and cried out from a distance: "The Emir desires an armistice; therefore send some wise man to discuss, the matter with him."
I remark: This is what my father referred to at Gaza when he was appointed viceroy of Damascus and said that the people of Damascus had the strength to repel Tamerlane from the city; and that Damascus was rich in supplies and food, was most strongly fortified, and that he should go thither and fight Tamerlane there. No one listened to what my father said on the subject; but, on my life, if those who did not approve what he said could have seen the way the people of Damascus now fought, and their great courage, though they were without a viceroy or anyone to direct their affairs - and how much more would this have been so had there been with them their ruler and his mamluks together with the emir, of Damascus, their armies, and all those who were attached to them - certainly they would have rightly repented and acknowledged their error.
When the people of Damascus heard Tamerlane's message concerning peace, their choice for ambassador fell upon the chief Hanbalite cadi, Taqi ad-Din Ibrahim ibn Muflih. He was lowered to the ground from the wall of Damascus, went to Tamerlane, had a meeting with him, and then returned to the city. Tamerlane had beguiled him by his artful speech, had spoken ingratiatingly and kindly to him. He had said to him: "This is the city of the prophets and the companions of Muhammad; I give it its freedom for the sake of the messenger of God (Whose blessing and peace be upon him!), as an alms offering from me and my sons; had it not been for my anger at Sudun, viceroy of Damascus, when he killed my messenger, I should not have come to the city; now Sudun has been captured and imprisoned by me; and since he was the object of my coming hither, my only remaining purpose is to return to my land. However, I must receive my usual gift of 'tuquzat'." It was his custom, namely, that when he took a city by surrender its inhabitants should bring to him nine of each species of food, drink, animals, clothing, and precious objects, and this they call "tuquzat," "tuquz" being the Turkish word for "nine"; this gift is a custom of Tatar kings to the present day.
When Ibn Muflih was back in Damascus he urged the men to cease fighting, and highly praised Tamerlane, his piety, and his sincere faith. He sought to restrain the Damascenes from carrying on the war against him, and one party was favorably inclined while another opposed him and insisted on continuing to fight. Thus they passed the eve of Saturday; but Saturday morning those who had opposed Ibn Muflih were won over to his view, and he decided to carry out the peaceful surrender of the city; he issued a proclamation that any who opposed this plan should be put to death and his life be taken with impunity. The men thereupon ceased fighting, and an ambassador of Tamerlane immediately came to Damascus to seek the gifts mentioned above. Ibn Muflih hastened to demand of the cadis, lawyers, prominent men, and merchants that they contribute the sum, each one in proportion to his circumstances. This they proceeded to do until the amount was complete, when they took it to the Gate of Succor in order to convey it to Tamerlane. But the viceroy of the Damascus citadel forbade them to do so, and threatened that if they did he would burn the city against them. They disregarded his words and said: "Rule over your citadel and we will rule over our city."
They then left the Gate of Succor and went on, sending the gifts outside the wall; Ibn Muflih again let himself down from the wall together with many of the prominent men of Damascus and others, and they proceeded to Tamerlane's camp. They passed the eve of Sunday there, and returned on Sunday morning. Tamerlane had appointed a number of them to various positions, such as that of chief cadi, vizier, collector of funds, etc. They also carried a royal patent from Tamerlane in their favor, a document of nine lines declaring safety for the inhabitants of Damascus, specifically for themselves and families. The patent was read from the pulpit of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.
The Little Gate of the city alone was then opened, and one of Tamerlane's emirs came and took his seat there to guard the city against the entrance of any of Tamerlane's soldiers. The people of Damascus acquiesced in all this and rejoiced at it. Ibn Muflih and the prominent men of Damascus who had gone with him heaped praises on Tamerlane, repeating his virtues and excellent qualities. Ibn Muflih called upon the people to yield obedience and show themselves friendly to Tamerlane, and urged all to collect the sum which had been fixed for them to pay him, namely, 1,000,000 dinars. The payment of this sum he made an obligation of the people as a whole, and they provided it without difficulty because of the vastness of their wealth.
When the entire sum was ready Ibn Muflih conveyed it to Tamerlane, and set it down before him; but when the latter looked at it he became exceedingly angry - he was not satisfied with it. He ordered Ibn Muflih, and those with him to leave him; they were taken away from his presence and placed under the charge of a number of guards, until they obligated themselves to bring a thousand "tumans," a tuman being the equivalent of 10,000 gold dinars, although the price of gold differed for them; under all circumstances, however, the sum was 10,000,000 dinars. They accepted the obligation, returned to the city, and again made the payment an obligation of the whole people, on the basis of three months' rent of their properties; they also obligated each person, male and female, free and slave, to contribute ten dirhams, and each trust administrator to pay a sizable sum.
In the exaction of this second sum from them a great trial came upon the people; many of them were tortured with blows; prices rose, and provisions became very scarce, one "mudd," that is, four "qadahs of wheat rose to 40 silver dirhams. Friday prayers ceased to be recited in Damascus, and Friday services were held there only twice, until prayers were said on its pulpits for Sultan Mahmud and his heir apparent, the son of Emir Tamerlane. Sultan Mahmud was but a tool in the hands of Tamerlane, appointed because according to their custom only one of royal descent might rule over them.
Then Shah Malik, one of Tamerlane's emirs, came to Damascus as viceroy there representing Tamerlane. Two weeks later Friday prayers were forbidden in Damascus because of the vast number of Tamerlane's followers in the city.
During all this time the viceroy of the citadel was holding out there, while Tamerlane's assisting forces were besieging it tightly; he surrendered it, however, after twenty-nine days, during which innumerable catapults and ballistas directed their fire against it.
Suffice it to say that because of the extreme difficulty of the capture of the citadel they built opposite it a wooden fortress; and when it was finished and the forces of Tamerlane wished to ascend to combat from its top those in the citadel, the latter hurled naphtha upon it and burnt it down. Tamerlane's men then erected another tower greater than the first, ascended it, and from it fought the men in the citadel. This was despite the fact that there were in it but few fighting men, less than forty. But the siege had lasted too long for them, and in despair of receiving aid they requested amnesty and surrendered the fortress under promise of safety. I remark: May their hands never wither! They were truly brave men, God (Who is exalted) have mercy on them.
When the collection of the money, a thousand tumans, had been completed, Ibn Muflih took it to Tamerlane, who said to him and his companions: "This according to our reckoning is only 3,000,000 dinars, so you still owe 7,000,000; it appears to me that you are in default." Tamerlane, when he first agreed with Ibn Muflih upon the sum of 1,000,000 dinars, stipulated that this should be paid by the inhabitants of Damascus specifically, and that the arms and property left behind by the Egyptian armies should be his in addition Ibn Muflih had taken to him all the property of the people of Egypt, and when he had all this in his possession and knew that he had gotten everything that the Egyptians possessed, he compelled them to produce the possessions of those who had fled from Damascus; they hastened to bring all that also, and became informers against each other before him, until all that they had was gone.
Then when this was completed he obligated them to bring to him all the arms, great and small, that were in the city; and they sought them out for him until there was no weapon left.
When this too had been finished, he seized Ibn Muflih and his companions and forced them to write down the names of all the quarters, squares, and streets of Damascus; when they had done so and given the lists to him, he distributed them among his emirs, dividing the city among them. The emirs entered the city with their mamluks and attendants, and each emir settled in his alloted section and then summoned its inhabitants and demanded money of them. At that time there came upon the people of Damascus afflictions beyond description: they were subjected to all sorts of tortures; they were bastinadoed, crushed in presses, scorched in flames, and suspended head down; their nostrils were stopped with rags full of fine dust which they inhaled each time they took a breath so that they almost died. When near to death, a man would be given a respite to recover, then the tortures of all kinds would be repeated, so that the sufferer would envy a companion who had perished under his tortures and would say: "Would that I might die and be at rest from my pain.
And in the meanwhile all his women and daughters and sons were divided among the companions of that emir, and while under torture he would see his wife and daughter ravished and his son defiled; as he cried out in the pain of his torture the boy and girl would cry out in the suffering of their violation. All this took place without any concealment, in broad daylight and in the presence of crowds of people. Indeed, the people of Damascus witnessed tortures of kinds that had never been heard of before. For example, they would take a man and tie a rope around his head, and twist it until it would sink into his flesh; they would put a rope around a man's shoulders, and twist it with a stick until they were torn from their sockets; they would bind another victim's thumbs behind him, then throw him on his back, pour powdered ashes in his nostrils to make him little by little confess what he possessed; when he had given up all, he would still not be believed, but the torture would be repeated until he died; and then his body would be further mutilated in the thought that he might be only feigning death, And some would tie their victim by his thumbs to the roof of the house, kindle a fire under him and keep him thus a long time; if by chance he fell in the flames, he would be dragged out and thrown on the ground till he revived, then he would be thus suspended a second time.
These trials and tortures of the people of Damascus continued for nineteen days, the last being Tuesday, Rajab 28, 803 [March 14, 1401] There perished, during this period of torture and hunger, human beings whose number God (Who is exalted) alone knows. When Tamerlane's emirs knew that nothing was left in the city they went to him, and he asked them: "Have you any more concern with Damascus?" And when they said "No," he granted the city to the followers of the emirs, who entered it on foot on Monday, Rajah 30, with swords drawn from their sheathes. They stole whatever they could lay their hands on, household furniture, etc., took captive all the women of the city, and drove before them, bound with ropes, the men and boys, leaving only the children less than five years old. They then set fire to the dwellings, palaces, and mosques, and as it was a day of high winds the fire spread throughout the city, and the flames almost mounted to the clouds. The fire continued burning for three days and three nights, the last of which was Friday.
Tamerlane (may God curse him) departed from Damascus on Saturday Sha'ban 3 [March 19th], having been there 80 days. The whole city had burned, the roofs of the Umayyad Mosque had fallen in because of the fire, its gates were gone, and the marble cracked - nothing was left standing but the walls. Of the other mosques of the city, its palaces, caravanseries, and baths, nothing remained but wasted ruins and empty traces; only a vast number of young children was left there, who died, or were destined to die, of hunger.
Sultan al-Malik an-Nasir Faraj, after remaining in Gaza three days, had departed for Egypt, sending on in advance Aqbugha al-Faqfh, one of the executive secretaries. The latter had arrived at Cairo on Monday, II Jumada 2, and informed Emir Timraz, the interim viceroy, of the Sultan's arrival at Gaza. Cairo was in commotion at the news and men almost lost their minds, for each had thought that the Sultan had been defeated by Tamerlane and that the latter was in pursuit of him. They had begun to sell all they possessed and prepared to flee Cairo; the price of animals rose until it was several times the normal.
Thursday, II Jumada 5 [January 20th]: The Sultan arrived at the Citadel with the Caliph, emirs, the Syrian viceroys, and about a thousand of the Sultan's mamluks - others say about five hundred.
Saturday, II Jumada 7: The Sultan granted my to father an emirate of the first class in Egypt which was unassigned in the Sultan's private bureau, after he had asked to be relieved of the vice-regency of Damascus; the Sultan then nominated for that office Aqbugha al-Jamali al-Utrush, and ordered my father to sit at the head of the right side of the council.
The Sultan then gave permission to Emir Yalbugha as-Salimi, the major-domo, to direct all affairs connected with the government, and ordered that he should send an army to Damascus to make war won Tamerlane. Yalbugha as-Salimi began to collect revenues, and imposed contributions on all lands in Egypt, including the fiefs of the emirs, the Sultans cities, the appanages of the enlisted troops, and the trust-fund cities, at the rate of 500 silver dirhams and one horse per 1,000 dinars. Then he taxed all real properties in Cairo and Old Cairo with a month's rent; even the value of a mans own dwelling would be estimated and a month's rent taken; also the trust lands - that is, those the product of which were received by certain individuals as alms and charity - were taxed at the rate of ten dirhams per acre, the rent per acre at that time being from thirty dirhams down. I remark that he collected a half of its land tax in one round which he made, taking for an acre of sugar cane, colocassia, or indigo, a hundred dirhams, or about four dinars, per hundredweight. Gardens he taxed at the rate of one hundred dirhams per acre.
He then summoned the treasurers of the judiciary and the merchants and demanded loans from them; he made a surprise visit by night to the caravanseries and storehouses, and in case he found anyone there he opened his money chest and took half of the cash which he found (that is, of the gold, silver, and copper coins), but if he did not find the owner of the property he would take all the coins. Furthermore, he seized all the trust deposits he could find. In addition to this the money changer received three dirhams per hundred dirhams; the messenger who brought anyone who was summoned received six dirhams, or, if he held the rank of sergeant, ten. This is according to the Shaikh Taqi ad-Din al-Marqrizi (God have mercy on him), who says: "The people suffered severely, and they cursed as-Salimi bitterly." I remark: On the whole they were better off than the people of Damascus; and if a half of what they had was taken from them, what was as-Salimi - poor fellow! - to do, since the Sultan had directed him to send a second army from Egypt to combat Tamerlane?
II Juriiada 13 [January 28th]: Cadi Amm ad-Din Abd al-Wahhab, son of Chief Cadi Shams ad-Din Muhammad at-Tarabulusi, cadi of the army, was invested with the office of chief Hanafite cadi of Egypt upon the death of Chief Cadi Jamal ad-Din Yusuf al-Malati; and Cadi Jamal ad-Din 'Abd Allah al-Aqfahsi was made chief Malikite cadi, succeeding Cadi Nur ad-Din 'Ali ibn al-Khallal because of the latters death. On the same day there arrived three hundred of the straggler mamluks in a deplorable state from traveling on foot, lack of clothes and hunger.
II Jumada 21 [February 5th]: Chief Hanbalite Cadi Muwaffaq ad-Din Ahmad ibn Nasir Allah arrived at Cairo, likewise in a deplorable state; also the chief Shafiite cadi of Damascus, 'Ala' ad-Din 'AIr ibn Abi I-Baqa'. Also a letter for the Sultan from Tamerlane was brought by one of the Sultan's mamluks, seeking the surrender of Atilmish, and stating that when he should come to him he would send the emirs, viceroys, and others who were with him, also Chief Shafiite Cadi Sadr ad-Din al-Munawi, and would depart from Damascus. Atilmish was summoned from the Citadel Tower, set free, given 5,000 dirhams and lodged with Emir Sudun Taz, grand emir of the horse; Qutlubugha al-' Ala'i and Emir Muhammad ibn Sunqur were designated to make the journey with him. Emir Baisaq ash-Shaikhi, an emir of the horse, then went to Tamerlane as messenger from the Sultan to report the liberation of Atilmish, and other matters
In the meanwhile Yalbugha as-Salimi was energetically gathering funds, and began to review the enlisted troops. He obligated everyone able to travel to go to Damascus for war against Tamerlane; and those unable to journey he obligated to furnish a substitute, or contribute half his crops for the year; from the owners of produce brought for sale in ships to the shores of Cairo he required that there be collected one dirham per irdabb.
Tuesday, Rajab 1 [February 15th]: As-Salimi ordered that dinars should be struck weighing some 101 mithqals,12 some 91 mithqals, and then so on down to those weighing 10 mithqals; a number of such coins were then struck off.
The Sultan then invested Alam ad-Din Yalwa ibn As'ad, known as Abu Kumm, with the office of vizier in Egypt in succession to Fakhr ad-Din Majid ibn Ghurab. A report then arrived stating that Damurdash al-Muhammadi, viceroy of Aleppo, had escaped from Tamerlane, had gathered bands of Turcomans, and had taken the city and citadel of Aleppo from Tamerlane's officials, of whom he had put a large number to death.
The Sultan then invested Shahin al-Balabi, second commander of the Sultan's mamluks, with the office of commander in succession to Sawwab, known as Shankal, and made the eunuch Firuz min Jirji, commander of the Rafraf Barrack, second commander of the mamluks.
Rajab 7 [February 21st]: There arrived in the environs of Cairo 6,000 horsemen of the Arabs of Buhaira Province, 2,500 Ibn Baqar Arabs from Sharqiya Province, and 1,500 of the 'Isawi and Banu Wa'il; Yalbugha as-Salimi distributed money among them so that they might prepare to take the field against Tamerlane.
Rajab 8. The ambassador of Emir Nu'air arrived at Cairo and related that he had gathered many Arabs and encamped with them at Palmyra; likewise that Tamerlane had gone from the outskirts of Damascus to al-Qutaiyifa.
By this time the government officials had directed their attention to Yalbugha as-Salimi and had been working for his downfall, which they eventually accomplished. On Rajab 14 Yalbugha was arrested together with Shihab ad-Din Umar ibn Qutaina, my father's major-domo, who had held the office of vizier before this date. The two were handed over to Sa'd ad-Din Ibrahim ibn Ghurab for an accounting of the sums taken from the people in the tax collections. I remark that this case exemplifies the proverb: "Make me poor among those I love and I will not ask for riches."
Rajab 18 [March 4th]: Sa'd ad-Din Ibrahim ibn Ghurab was appointed to the office of major-domo succeeding as-Salimi and, in addition to the two other offices which he had held, to the controllership of the army and that of the Sultan's privy funds.
Sha'ban 5. The emirs who had been designated to go on the campaign to fight Tamerlane led the Sultan's mamluks, and the enlisted troops similarly designated, to the suburbs of Cairo; they were those who had remained in Cairo while the Sultan had been absent in Damascus. The commander of the entire force was Timraz an-Nasiiri, emir of the council, with Aqbai min Hasan Shah az-Zahiri, grand chamberlain, and, of the second class emirs, Jarbash ash-Shaikhi, Tumantamur, and Sumai al-Hasani. Emir Jakam refused to make the journey.
On Sha'ban 7 Emir Shaikh al-Mahmudi, viceroy of Tarabulus, arrived at Cairo, having escaped from Tamerlane; he reported that Tamerlane had set out for his own land. The Sultan then ordered that the expedition be canceled and the emirs should each return from the environs of Damascus to his own home. The following morning Duqrnaq al-Muhammadi, viceroy of Hama, also arrived, having fled from Tamerlane.
On that day also my father was summoned and invested with the vice-regency of Damascus a second time, against his own desire; the post had been vacant since the day Tamerlane had come to Damascus. Next Shaikh al-Muhmudi was invested with the vice-regency of Tarabulus (the office which he held before); Duqmaq with that of Hama (likewise a continuance in office); Tamurbugha al-Manjaki with that of Safad, and Tankizbugha al-Hitati with that of Ba'labakk.
A proclamation was then made in Cairo that no Persians should remain in the city; they were allowed three days in which to leave, and threats of punishment made against anyone who should remain. None of them left, however; .and people wrote on many of the walls: To kill the Ajam is an aid to Islam.
In the meanwhile Egyptian affairs remained unsettled, while in Syria there was a great plague of locusts after Tamerlane left, and ruin was added to ruin there.
TAMERLANE
Here let me recount a selection of events from Tamerlane's history, his genealogy, the size of his armies, and his great shrewdness and craftiness, so that he who looks into this book may have a knowledge of the events and circumstances of his life; and although therein is some prolixity and a departure from the main subject, it is still not without some usefulness.
He was Timurlank - others say Timur, both of which have the same meaning, though the second is the better Turkish form ibn Aitamish Qanligh ibn Zankl ibn Sanya ibn Tarim ibn Tughril ibn Qalpah ibn Sunqur ibn Kanjak ibn Taghar Sabuqa ibn Iltakhan, Mongol by origin, a Turk of the group of Jaghatai; the tyrant Timur Kurkan - that is, in Persian, "the relative by marriage of kings."
He was born in 728 [1328] in a village named Khawaja Abghar, of the district of Kashsh1 one of the, cities of Transoxania; the distance of this town from the city of Samarkand is one day.
It is said that on the night he was born something resembling a helmet was seen which appeared to be flying in the middle of the sky and which fell to the ground in a great open plain; live coals and sparks from it were scattered about until they filled the land. It is said also that when he came forth from his mother's womb his palms were found to be filled with blood; and this was understood to mean that blood would be shed by his hand. I remark: and so it happened.
It is said further by some that his father was a shoemaker; others say that his father was an emir at the court of Sultan Husain, ruler of the city of Balkh, and was one of the pillars of his government, and that his mother was a descendant of Chingiz Khan. Again it is said that Sultan Husain had four viziers, of whom Tamerlane's father was one, and that on the father's death Tamerlane took over his position at the court of the Sultan. Tamerlane was by origin of the tribe of Barlas.
It is said that the first known circumstance of Tamerlane's life was that he used to engage in robbery. One night he stole a sheep, which he took up in order to carry it off, when the shepherd awoke and shot him with an arrow which hit his shoulder; he followed this with another, which missed him, and then with still another which hit him in the thigh, leaving its effects on him so that he became lame from it, and for this reason he was called Timurlank," because "lank" in Persian means 'lame.' His real name, however, was Timur, without "lank," which was added only after he became lame. When he had recovered he took to brigandage again and became a highway robber; in this he was aided by a band numbering forty.
During those days Tamerlane used to say to them: I shall surely rule the earth and kill the kings of the world." Some used to laugh at him, but some believed him because of the determination and bravery which they saw he possessed. It is said that on one of his brigandage raids he wandered about lost for a number of days, and finally happened on the horses of the Sultan Husain, mentioned above. The herdsman in charge of the horses gave him shelter, felt a liking for him, and showed him hospitality by bringing him the food and drink which he needed. Tamerlane had a perfect knowledge of what good horses were, a fact which pleased the horse keeper. He kept him with him until, he sent him in charge of some horses to Sultan Husain and informed the latter about him. The Sultan bestowed a gift on him and sent him back to the keeper, with whom he remained until the keeper died, when Sultan Husain appointed him to succeed him in charge of his horses on pasture.
Thereafter Tamerlane continued to rise from one position to another until he became a man of importance and one of the emirs. He married Sultan Husain's sister, and remained with her for a time until one day they had an argument in which she taunted him with the poor circumstances of his earlier life. He killed her, and took to flight and to open rebellion against Sultan Husain. He then grew in power, conquered Transoxania, and married the daughters of its kings. It was then that he was given the by-name "Kur Kan;" which name has been spoken of above.
His power continued to increase and his territories expand until Sultan Husain came to fear him and determined to make war on him. When news of this reached him he fled. But after 760 A.H. [1359] his power increased, and when he had a large army he sent to the rulers of Balakhshan, two brothers who had come to the throne after their father's death, and invited them to acknowledge his authority, to which they returned a favorable reply.
The Moghuls, under their leader Khan Qamr ad-Din, had risen in the East against Sultan Husain and the latter had marched against them and fought them. Tamerlane now sent and invited them to come to him; they accepted and acknowledged his authority; he thus gained further in power.
Sultan Husain then proceeded against them a second time with a large army and arrived at Daghlugha, a narrow pass through which it takes a man an hour to ride; in the middle of it is a gate which when it is closed and defended no one can take; and around it are high mountains. The army took possession of the mouth of this pass on the Samarkand side, while Tamerlane stationed his men\on the other road. The army thought they had besieged and hemmed him in, but he left them and took a little-known: way going by night through rough and difficult terrain, and came upon them in the early morning. They had begun to load their impedimenta, under the supposition that Tamerlane had fled and gone from them in fear. But Tamerlane tricked them by dismounting with his men, while they thought that he was of their own party and was planning to rest. When Husain's army had entirely passed, Tamerlane and his men rode close on their heels, shouting and striking fiercely with their swords. Husain's men were thrown into confusion, and Husain fled with those who were with him, each one by himself, until he reached Balkh. Tamerlane took possession of all that the Sultan had had, and the remainder of the latter's soldiers attached themselves to him. So his following and his resources grew, he took possession of territories, and continued on his course until he captured Sultan Husain after he had granted him a safe-conduct; and he then put him to death. This was the beginning of his renown.
Next was his battle with Tuqtamish Khan, king of the Tatars, whom he encountered at the extremities of Turkestan, near the Khujand River. The battle between them waxed hot, and Tamerlane's army lost so many men that it was almost annihilated, and he determined to flee.
Just then there approached him the revered Sayyid and Sharif Baraka, to whom Tamerlane, worn out by his trials, said: "Sayyidi, my army is defeated"; but the Sayyid and Sharif Baraka replied: "Have no fear"; and dismounting from his horse and taking up a handful of pebbles he mounted again and threw them in the faces of Tuqtamish's soldiers, crying out at the top of his voice: "yaghi qajti, which in Turkish means "the enemy has fled." Tamerlane shouted loudly the same words as the Sharif Baraka, so that the ears of his men were filled with their cry, and they all rallied to him after having already turned in flight. Tamerlane led them back to a second charge against the army of Tuqtamish, every man. Of them shouting "yaghi qajti," whereupon Tuqtamish Khan's army fled, and Tamerlane's men were at their backs, plundering them of uncountable amounts of property. He then conquered most of the country of Tuqtamish Khan.
His third conflict was with Shira Ali, ruler of Mazandaran, Gilan, the land of Rai and Iraq, whom he defeated, captured and slew, and then ruled all of his territory.
Then comes the account of his relations with Shah Shuja', ruler of shiraz, the marriage of the daughter of Shah Shuja' to Tamerlane's son, and the truce which Shah Shuja' made with him and which lasted until his death, when his sons quarreled and Shah Mansur gained power over all his brothers. Tamerlane then took the field against Shah Mansur, who with only two thousand horsemen met him in battle. This Shah Mansur was indisputably the bravest horseman of all the rulers who fought Tamerlane, for he went forth to meet him with the two thousand horsemen while Tamerlane's army numbered almost a hundred thousand. And as Shah Mansur thus went out to meet him one of the emirs of his army named Muhammad ibn Amin ad-Din fled to Tamerlane with most of the men, so that he was left in command of less then one thousand. Nevertheless he led them in battle against Tamerlane the whole day until nightfall, when each of the opposing forces went to its camp.
Shah Mansur then mounted during the night, attacked Tamerlane's forces in the dark, and killed about ten thousand horsemen. He next chose five hundred of his own horsemen and led them to battle the next morning; making for Tamerlane he forced him from his position, and Tamerlane took to flight and hid among his women. With his small force he surrounded Tamerlane's men despite their vast numbers, fighting them until his hands became weak and his warriors had fallen; he became separated from his followers and cast himself among the slain. One of Tamerlane's men struck and killed him, and then brought his head to Tamerlane; but the latter in grief for his loss put to death the man who had slain him. Tamerlane ruled over all the domain of Persia after Shah Mansur. This battle with Shah Mansur I have described in greater detail than here in my work "al-Manhal as-Safi," since that is a biographical work.
Tamerlane then brought under his rule one government after another, until he took possession to the two Iraqs; Sultan Ahmad ibn Uwais fled from him, and he ruined the greater part of Iraq, including Bagdad, Basra, al-Kufa, and their dependencies. Then he took possession of most of the Diyar Bakr region, and ruined a number of cities there also.
His next objective, in 798 [1396], was Syria, but in fear of al-Malik az-Zahir Barquq he turned back to his own country. There he received news that Firuz Shah, ruler of India, had died without leaving a son and that there was discord among the people of the city of Delhi. A vizier named Mallu had usurped the throne there, but he was opposed by the brother of Firuz Shah, Sarank Khan, who was ruler of the city of Multan.
When Tamerlane heard this report he seized the opportunity, marched in the month of Dhu Hijja, 800 [1398], from Samarkand to Multan, besieged King Sarank Khan for six months, and took the city. Tamerlane then proceeded to Delhi, the capital. Mallu went out to give him battle; in the forces which were before him were eight hundred elephants, which were a part of Sarank Khan's army. Upon each of the elephants there had been mounted a tower containing a number of fighting men. The animals had also been clothed with armor and caparisons, upon which had been hung gongs and bells which made a terrific din, the purpose being to stampede thereby the horses of the Jaghatai; they had also fastened to the elephants' trunks a number of thin blades. The forces of India marched behind the elephants, so that the elephants in front of them might set the horses of Tamerlane's men in panic by means of the objects which they carried.
Tamerlane, however, outwitted them; he reckoned with their plan by preparing thousands of three-pointed iron spines which he strewed in the paths of the elephants. He also loaded five hundred camels with reeds stuffed with wicks dipped in oil, and placed these camels before his own army. When the two armies came in sight of each other and advanced for battle Tamerlane set fire to the loads of reeds and drove the camels toward the elephants; the camels because of the intense heat of the fire leapt forward, and then their drivers goaded them from behind.
Tamerlane had also placed some of his men in ambush. He slowly led his army on in the early morning, and as the enemy charged he turned his horse's head back to make them believe that he had fled from them, and, swerving aside from the path of the elephants as though his horses were running away in fear, he made for the area in which he had scattered the iron spines prepared by him. His ruse was effective in deceiving the Indians; they drove the elephants vigorously after him until they trod upon the iron thorns, and as they stepped upon them they recoiled. Tamerlane then wheeled his army against them with the camels, on whose backs the flames were now burning with intense heat while the sparks flew everywhere; their panic became hideous because of the violence with which they were being goaded in the rear. When the elephants saw this they took fright and wheeled about toward the Indian army; and when they felt the harsh spines which Tamerlane had thrown in their course they knelt down, becoming like mountains in the path, and lay on the ground unable to move, while their blood poured out in rivers. At that Tamerlane's men who were in ambush emerged on both sides of the army of India, and Tamerlane then galloped forward with his men. The Indians turned, and the two armies shot at one another with arrows; then they came to close combat, first with lances, then with swords and battle-axes. Each of the armies held its ground for a long time, until finally the army of India was defeated, having lost their prominent leaders and warriors; then the remainder fled, worn out with battle.
Tamerlane followed in hot pursuit until he alighted at Delhi, which he besieged and after a time took by force, gaining possession of the throne and seizing all its treasures, while his armies in their usual shameful manner took prisoners and captives, killed, plundered, and ruined.
While they were thus engaged Tamerlane learned of the death of al-Malik az-Zahir Baruq, ruler of Egypt, and also of the death of Cadi Burhan ad-Din Ahmad, ruler of Siwas in Asia Minor. Tamerlane thought that now by their death he had conquered their countries, and almost flew for joy at the news. He settled his affairs and turned about hastily, leaving as viceroy in India one of his emirs in whom he had full confidence. He journeyed until he arrived at Samarkand, then in the early part of 802 A.H. [October 1399] hastily departed, encamped in Khurasan, then went to Tabriz and appointed his son Miran Shah to rule there. Proceeding on, he encamped in Qarabagh in the month of I Rabi', killing and taking captives there; then he departed and encamped at Tiflis in the month of II Jumada [February 1400] and traversed the land of Georgia, killing and taking captives wantonly.
His next objective was Baghdad, whose Sultan, Ahmad ibn Uwais, fled from him to Qara Yusuf; and Tamerlane returned from Baghdad and spent the summer in the country of the Turcomans. He then went to Siwas, which Sulaiman ibn Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman had taken; after a siege of eighteen days he took it on Muharram 5, 803 A.H [August 27, 1400]; and seizing its armed men, three thousand individuals, he dug for them an underground vault into which he threw them and then covered them with earth. This was after he had sworn to them that he would shed the blood of none of them; and he then said: "I have kept my oath, since I have not shed the blood of any of them." He then put the inhabitants to the sword and destroyed the city, wiping out every trace of it.
Next he went to Bahasna, plundered its outskirts, and took its citadel after a siege of twenty-three days, then proceeded to Malatya and leveled it. He went on and attacked Qal'at ar-Rum, but, unable to conquer it, left for Ain Tab, whose viceroy, Arikmas az-Zahiri fled from it. Aleppo and Damascus were his next objectives; what he did there until the time he left Syria has already been recounted. His departure from Damascus was on Saturday, Sha'ban 3, 803 A.H. [March 19, 1401] He then passed by Aleppo and subjected it a second time to the fate that had been decreed for it. From there he went and attacked Maridin on Monday; Ramadan 10 [April 25, 1401] of the same year. Certain events befell him there, and he departed from the city, giving the impression that he was making for Samarkand so as to distract attention from Baghdad.
Sultan Ahmad ibn Uwais had appointed as viceroy in Baghdad an emir named Faraj, while he himself and Qara Yusuf had gone toward Asia Minor. Tamerlane in a surprise move sent Amirzah Rustum with twenty thousand men to take Baghdad, then followed him with the remainder of his forces. He encamped at Baghdad and besieged it, finally taking it by conquest on the day of the Festival of the Sacrifices that year [July 22, 1401], and put the inhabitants to the sword.
Emir Asanbai, the warden of the armory (one of az-Zahir Barquq's former mamluks, who had been taken prisoner by Tamerlane, had found favor with him, and was made by him his own armory warden), told me concerning the capture and siege of Baghdad some terrible tales. For instance, when Tamerlane got possession of the city he compelled everyone of his followers to bring him the heads of two of the inhabitants. The slaughter took place in Baghdad and its territories, and blood flowed in streams before they had brought him what he required. Of these heads he then built 120 minarets; the number of Baghdads inhabitants who were killed on this day was about 100,000 men (AI-Maqrizi says 90,000), and this was in addition to those killed during the days of the siege, those killed on the day when he entered Baghdad, and those who threw themselves into the Tigris and were drowned, a number even larger than that first mentioned. He says: "If a man who was ordered to bring two heads could not secure heads of two men he would cut off the head of a women, shave off its hair, and bring it instead. And some of them would stand in the streets, pursue one of the passers-by and cut off his head."
From Baghdad, after he had razed it level with the ground, Tamerlane went to Qarabagh, where he encamped. He then wrote to Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman, lord of Asia Minor, to expel Sultan Ahmad ibn Uwais and Qara Yusuf from his territories, threatening that if he did not comply he would bring upon him the same punishment that had befallen others. Abu Yazid sent back an exceedingly gruff reply, so Tamerlane set out in his direction.
Abu Yazfd ibn 'Uthman assembled his forces of Muslims, Christians, and various divisions of the Tatars, and when his army was complete he marched to give him battle. Before his arrival Tamerlane sent to the Tatars who were with Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman, saying: "We are one race, and these are Turcomans whom we shall expel from our midst, and then Asia Minor will be yours instead of theirs." The Tatars were deceived by him and promised that when the encounter took place they would be with him.
Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman marched on with the expectation that he would meet Tamerlane outside of Siwas and repulse him so that he could not enter Asia Minor. But Tamerlane took another road; marching through untraveled country, he entered Ibn 'Uthman's territory and encamped in a wide, fertile district. Before Ibn 'Uthman was aware of it he had been robbed of his land, and in consternation turned back; he and his men had become so weary that their strength was gone and their horses were worn out too. He was encamped now in a waterless region, and his soldiers were near to perishing. As they approached each other for battle, the first disaster that alighted upon Ibn 'Uthman was that the Tatars in their entirety betrayed him; since they constituted his main force, his army was thus much reduced.
His son Sulaiman then followed them and left his father, to return to the city of Brusa with the remainder of his army; there were now left with Abu Yazid only about 5,000 horsemen, with whom he held his ground until Tamerlane's forces had surrounded them. Against these, however, he delivered a terrific attack with sword and battle-axe and continued fighting until his followers had killed of Tamerlane's men several times their own number. The battle continued from forenoon of Wednesday until the afternoon, when Ibn 'Uthman's soldiers were worn out, overwhelmed by the forces of Tamerlane, who attacked them with swords because they were so few while the Tamerlane forces were so many; indeed one of the 'Uthman is fought against ten opponents, until most of their warriors lay prostrate. Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman himself was taken prisoner, captured by hand about a mile from the city of Ankara, on Wednesday, Dhu l-Hijja 27, 804 A.H. [August 7, 1402], after most of his men had died of thirst, for the time was the twenty-eighth day of the Coptic month Abib, which is the Greek Tamuz.
Tamerlane had Ibn 'Uthman stand before him every day, deriding and insulting him. One day he sat at a wine-drinking bout with his companions and summoned Ibn 'Uthman in a manner which caused him to be alarmed; he entered hobbling in his shackles and trembling. Tamerlane sat him before himself and began to converse with him; then he arose and gave him to drink at the hands of Ibn 'Uthman's slave girls whom he had made captive, and returned him to his prison.
Tamerlane then received a visit from Isbandar, one of the minor kings of Asia Minor, bringing magnificent gifts; Tamerlane accepted these, treated the giver with honor, and sent him back to his dominions.
In the meanwhile Tamerlane's armies had been perpetrating in Asia Minor and upon its inhabitants those deeds that have been described before.
Then Sulaiman, son of Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman, collected the money and everything else which was in the city of Brusa and went to Adrianople, whose men joined him one after another; and he also made peace with the inhabitants of Istanbul [Constantinople]. Tamerlane then sent a large part of his army with Shaikh Nur ad-Din to Brusa and they seized whatever they could find there, while he himself then followed with [the remainder of] his army. He next set free Muhammad and 'Ali, sons of Ibn Qaraman, from the prison of Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman, and invested them with the government of their country, obligating each of them to have the public prayer recited and coinage struck in his name and that of Sultan Mahmud Khan, called Surghatmish. He then spent the winter in the province of Mantasha, and devised a ruse for killing the Tatars of the army of Ibn 'Uthman who had come to him and he wiped them an out.
Abu Yazid ibn 'Uthman remained in captivity with Tamerlane from Dhu l-Hijja, 804, until he died, grieving in fetters, within Dhu I-Qa'da, 805 [June 1403], having ruled Asia Minor about nine years. He was one of the greatest monarchs, resolute, firm, and brave (God the Exalted have mercy on him); it was he who was called Yildirim Bayazid.
Tamerlane then turned back from Asia Minor, having set his hopes on taking China; but God took him before he could attain his wish. Were it not for the fear of being too prolix I would give an account of him and what happened to him on the road to China until his death (God curse him!); I refrain from doing so not only out of fear of digressing but also because I have already given the account in detail in my work Al-Manhal as-Safi," to which the reader is referred. Tamerlane died on the eve of Wednesday, Sha'ban) 17, 807 A.H. [February 19, 1405]; he was then encamped near Utrar, which is near Ahankaran; the Arabic translation of this last name is "the smiths". | ||||||||
3581 | dbpedia | 3 | 13 | https://dokumen.pub/the-turkish-war-of-independence-a-military-history-1919-1923-2021008010-2021008011-9781440878411-9781440878428.html | en | The Turkish War of Independence: a Military History, 1919 | [
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"https://dokumen.pub/img/200x200/war-in-the-east-a-military-history-of-the-russo-turkis... | [] | [] | [
""
] | null | [] | null | It is exceedingly rare to run across a major historical event that has no comprehensive English-language history, but su... | en | dokumen.pub | https://dokumen.pub/the-turkish-war-of-independence-a-military-history-1919-1923-2021008010-2021008011-9781440878411-9781440878428.html | Table of contents :
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter One: The End of World War I
Chapter Two: Call to Arms
Chapter Three: To the First Inönü Campaign
Chapter Four: The Long War against Insurgents
Chapter Five: A Short War on the Eastern Front
Chapter Six: The Franco-Turkish War
Chapter Seven: Second I˙nönü and Kütahya-Eskis¸ehir
Chapter Eight: The Culminating Point at Sakarya
Chapter Nine: Operational and Strategic Pause
Chapter Ten: The Great Offensive and the Pursuit to Izmir
Chapter Eleven: The Advance to the Straits and the Armistice
Chapter Twelve: The Treaty of Lausanne and the Establishment of the Turkish Republic
Conclusion
Appendix A: Casualties by Professor Konstantinos Travlos
Appendix B: Campaigns of the Turkish War of Independence
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Citation preview | |||||
3581 | dbpedia | 0 | 0 | https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Siege_of_Aintab | en | Siege of Aintab | https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ucp-internal-test-starter-commons/images/a/aa/FandomFireLogo.png/revision/latest?cb=20210713142711 | https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ucp-internal-test-starter-commons/images/a/aa/FandomFireLogo.png/revision/latest?cb=20210713142711 | [
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] | null | [
"Contributors to Military Wiki"
] | 2024-07-29T22:27:06+00:00 | The siege of Aintab[8][9] or siege of Antep (Turkish: Antep Savunması = Defence of Antep) was a military engagement between the Turkish National Forces and the French Colonial Forces, that occupied the city of Aintab (present day: Gaziantep). Fighting began in April 1920, when French forces... | en | /skins-ucp/mw139/common/favicon.ico | Military Wiki | https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Siege_of_Aintab | A French army officer with five Turkish prisoners. On the officer's right is a soldier of the French Colonial Forces, and on his left (wearing epaulettes) is an auxiliary from the French Armenian Legion. Total force:[3][4] [Note 1]
2.920 militia fighters,
6 machine guns,[5]
3 mountain guns[5] Total force:[3][4][Note 2]
20,000 French soldiers,[6]
1,500 Armenian soldiers,
4 tanks, 11 artillery batteries, 1,400 military animals,[5] 6 aircraft, 1 mobile hospital[5] | ||
3581 | dbpedia | 2 | 65 | http://www.armenianhouse.org/bliss/turkey/09-ottoman-power.html | en | Rise and Decline of Ottoman Power | [
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"Armenian"
] | null | [] | null | null | Edwin Munsell Bliss
TURKEY AND THE ARMENIAN ATROCITIES
Note from the administration of ArmenianHouse.org: the page numbering is preserved, so the book can be used for quoting. Also we did our best to keep the layout as close to the original as possible.
[page 164]
CHAPTER IX.
RISE AND DECLINE OF OTTOMAN POWER.
Capture of Constantinople — Victories of Mohammed II — The Sultans Assume the Caliphate — Reign of Suleiman the Magnificent — Attack upon Venice — Constant Strife over the Danubian Principalities — Internal Disorganization — Weak Sultans and Powerful Viziers — Alliances with Foreign Powers — Repeated Disasters — Weak Rule in Asia — Revolt in Egypt and Syria — Condition at Commencement of Present Century.
For a little more than half a century after the foundation of the Ottoman dynasty, the Ottomans merely formed one of the many bands of Turks who roamed over Western Asia and Southeastern Europe, plundering the Christians where they could and fighting each other in a promiscuous contest for the supremacy; always, however, showing an upward tendency. Not only were they vigorous on the battle-field, but shrewd in their policies. The close of the Seljuk dynasty was the signal for the division of the once famous empire of Rum. One by one these divisions fell into the hands of the new Sultans; some by conquest, some by purchase, some by politics, until they were by far the most powerful element in that whole section. The weakening of the Byzantine Empire, and its practical loss of power over the Danubian provinces, tempted these Turks across the Dardanelles, and they measured swords with the Serbs, Wallachs and others. Under Amurath, the founder of the
[page 165] CAPTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
Janissaries, they became a terror to all, and the flag, whose red color was established by himself as token of the blood that flowed wherever they went, was flaunted in the very face of Christian Emperors. Then, however, came a check; Timour-Lenk (Timour the Lame, Tamerlane), who had risen against his Sultan in the small canton of Trans-Oxiana, gathered to his standard the semi-barbarous tribes of Turkestan, spread through Khorassan, Persia, Georgia and Southern Russia; then south through Armenia and Mesopotamia into India. Then he turned again westward, and, influenced not a little, perhaps, by the presence in his court of some Turkish princes, deposed by the Ottoman Sultans, he captured Syria, and just as Bajazet was under the walls of Constantinople he heard that his own kingdoms were in danger. At the famous battle of Konieh (Iconium) the Ottoman power was broken; but with the death of Timour his empire went to pieces and the Ottoman line again resumed its power. For another half century advance was made even more rapidly than before, and on either side of the Bosporus and Dardanelles the arms of the Turks were victorious.
The capture of Constantinople, which followed in 1453, really marked the beginning of the Turkish Empire. The series of forays, with the occasional capture of an important city or even of a province in Asia Minor or the Balkan Peninsula, had become an organized campaign for the subjugation of the whole of Western Asia and Southeastern Europe. More than that, an entire change in form of government became necessary. Hitherto all of government that there had been was that of the army, and pertained to the immediate Moslem followers of the Sultan. The various tribes or nations who yielded to his arms, but refused to accept Islam, really had no
[page 166] NOW AN EMPEROR.
relation whatever to his rule. They paid what tribute was demanded, but there was no such thing as regular civil government. When, however, Constantinople was captured, this condition could no longer continue. It was essential that there be some definite relation arranged between the Sultan and the large class of Greeks who had come to form so important a part of the empire. He realized that the whole position was changed; that he was no longer merely a general, but an emperor, and an emperor over a very heterogeneous empire.
To begin with, there were the Greeks in Constantinople, all through Western Asia Minor and in Europe; there were the Armenians, scarcely recognized as a distinct people, with at the time no government of their own, scarcely more than a race, an ecclesiastical unit, held together by their church relations, and with a sort of tribal organization; there was the Syrian Church in its varied forms, Nestorian and Jacobite; there were the different branches of the Slav race, all combined under the Greek Church. Undoubtedly Mohammed II, would have been glad to have made them all Moslem. That, however, he could not do, and very possibly he realized that while such a course might flatter his pride, it would not be so advantageous for his treasury, for he collected taxes from Christians which Moslems would refuse to pay. Still, there must be some method arranged by which these different nationalities should not only have their existence recognized, but should be allowed a certain development with a view to the strengthening of the empire.
During the century that had elapsed since the Ottoman dynasty began, the various Sultans had come into contact with the forms of Roman government. They had taken advantage
[page 167] CHURCH AND STATE.
of it in arranging for Moslems within the territories of the Greek Emperors, and the Roman system of one law for the citizen, another for the foreigner, was perfectly familiar to them. Mohammed adopted this principle, and basing it upon the idea, which dominates the whole growth of Moslem power, of absolute union of Church and State, developed the system which has governed in all that region until the present day, and established a series of communities centering about the different ecclesiastical leaders. Although it was not till a later date that the Sultans assumed the title of Caliph, they had practically ruled as Caliphs among their Moslem subjects. The same principle Mohammed II applied to the Christians of his empire. Recognizing the Greek Patriarch at Constantinople as the centre of authority, he called to that office the head of the party, which under the last Constantine had opposed a union with the Latin Church, and thereby, as he thought, had made his own conquest easier, and confirmed him in the dignity of the double office, civil and religious, which he was to exercise over his people. He associated with him the clergy and learned men of the church, and treated them with marked indulgence. He instituted a court, giving the rank of Vizier to the Patriarch and granting to him a guard of Janissaries. He established a system of government by which all community and social rights and duties were vested in the Patriarchate, which had sole authority in cases of marriage contracts, legacies, wills, divorces, and even had absolute authority in criminal matters, except such as directly involved the Sultan’s authority. Thus there grew up a distinct community life involving a national life. The principle of the Moslem being that there could be no legitimate relations between himself
[page 168] COMMUNAL RIGHTS.
and the non-Moslem, there were accorded to these all the various community or communal rights. They had their own quarter of the city, town or village; their own shops, butchers, bakers, tailors; their own mills as well as their own churches. True, there was demanded of them a heavy tax, the regular capitation or poll tax, and the kharadj or military exemption tax, demanded of every non-Moslem male from the age of three years. These taxes were by no means light, and it was the general principle of the government to so administer them as to impress it very clearly upon the unbeliever that his condition was abject, and that even his life was a mark of the Sultan’s favor. Still, there was a certain independence, and the Greeks gathered again to their city, and the wiser of the Sultans that followed Mohammed II carried out the idea of developing rather than of fiercely oppressing these communities.
With this granting of communal rights to the Greeks came in due time the recognition of the same principle in the case of the other Christians, and each was represented at the Sublime Porte by its Patriarch, with the various attendants of bishops and clergy.
One marked result of this course was to intensify the separation between these different nationalities. The communities of Greeks, Armenians and Syrians being so distinct, there arose more or less of strife between them as to which should secure the greater privileges and develop the most of community life. Hence the original hostilities arising out of the differences of creed and worship were emphasized rather than lessened, and whether intentionally or not, there grew up the custom under the Sultans of ruling in a great degree by force of jealousies between different classes of their subjects.
[page 169] DISTURBING INFLUENCES.
This general principle adopted in Constantinople was carried out in minor detail all through the empire. In every city Christians were organized into their communities and the ecclesiastical head, whatever he might be, whether bishop or priest or deacon, was recognized by the local government as the civil head of his community. Appeals could be made to his higher ecclesiastical authorities, and the whole power of the Turkish Government was brought to bear to enforce the decrees of these semi-civil, semi-ecclesiastical rulers.
It was not, however an easy thing to develop any system of this kind throughout the empire. Among the disturbing influences was the confiscation of the lands of the great Greek families and their transformation into fiefs’, which were conferred on distinguished warriors who held them on condition of serving the Sultan with a certain number of followers, helped to solidify the empire, but operated very heavily to repress the Christians. It left them at the mercy of these feudal chiefs, and the situation during the centuries that followed was one of increasing oppression. This was assisted by the degradation of their own priesthood. Their position as civil representatives of their people detracted more and more from their spiritual teaching, and they became addicted to all sorts of intrigues.
Two notable results followed. One was the formation of bands of freebooters in the mountain regions, who preyed upon the plain villages in proportion as the feudal lords were careless or weak; the other was the gradual dispersion of these Christian communities. This affected the Armenians more than any others. They wandered here and there over the empire in search of some place where they should be left unmolested. It was about this time that they established
[page 170] EXTENDING CONQUEST.
their quasi-kingdom at Sis in Cilicia, and spread over the plains of Northern Syria and of Central Asia Minor. Their kingdom had a short life, and the effect of their wandering from the ancestral home was to bring them still more under the oppression of the Turks, so that they even lost the ordinary use of their language.
Of the events that followed the capture of Constantinople it is impossible here to do more than to give the very briefest summary, and emphasize only such points as are most essential to the understanding of the situation as it is to-day. First came the extending of conquest, and during the thirty years that followed the capture of Constantinople, it seemed as if more had been done than at any time before. Servia yielded; then came Greece, although the famous Scanderbeg held his own in Albania. More than one historian has suggested that the effort to subdue him was only half-hearted out of regard for his bravery and for the memories of his early life with the Turks. Then Wallachia yielded and the people of Transylvania found the Moslem no severer ruler than Wlad, called by his subjects Drakul (the devil). Bosnia yielded its rule next, and war spread on southward and westward against the Albanians and Venetians. Meanwhile the princes of Karaman, who for a century and a half had held a varying rule in Central Asia Minor, were finally subdued and the Sultan’s power over what is now Asiatic Turkey was practically complete. Again he turned to Europe, crossed the Dardanelles, took Moldavia and captured the Crimea, which had for a time been under the Khans of that country, though they had in turn yielded to a Christian republic, which had maintained itself for some time with its capital, the most important town of the northern Black Sea coast. Always,
[page 171] THE SULTAN’S EXALTATION.
however, there was the outlook westward, and although Venice checked the advance of the Ottomans, they still threw themselves upon Transylvania and made incursions into Hungary and Italy, and Mohammed II closed his reign with an attack upon Rhodes, which, however, was repulsed.
From the death of Mohammed II, in 1481, to the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, in 1520, there were expeditions into Hungary and Moldavia, and war with Venice and Persia, but no great additions to the Ottoman domain. This, however, was more than made up by the conquest of Syria and Egypt. The significance of these conquests was great as mere territorial enlargement of the empire, but more important still were the attendant influences which resulted in placing the Turkish Sultans at the head of the Moslem world. The last Mameluke Sultan, of Egypt, was hanged at the gate of Cairo in 1517, and Sultan Selim passed a month longer in that capital presiding at two great Egyptian ftes — the opening of the Cairo Canal, and the departure of the annual caravan for Mecca, and received from the Sherif of Mecca the keys of the Kaaba. His army, however, became restless and he returned to Constantinople. To that city he summoned Mohammed XII, the last representative of the Abbas-side Caliphs, to whom the rulers of Egypt had always given the honorary title. Selim required of him to relinquish the rights and distinctive ensigns of the Caliphate, the standard, the sword and the mantle of the prophet, and assumed the political and religious chieftainship of Islam. This conquest of Egypt and the assumption of the Caliphate attracted the alarm of European powers and resulted in treaties with Venice and Hungary. A second attack on Rhodes was
[page 172] SULEIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT.
planned, but not carried out, and in 1520 Selim gave place to his son Suleiman the Magnificent.
The reign of Suleiman from 1520 to 1566, deserves more than a passing mention. It was the golden age of the Turkish rule, when the empire reached its greatest extent and achieved its highest success; when all Europe was either dreading its advance or treating for its assistance. But it was also noticeable for its internal organization, which remained until Mahmud II, under the pressure of the altered circumstances of 250 years later, made changes which have resulted in the present system.
The relations between Turkey and the European powers, inaugurated practically during this reign, will be treated of later. Here it is the purpose to survey the general history of that reign. The first act was the suppression of a revolt along the Danube, and Belgrade was taken, its Serb population being transferred to Constantinople in pursuance of a policy inaugurated by Mohammed II for the building up of that city. Then the Sultan turned his eyes to Rhodes, and with a fleet of 300 vessels and 100,000 men undertook its capture. For five months the Grand Master of the Knights held out, but was finally forced to yield, and betook himself with his men to Malta, where they planned anew the war against the Koran. Next to Rhodes, Hungary was the great object of the Sultan’s ambition, and it was only a few years later that he made vast preparations for an invasion. At the battle of Mohacz, in 1526, the Hungarian kingdom was destroyed, and on the 10th of September Suleiman entered Budapesth.
Revolts in Asia, however, called back the Sultan, though the war continued in Hungary, and a second expedition was
[page 173] ATTACK ON VIENNA.
started three years later. It was the Turkish theory that any place in which the Sultan had slept was within the bounds of his empire, and accordingly again Budapesth was occupied; this time, however, merely as a vantage ground from which to attack Vienna itself. The history of the defense of the Austrian capital is one of the most brilliant in the military history of Central Europe during that century. Notwithstanding the overwhelming power of the Turks, with their army of 300,000 men and 300 cannon, besides a strong flotilla, the Austrians, reinforced by the Protestants — so-called since the protest at Spires in the spring of that year — resolved to defend the place. The city walls were weak and out of repair, and the Sultan apparently thought conquest easy, for he sent a message that if the garrison would surrender he would not even enter the town, but press on in search of the emperor; if they resisted he would dine in Vienna on the third day, and then he would not spare even the child in the womb. They, however, would not yield, and he never entered. The bravery of the troops who gathered from every part of Germany, assisted by the valor of the citizens, repulsed the Turks again and again, and, as the season was advancing, the Sultan returned to Constantinople. A third expedition resulted again in a most humiliating disgrace; 350,000 Turks, led by the Sultan himself, were detained more than three weeks by a garrison of about 700 men at a little town in Styria. Germany amassed all its forces, and now there came in the influence of Western Europe. France had already made advances to the Turkish Government, and Venice, seeking protection for her commerce, had entered into treaty, and both of them through their ambassadors advised the Sultan, with a weakened army, not to meet the well-organized troops of Charles
[page 174] INTERNAL HISTORY.
V. The expedition, therefore, was reluctantly withdrawn, to be renewed again later, and again given up when a general truce was arranged with the German power. Meanwhile, however, Barbarossa had come in conflict with the Venetian Doria, and the Italian shore was threatened by the Turkish troops. But no great gains were made, and at the death of Suleiman, in 1566, no positive advance had been registered. The internal history of the empire was in some respects more important than the external. Suleiman is known among the Ottomans as the Legislator. He organized the Ulemas, altered the system of fiefs, and arranged matters of finance, justice, civil and penal law, and the various departments of his empire. The general principle of land tenure was based upon the doctrine that the soil belonged to God, and thus to his representative, the Sultan. It was, however, apart from that reserved for the Sultan himself, divided into three classes; land occupied by Mussulmans after the conquest, subject only to the tithes; land let to conquered populations, especially Rayahs (non-Moslem subjects), who, aside from the tithe, paid capitation and exemption taxes; and the domains given by the Sultan as military rewards under the arrangement inaugurated by Amurath I. In general, the principle of the collection of taxes had been to make them as onerous as possible. Suleiman recognized the unwisdom of this, and introduced various modifications, which had the effect of lessening the harshness, and at the same time of increasing the revenues. He also looked very closely after the fiefs, demanding that only the smaller ones should be under the control of the governors of provinces; that the larger ones must be referred to Constantinople. This last order had special reference to the taxes levied by these governors upon the peasants. Notwith-
[page 175] PAYMENT FOR CRIME.
standing this organized system of revenue, the income was not sufficient, and additional contributions of one kind and another were laid, especially upon conquered provinces, such as Hungary and Transylvania, which resulted in the almost utter destruction of their prosperity. In the matter of crime, corporal punishment was sparingly inflicted. Almost every crime could be atoned for by the payment of a fine. Notwithstanding the brilliant success achieved, it was in this very reign that the decadence of Moslem rule commenced. The heavy expenses of the various wars, and of the organization of the empire, had a great influence in bringing about a condition of venality which rapidly sapped the strength of the government. Suleiman saw it, but allowed it to pass, only taking care that it did not interfere with his army. His power over the army, however, weakened. It had hitherto been the custom that the Janissaries should never enter war except under the personal lead of the Sultan. This privilege was withdrawn. Their numbers also were recruited by adventurers of every kind, and the general discipline was weakened by allowing them to marry, follow trades, and become stationary in the garrisons, where they were practically citizens, merchants, operators, etc. In the general conduct of the government also, the Sultan no longer presided over the Cabinet Meeting or Divan, as it was called. He confined himself more and more to his palace, and came under the effeminating influence of a luxury carried to such an extent that the surroundings of the Christian princes of Europe paled before the pomp of the Moslem Court. The formal condemnation by the Koran of such luxury was passed by entirely, the simplicity of manners to which the empire owed its advance was greatly corrupted; the use of wine became quite common,
[page 176] CHRONIC WAR.
and the use of coffee, just introduced, was carried to excess. The result was that in every department of the government there were sown the seeds of the weakness that manifested itself, with occasional exceptions, in the history of the succeeding two and one-half centuries.
The history of the following years, aside from the relations with the European Governments, must be passed over very briefly. They include expeditions to Arabia, the conquest of Cyprus in 1570, the battle of Lepanto, when the fleets of Europe — Spanish, Italian and Venetian — blotted out the Turkish marine, and freed the Mediterranean coast from the terror of their devastations. This was, however, somewhat compensated for by the capture of Tunis. There was chronic war with Hungary and Persia, that with the latter power resulting in the addition to the Ottoman Power of Georgia and a considerable portion of Northern and Southeastern Persia. The whole Balkan Peninsula was in a chronic state of revolt and subjugation. There were powerful Sultans, such as Amurath I, and great viziers, as the Kuprulis. At times the Turkish successors threatened again the peace of Europe, but they were generally used by one and another government, particularly France, as a check to the encroachments of enemies.
In 1669, “the Ottoman Empire included forty governments and four tributary countries: in Europe all Greece, Illyria, Maesia, Macedonia, Pannonia, Thrace and Dacia; the kingdoms of Pyrrhus and Perseus; the states of Treballi and the Bulgarians: in Africa the kingdom of the Ptolemies, with the territory of Carthage and Numidia: in Asia the kingdoms of Mithridates, Antiochus, Attalus, Prusias, Herod and Tigranes; those of the obscure sovereigns of Cappadocia,
[page 177] SOBIESKI’S ASSISTANCE.
Cilicia and Comagena; the territories of the Iberians and the Scythians, and a portion of the empire of the Parthians. Without reckoning the Greek Republics and the Tyrian colony, there were twenty kingdoms included in these forty governments, from the Syrtes to the Caucasus, and to the countries watered by the Hydaspes.”
To these territories was added the lower part of Russia, held by the Cossacks of the Ukraine, who voluntarily submitted to the Sultan’s rule as protection against the Russians and Poland. This occasioned the war with Poland, when the Poles were led by John Sobieski. The famous general, Kara Mustapha, in 1683, sought to rival the conquests of Suleiman, and with an army more powerful than any the Turks had ever sent from Constantinople, determined to besiege Vienna. The Austrian king called for Sobieski’s assistance, and secured it notwithstanding the intrigues of Louis XIV, who vainly sought to convince the Pole that his real enemies were in Austria, and in that power of the north whom the Dutch papers had begun to call “ His Russian Majesty.” Loyal to his religion, however, Sobieski went to the aid of Vienna. His cavalry, aided by that of the Germans, put the Turks to flight after more than 10,000 of their troops had been left on the field of battle. Then came a panic, and the Turks fled in disorder, leaving an immense booty to the victors. Of this the King of Poland received as his share 4,000,000 florins, while arms studded with precious stones, and banners and treasures to a very heavy amount, were divided among the victors.
The war with Austria developed into the war against the Holy Alliance, a league against the Turks, under the protection of the Pope, and formed by the Emperor of Austria, the
[page 178] PEACE OF CARLOWITZ.
King of Poland, and the Republic of Venice, to which also the Czar was invited. This war went on with varying fortunes until the peace of Carlowitz, in 1699. This period included the rule of the famous Kupruli Mustapha Pasha, one of the most successful and most noted of the Macedonian family, which supplied five viziers to the Ottoman throne. He was probably one of the most intelligent, courageous and humane statesmen of Turkey, and his death in battle was regretted alike by Christians and Turks, who named him Kupruli the Virtuous. The tide, however, had set against Turkey, and under the influence of William of Orange the intrigues of Louis XIV, were set aside, and Turkey signed the peace of Carlowitz. By this Hungary and Transylvania were ceded to Austria, with the exception only of a small territory. Poland recovered Ukraine and Podolia; Russia retained Azof; Venice on her part gave up her conquests to the north of the Gulf of Corinth and almost the whole of Dalmatia, and all the tributes paid by the Christian powers to the Ottoman courts were abolished.
This was the first great gap made in the Ottoman Empire, and from this time it ceased to be an object of dread in Europe. Hitherto it had been isolated and owed its greatness to that fact in considerable degree. Now it was dominated by its allies and had to submit to the influence of ambitious neighbors or interested friends. Its decline could no longer be hindered, and already there was upon its borders that power of the north, which, by gaining an entrance to the Black Sea, commenced really its European life.
The example of Kupruli the Virtuous was followed by Kupruli the Wise, who immediately set himself about improving the general condition of the empire. In the European
[page 179 - illustration]
[page 180 - illustration]
[page 181] SULTAN’S RULE NOMINAL.
provinces he favored his Christian subjects in regard to the payment of arrears of taxes, and in Syria he gave them freedom of pasturage for flocks. The Mussulmans under the general influences of the time retrograded in their devotion to their religion, and he strove by every means to recall them to the study and practice of that religion, but failed to keep a a hold even upon the Moslem leaders, and yielded his life to their intrigues. This was about the commencement of the eighteenth century, and through that century the history, so far as the immediate empire itself is concerned, is a varying one. It commenced with a time of peace, under the diminution of French influence and a general disregard of the Russian power. That, however, under Peter the Great, commenced aggressions that soon aroused Mussulman pride, which, irritated at the appearance of the infidel on the Black Sea, hitherto regarded as sacred to Islam, declared war. This resulted in the restoration of Azof to the Ottoman Government and the shutting out of Russia from the Black Sea. More and more, however, the influence of European politics (dwelt upon more in detail in another chapter) was evident in internal disturbances, which had their effect not merely upon Christians, but upon Moslems, and Russian intrigue played an increasingly powerful part in the general development of the empire.
Even throughout Asiatic Turkey the rule of the Sultan was scarcely more than nominal. The province of Bagdad was practically independent, furnished no revenues, and, although a certain suzerainty of the Sultan was acknowledged, even war with a European power brought no troops, which were held to be necessary as a defense against the Arabs. Throughout Eastern Turkey there were whole nations or tribes of
[page 182] THE MAMELUKES.
people independent of the Sultan and his pashas, and the Pasha of Trebizond was master of the whole country. Aghas, or independent lords, maintained armies even up to the borders of Smyrna, and the mountains throughout Asia Minor and the Lebanon were perfectly independent. Most of them, aside from the Armenians and Greeks, were Moslems, yet not a few sectaries, as Kurds and the Metawelis, united religious to political hostility. On the coast of Syria, only the ports were under strong Turkish rule, and caravans from Alexandretta to Aleppo dared not cross the mountains because of the Kurds. At this same time was developed the power of the Mamelukes in Egypt, under the famous Ali Bey, who joined with him an Arab chief, and dominated pretty nearly all of Syria. In 1770 the empire seemed near its dismemberment. The Russians held the Danube and Azof, Georgia was in rebellion, even Damascus was threatened, and Ali Pasha, of Janina, was laying the foundations of his power in Albania. The next step downward was the treaty of Kainardji in 1774, which gave Crimea to the Czar, accorded the navigation of the Black Sea to Russia, and ceded a portion of the Caucasus. True, some of the Danube provinces were regained, but this was of comparatively little moment. Another peace, that of Jassy, signalized an additional step in the same downward direction. Constantly there were increasing disorders in administration. The Sultans were less and less men of ability, dominated by the Janissaries or by the ecclesiastics, and Turkey became the football of the various strifes for predominance in Europe.
The present century opened with another war with Russia, when the latter invaded the Danubian principalities, taking advantage of a revolt of the Servians.
Table of Contents | The Cover, Frontispiece, Title Page, Copyright Notice, etc.
Introduction | Preface | Turkey in Asia (map) | Table of Contents (as in the book)
List of Illustrations | 1. The Turkish Empire | 2. Population and Languages | 3. Religions
4. The Turks | 5. The Kurds | 6. The Armenians | 7. The Greeks | 8. Other Oriental Churches
9. Rise and Decline of Ottoman Power | 10. Turkey and Europe | 11. Russia and Turkey
12. Mahmud II | 13. Reform and Progress | 14. Treaties of Paris and Berlin
15. Condition of the Christians | 16. The Turkish Government | 17. Protestant Missions in Turkey
18. The Armenian Question | 19. General Situation in 1894 | 20. The Sassun Massacre
21. Politics and Massacre at Constantinople | 22. Massacres at Trebizond and Erzrum
23. Massacres in Harput District | 24. Aintab, Marash and Urfa | 25. Character of the Massacres
26. Religious Persecution | 27. Relief Work | 28. Partition of Turkey | 29. America and Turkey
30. General Survey | Alphabetical Index | ||||||||
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During the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878 the Russian troops gained victories both on the Balkan and the Caucasian fronts. In the Balkans, the Russian troops occupied Bulgaria and advanced to the outskirts of Istanbul, while on the Caucasian war stage, they took Ardahan, Bayazet, Alashkert, Kars and Erzurum, i.e., a considerable segment of Western Armenia, as well as Batumi. The Turks had to terminate the war operations and seek for peace. The Peace Treaty between Russia and the Ottoman Empire was signed on March 3, 1878, in the township of San Stefano in the vicinity of Istanbul. It verified the victories, gained with the Russian weapon. In the Treaty of San Stefano a special Paragraph 16 was added about the application of reforms in Western Armenia. It read, âTaking into account that the withdrawal of the Russian troops from the territories of Armenia, occupied by them and bound to be returned to Turkey, may cause clashes and complications there, which may harm the good relations between the two states, the Sublime Porte undertakes to immediately carry out improvements and reforms in the provinces, inhabited by Armenians, proceeding from the local needs, as well as to ensure the Armeniansâ security from Kurds and Circassians.â The Treaty of San Stefano was the victory of the Russian diplomacy, and it seriously worried its European opponents, who feared that the Ottoman Empire would become totally dependent on Russia, and the strategic balance in the Eastern Question would change in favor of the Russian Empire. This contradicted their interests, and they would never let it happen. England and Austria-Hungary, which enjoyed Germanyâs and German chancellor Bismarckâs support, were particularly active in this matter. These forces managed to achieve an agreement on convening an ad hoc congress to revise the Treaty of San Stefano. The Congress met in Berlin on June 13, 1878, presided over by Bismarck. England and Austria-Hungary, supported by Germany, France and Italy, succeeded in that the decisions of San Stefano were revised, Russiaâs positions were weakened, while their own positions and influence on the Ottoman Empire, vice versa, was reinforced. By the decision of the Congress, Russia returned Alashkert with the valley and Bayazet (Erzurum had been returned before) to Turkey. Ardahan, Kars, as well as Batumi remained with Russia. The Treaty of Berlin contained a specific Paragraph 61, all dedicated to the Armenian Question. It, however, differed from Paragraph 16 of the Treaty of San Stefano in several very principal aspects, and this not to the benefit of Armenians. If, under the Treaty of San Stefano, the reforms in Western Armenia were to be carried out in the presence of the Russian troops, which presented a certain guarantee of said implementation, now, under the Treaty of Berlin, the Russian troops were withdrawn to leave everything to the discretion of the âbloodthursty Sultanâ. He only claimed responsibility to periodically report on his undertakings to the European Powers. The latter acquired supervising functions. In other words, by the Treaty of Berlin, the mechanisms for reforms in Western Armenia, suggested by San Stefano, were destroyed, and no other realistic offers put forward instead. After the Congress of Berlin, the Sultan and the ruling clique got reinforced in their conviction that the best solution for the Armenian Question was extermination of the Armenians. At that point they saw in this an actual means of precluding of the intervention of the European Powers in Empire's internal affairs. In their eyes, The Armenian Question, the reforms question in the Armenian regions was used by those Powers as a pretext to meddle in the internal affairs of Turkey. Therefore it was necessary to eliminate the pretext and deprive the Powers of the opportunity to extort concessions from the Empire.
1891
Paradoxical was the fact that the powers entrusted the Sultan âto ensure Armeniansâ security from Kurds and Circassiansââ, whereas the Sultan himself was the principal instigator of all the anti-Armenian deeds of the Kurds and Circassians. A perfect example of this is that, right after the Congress of Berlin of 1891, by the order of Abdul Hamid II, a cavalry, named âHamidieâ after the Sultan, in which only Kurds were enlisted, was set up and kept at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. It consisted of 30 regiments which were not integrated in the system of the Ottoman army and were kept as a separate military unit, located in the Armenian town of Erzinkan. The foremost goal of the âHamidieâ was to organize carnages of Armenians all throughout the Empire, which they executed perfectly in 1894-1896 and during the ensuing Armenian massacres
1894-1896
The apex of the Armenian massacres, committed by the Ottoman Empire at the end of the XIX century, were the slaughters of 1894-1896. The first blow struck Sasun, a province in the vilayet of Bitlis, which had long been known for its steadfast will to withstand Turkish tyranny. In August of 1894, the fourth Turkish Army marched on Sasun. The forces were unequal, and the regular Turkish army eventually won. Sasun was demolished, 40 villages were leveled, and 10 thousand people killed. In September 1895 Armenian massacres began in the capital city, and then also in Trabzon, Erzinka, Marash, Sebastia, Erzerum, Diyarbekir, Bayazid, Kharberd and elsewhere. The Sultanâs authorities tried unsuccessfully to organize pogroms in Zeytun too, but the local inhabitants had taken prior necessary measures to resist the threatening Turkish troops. Carnages started with new conviction in 1896. Massacres took place in Constantinople, Urfa, Shapin-Garahisar, Amasia, Mush, Marzvan and in other regions, towns and villages of the Empire During the 1894-1986 massacres, approximately 300,000 Armenians were killed. But the losses of Armenians were sadly not confined to this horror alone. In these unspeakably desperate times, around 100,000 Armenians were forcibly Islamized, while the same number were expelled from their native land
1908, July 10
Groupings emerged with the aim of unseating the Sultan and his authoritarian regime. Gradually uniting the groupings turned into a movement, receiving the name "Young Turks". Soon the "Young Turks" founded their own party - Ittihad ve Terakki, or "Union and Progress". The idea of overthrowing the bloodthirsty Sultan was growing in popularity; the Young Turks were the ones to effect it. On July 23, 1908, the Committee of Union and Progress organized a coup. Sultan Abdul Hamid II was deprived of power; and in 1909 he was dethroned. The Young Turks came onto the arena under the slogans of the French Revolution: âLiberty, Equality, Fraternityâ. All the nations in the Empire, Moslem or Christian, vigorously welcomed the overthrow of the âred Sultanâ. The people believed that a new era in the history of the Ottoman Empire had dawned. Armenians thought so, too. As evidenced by Moussa Prince, âArmenians, Turks, and Greeks were hugging each other in the streetsâ in euphoria. Yet, shortly after this, it turned out that the Young Turks were well disguised ardent nationalists, who continued the policy of oppressions and slaughters carried out by the preceding Sultans. They were advocates of the idea of assimilation of all the nations of the Empire to create a âpureâ Turkish nation, never even stopping at mass slaughters in order to achieve that goal.
April, 1909
Only a year after the Young Turk Revolution, in April 1909, Turkish chauvinist figures in the town of Adana, in Cilicia, incited a crowd/throng to commit wholesale atrocities against the local Armenian population. Only after a few days did the the Turkish army intervene. From Adana the massacre spread on to other Armenian settlements - from Marash to Kesab. In some regions Armenians turned to self-defense and managed to survive. The massacres raged on for a month, resulting in the death of over thirty thousand Armenians. Having initially supported the Young Turk Revolution with enthusiasm, Armenians for the first time faced serious doubts and fear for this new proto-fascist regime.
1910
Undertaking the construction and use of the railway that traversed the Ottoman Empire in the end of the XIX and in the beginning of XX century, Germany strived to assume control over the Ottoman Empire, in order to contain the position of England in India and Egypt, as well as weaken Russiaâs position in the Caucasus. Germany connected the construction of the Baghdad railway also with its economic and military-political ambitions in Western Armenia. Within the German political agenda it was thought that in order to establish Turkish homogeneity in North-Eastern Anatolia, it would be necessary to resettle Armenians in the are of the Baghdad railway construction, which then would achieve two important goals: the actual construction of the railway, which would be provided with skilful and qualified manpower, and the attenuation of Russian influence in Western Armenia. Particularly, the well-known German political scientist Paul Raurbach thought that âNative Armenians should be moved from Western Armenia, and in their place be settled Muslims brought from Trachea and Russia. In this case Armenia would be separated from Russia at once.â Raurbach suggested relocating Western Armenians to Mesopotamia, which in his mind would contribute to the âeconomic development of the roadâ. This viewpoint of Germans became a basis for the Young Turkish policy of annihilating the Armenians in their homeland.
1911
The Young Turkish decision to solve the Armenian Question through genocide was finally adopted in the beginning of 1910s at a number of secret sessions and conferences of the Union and Progress Partyâs Central Committee. In this regards the 1911 Salonika conference stood out,where the leadership explicitly decided to Turkify all the non-Turkish nations of the Empire. This most acutely impacted the Armenians throughout the Empireâs territories. The decisions made at the conference became the official strategy of the policy adopted by Young Turks. Secret orders were then signed by Talaat and sent to the Empireâs local authorities in order for them to take prior necessary measures for exterminating the Armenians.
1912-1913
The Balkan Wars (the first one from October 1912 through May 1913, and the second one from June 1913 through August 1913), waged between the Balkan Alliance and Turkey, resulted in the aggravation of international relations in the Balkans and in the whole of Europe, thus accelerating the unleashing of the World War. Ottoman Turkey's defeat during the first Balkan War prepared grounds for the revisiting of the Armenian Question, as a result of which the Reforms Question of Western Armenia was once again alive. Thanks to the efficient participation of Armenian public circles and the Russian government, this human rights issue became a discussion point of international diplomacy.
July 1914
The congress of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation was held in Erzerum. One could already feel the spirit of the imminent war in the air, and the Federation had convened to decide on its position in case war broke out. Learning of the congress, the Young Turk authorities sent two representatives- Naji Bey and Shakir Behaeddin, who occupied important positions in their party. At the congress they laid the following demands to Armenians on behalf of the Union and Progress party; first, the congress should declare on behalf of all Armenians that both the Armenians of Turkey and the Armenians of Russia would stay loyal to Turkey in case of war; second,that they were to form Armenians detachments to fight against Russians, third, they should foment a revolt in the Caucasus and behind the lines of the Russian army. At the same time they declared that âIf Armenians were to hold such positions, after the war they would be given the right to establish an independent state on certain territories of Turkey and Russiaâ. In response to the Young Turk demands, the congress declared that in case of war the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire and the Armenians of Russia would appear in two different camps, as they are the subjects of two different states and are loyal to them. Regarding the issue of raising a revolt in Caucasus, the congress emphasized in its decision that âthe congress cannot speak on behalf of the Armenians of Russia, as they are the subjects of another stateâ. Along with this, the congress explicitly stated in its decision that âin case the Turkish government decides to join the war, Armenians of Turkey would carry out their responsibilities put on them as Turkish subjects â to serve the country in the army, protect the country just like the other subjects of the Empireâ. It was not easy to make such a decision for it meant fraternal war for Armenians, as the Armenians of Russia would likewise tend to their duties. However, the Young Turk representatives were dissatisfied with the decisions of the congress, as they had rejected the Young Turk desires of the Armenians of Russia to rise in revolt against Russia . As such, the enraged Shakir Behaeddin, later to be remembered as one of the most active organizers and butchers during the Armenian Genocide, exclaimed at the congress âThis is high treason!â.
August - October 1914
On August 1, 1914, World War I broke out. It lasted for four years, and involved 33 states. The principal role-players, however, were two hostile military-political alliances, formed at the turn of the century: The Entente, with England, France and Russia representing the core nations, and the Central Powers â Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy, with Turkey to join later. 1.5 billion people, or 75% of the world population, was drawn into the war, with over 74 million people mobilized. The death toll amounted to 10 million, plus another 20 million injured in the military operations during various episodes of the war. The Ottoman Empire, ruled by the Young Turk triumvirate â Minister of Interior Talat, Minister of War Enver, and Minister of the Navy Jemal--officially joined in the war on October 29, 1914. Months later in an interview given to the American press Enver Pasha gave the following reasons for Turkeyâs participation: âItâs beyond doubt that the world has difficulties in perceiving that Turkey is no longer what it used to be. Itâs not the Turkish government, but the Turkish nation that is at war today. The newspapers of France, Great Britain and Russia write a lot that Turkey joined the war to help Germany. It is true for the moment, but is not for when we were recruiting our forces. Today Austria-Hungary and Germany help us and we help them. We joined the war, because there was no other way out. â¦Russia threatens to seize our territories in the Black Sea and in the Caucasus, while England started military operations against Messopotamia and has placed a navy at the mouth of the Dardanelles. We waited for another week and then we declared a war. Presently Turkey has a well-prepared and armed army of 2,000,000 soldiers. We have been so much doubted and insinuated, that now we wish to persuade the world by arms that ethnically we are not dead, as some insistâ. /Interview given to âAssociated Pressâ, 20 April, 1915/.
November 1914
When Turkey joined in the war and mobilization was announced, Western Armenians, like the other peoples of the Empire, were called to the army.
1915
First violent acts committed against Armenians under the guise of the War
January 2
After the withdrawal of Russian troops most of the Armenian and Assyrian refugees going from Urmia, Salmast and other surrounding settlements to Nor Jugha were attacked and killed by Turkish and Kurdish armed forces. January 12 Slaughter of 107 Armenians took place in the village of Avgharik.
February
For implementing the Armenian Genocide in an organized and merciless manner, the Union and Progress Partyâs Central Committee formed the âExecutive Committee of Threeâ in February 1914, comprised of Doctor Nazim, Shakir Behaeddin and Midhat Shyukri. The Young Turk Triumvirate â Talaat, Enver and Jemal - operated through this committee, which was responsible for the implementation of the deportation and massacre of all the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire. The committee, which had top-level authorization, had resolved all the technical problems connected with deporting and exterminating Armenians â the deportation dates according to regions, the deportation routes and places, the concentration camps for their ultimate annihilation, etc. Doctor Nazim, one of the most important Young Turk leaders and one of the organizers of the Armenian Genocide, made a speech at a secret session of the party, when the final decision to exterminate Armenians was made, stating, âThe Armenian nation should be entirely exterminated, so that no Armenian is left in our country and that their name be completely forgotten. Now we are at war and no other such occasion will ever occur. The intervention of the European Powers and the loud protests of the World Press will remain unnoticed, and if they learn about it, they will face a fait accompli and the question will disappear. This time our operations should be directed at total extermination of the Armenians. It is necessary to annihilate them all, till the very last man...I want the Turk and the Turk only to live and impartially rule over this country. Let all the non-Turkish elements go to hell, no matter what nationality or religion they may belong toâ. The so-called âTeshkilat mahsuseâ, or âSpecial Organizationâ that was established by the decision of the Young Turk party was put at the disposal of the âCommittee of Threeâ and was resposible for implementing the Armenian Genocide. The leader of the organization was Shakir Behaeddin. âTeshkilat mahsuseâ was formed from criminals freed from prisons for this very purpose, chetens â bands of robbers, bandits and other dregs of society that were capable of and called upon to commit the most hideous of crimes.
February 12
The beginning of the dismissal of Armenian officials, imprisonment of Armenian officers of the Ottoman army, and formation of labor detachments comprised of disarmed Armenian soldiers.
February 18
The Regional delagates of the party are informed about the decision and the plan to exterminate Armenians with letters signed by the plenipotentiary of the Young Turk Central Committee, Behaeddin Shakir.
February 19
The slaughtering agents were formed from murderers and criminals let out of prisons, with orders to kill the disarmed soldiers working on the Karin military line.
February
The Young Turk leadership began the practical phase of the plan of the Armenian Genocide by eliminated at first the enlisted Armenian soldiers. By doing that, they intended to deprive the Armenians of their potential armed support. By the decree of Turkeyâs minister of war Enver, issued in February, 1915 , all Armenian soldiers were disarmed, split into groups of 50-100, and killed. As a result, from the very beginning Armenians were deprived of any military force, capable to defend their lives, homes, property and settlements. As a result, only the old and sick, and women and children, were left in the towns where Armenians lived.
April 8
First mass deportations and massacres of the population of Western Armenia, in Zeitun
April-June
On this day in Constantinople, with no official charge leveled, the selected elite of the Western Armenians were arrested and deported â members of the Turkish Parliament (Mejlis), writers, lawyers, teachers, journalists, physicians, public figures, clergymen, men of art â approximately 800 people. They all were killed on the road to exile, or upon reaching the destination. Armenian party and political figures were arrested and killed as pre-designed. Such was the fate of Nazareth Chaush, the well known leader of Zeytun; Ishkhan, the prominent public figure of Van; the entire leadership of the Armenians of Urfa â close to one hundred people. In June, 1915, in one of the central squares of the capital of the Empire, twenty members of the Henchak Party, led by the prominent party leader Paramaz, were hanged. The orientation, as well as the importance given to this quick strike, were carefully chosen by the Ottoman government. The intention was to behead the Western Armenians, to leave them without military support and political and intellectual leadership, to disorganize and demoralize the general Armenian population, and to preclude every possibility for them to prepare or muster resistance. The slaughter of Armenian soldiers and the decapitation of the intelligentsia proved fatal for Western Armenians, who in fact lost their capacity to organize and resist. This accounts for the relative ease and the devastating scale of the perpetration of the Genocide. Having successfully carried out this first phase, the executioners embarked on a path to arrest, evict and slay Armenians in their ancestral homeland of Western Armenia, Cilicia, and throughout the regions and towns of Western Anatolia. The Armenian massacres and deportations were pervasive across the entire Ottoman Empire from east to west, and north to south.
April 15 â May 16
On April 15, around 500 Armenians were killed by the Turkish authorities in the village of Akants near Van. Massacres took place in 80 villages in the environs of Van resulting in the deaths of 24,000 Armenians over the course of 3 days. On April 20, having swept through the villages in the environs of Van, Turks reached the city and the heroic battle of Van began. It lasted until May 16, 1915.
May â June
Mass Deportations across the entire territory of Turkey
May 9
Deportations in Tokat
May 14
Deportations in Baberd
On May 14, 1915, by the Sultanâs decree, the Law on Deportation was endorsed, the implementation of which was entrusted to the Minister of War, Enver. The law allowed for the military command to expel and resettle the residents of villages and towns, individually or collectively. As such, the forcible eviction of the Armenians from their ancestral homeland and their deportation to the Arabian deserts was legalized.
May 15 â18
Exile of Karin valley Armenians and the massacre of 25,000 Armenians
May 19
Massacre of Khnus Armenians
May 22-25
In Nur Osmanie Center of Istanbul opened the mixed meeting of the Young Turk âSpecial Organizationâ, at which Talaat presented the extensive project of the ways and procedures of deporting Armenians, the control of the property left after the Armenians, the resettlement of Armenian villages and families, etc.
May 27
The Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire legalized the May 22 order of Talaat and charged the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry Defense with its implementation. The very same day Talaat promulgated the decree on the deportation and massacre of Armenians.
June 1
12,000 Armenian soldiers that had been working in labor camps since November 1914 were murdered on the Tigranakert â Kharberd roadway
June 3
Armenians of Hadjin deported
June 6 â end of July
Deportation and Massacre of Arabkir Armenians. The caravans coming from Arabkir were one by one shot on the bank of the Euphrates, thus leaving no Armenian in Arabkir by the end of July.
June 7
Deportations in Erzinka and Akn
June 10
Armenians of Mardin and Severak deported
June 11
Armenians of Khotorjur deported
June 11
Deportation and massacre of 1700 families from Khnus
June 14 â July 26
Armenians of Karin city deported Armenians of Mardin and Severak deported
June 22 â July 5
Deportation of Sebastia
June 24
Deportation of Shapin Garahisar started
June 26 - 27
Deportations started in Kharberd, Trabzon, Marzvan and Samson
June 25
Massacres in Baghesh
May 1915
The Allied Powers could not remain indifferent to what was going on in Turkey and thus sent a note of protest to the Turkish Cabinet, holding it responsible for the massacres of the Armenians. On May 13, 1915 in London, Paris and Petrograd the joint official declaration of England, France and Russia was issued simultaneously on the responsibility of the Ottoman Empire for the atrocities against the Armenians. In particular it stated: âDuring this whole month massacres of Armenians are implemented in Armenia by Turks and Kurds, with evident permission of the Ottoman authorities, and sometimes with their immediate help. In mid-April massacres of Armenians took place in Erzerum, Bitlis, Mush, Sasun, Zeitun and Cilicia. In the environs of Van inhabitants of hundreds of villages were annihilated and Kurds have captured the Armenian district of Van. At the same time the Turkish government of Constantinople imprisoned and unspeakably persecuted the peaceful Armenian inhabitants. The joint declaration of England-France-Russia was the first vital official document adopted in the XX century, which held responsible another government and its leadership taken together and individually for state-sponsored crimes.
July 1
Massacre of the Armenians of Kharbed-Mezire, Trabzon and Bayazet started
July 2
Massacre of the villages surrounding Yozghat started
July 10
Mush massacre started. From an initial population of 15,000 only 500 survived, and from 59,000 inhabitants of the district only 9000 survived.
July 15
Karinâs ruler Tahsi in his letter addressed to the central government wrote: âIn Karin, barbarism has overstepped all limits. The disgrace and outrage practiced for money and women are extremely shameful and are inhuman. An end should be put to all this and especially to the chetens operating under the name âTeshkilat Makhuseâ. The ruler of Kharberd writes that all the roads are covered with corpses of children and women and they donât have time to bury them. It would be better if we preserved our nobleness and national imageâ.
Mid July
Deportation and massacre of Tigranakert Armenians began
July 18
Self-defense of Sasun began, as Turkish troops attacked the inhabitants of the city. Realizing that annihilation was threatening them, the residents of the city turned to self-defense and three days later, on July 21, they climbed the mountain Andok.
July 24 â 28
Deportations started in the environs of Ankara and Istanbul Deportations started in Izmit, Partizak, Armash, Kesaria, in the Armenian villages near Ankara. The deportations continued in Cilicia involving new locales â Antioch, Aintap, Pehesni, Kilis, Ateaman, and Garaturan, then also Kesab and the other surrounding settlements.
July 30 â September 14
Commands of deportations in Setio region were given, but the locals met the troops with self-defense. The heroic battle known as the 40 days of Musa Dagh lasted until September 14. After fighting for 40 days, the 4000 Armenians that survived managed to break the Turkish blockade, get to the beach and board the English and French ships waiting for them there. Some days later they arrived at the city of Port-Said. Years later the Austrian writer Franz Werfel immortalized that tragic yet heroic episode of the Armenian nation in his novel "40 Days of Musa Dagh"
August 3- 11
Deportations started in Afion Garahisar, Kesaria, Sivr, Hisar, Mersin, Adabazar, Marash,and the villages near Eskishehire.
August 13-21
Deportation of the Armenians of Ankara, Brusa, Everik, Adana and the surrounding villages started
August â September
First official eyewitness accounts of mass extermination of Western Armenians
August
US Ambassador Morgenthau recounts the information from meetings and negotiations with Talaat
August 12
Enver reports that to date 200,000 Armenians slain.
August 19
Lord Bryce reports that 500,000 Armenians have been murdered in Turkey.
August 31
Talaat tells German ambassador, Prince Ernst Hohenlohe-Langenburg, that the Armenian Question no longer exists.
September 14
The New York Times reports the murder of 350,000 Armenians.
September 15
The Law on Abandoned Goods is ratified by the Turkish Senate
1916
March 7
Replying to the March 3 telegram of the Ministry Abdulhat Nuri informed the Ministry that through March 16 of 1916 in Pap and Meske 35,000 Armenians were exterminated; 10,000 in Karlk near Aleppo, 20,000 in Tipsi, Apuharrar and Hamam , and 35,000in Ral es Ain. In total 100,000.
March 17
Deportation of over 50,000 Armenians gathered in Ras el Ain began. Deportations were followed by massacres that lasted until June, when the massacre of 200,000 Armenians gathered in Der zor took place.
June 22 â July 13
Atrocities started in different locales, as a result of which in Sebastia 10 000 soldiers working in the labor camps were killed, in the West of Karin â 9000, in Zara â 1000, and in a place called Reshatie, in the region of Tokat --1000 Armenians. The massacres ended on July 13 with total of 21000 Armenians murdered.
August 10
By official note, the Young Turk government dissolved the Jerusalem and Istanbul patriarchates, leaving only the Cilicia patriarchate, which adopted jurisdiction over the Istanbul patriarchate.
October
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, acting on a resolution of the US Congress, proclaims October 8 and 9 as "Armenian Relief Days."
November 26
On the basis of the London treaty signed by the president of the Armenian national delegation Poghos Nubar Pasha, together with Mark Sax (England), and George Picot (France) on November 26, the Armenian Volunteer Detachment â the Eastern Legion within the French troops-- was formed to liberate Armenian lands from Turkish domination.
1917
January
Mr. Goppert, a German Embassy official, visits Enver, Talaat and Halil to convey that forced Islamization under the guise of military necessity or security must be stopped.
October 25
The Bolsheviks led by Lenin carried out a political revolution in Russia, taking control of the authority of the countryâs temporary government. Coming to power, the Bolsheviks ceased military operations, and in November Russian troops began abandoning their positions on the territories of Western Armenia. Seizing the occasion, the Turkish government set their sights not only on the control of Western Armenia, but also to seize all of Eastern Armenia.
1918
March 3
The Bolshevik leaders of Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the anti-Entente states - Germany, Turkey, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, by which in fact it withdrew from the Entente and joined its former antagonists. By this treaty the parties agreed on ceasing military operations and Russia guaranteed the withdrawal of its troops from Eastern Anatolia, particularly from the Kars, Ardahan and Batum regions. This treaty was the logical continuation of the decree âon peaceâ adopted by the Bolsheviks on November 8 of 1917. The Brest-Litovsk treaty put the Armenians living in the Caucasus in an extremely difficult situation. In fact, it invalidated the decision of December 29, 1917 on the right of self-determination of Eastern Armenian lands, instead adopting the decree on returning the same lands to Turkey. Months later, on September 20, the Russian government, by the note signed by the Foreign Affairs Minister Chicherin, invalidated the concession of Caucasus territories to Turkey. Regardless, even with the temporary treaty of Brest Litovsk, the Western Armenian territories, where only a few months before the Russian army presided, were ethnically cleansed and robbed of any near-term future as a part of Armenia. The Brest Treaty presented intriguing opportunities for the Turkish side with its continual expansionist policy. Using the occasion and breaking the Erzinka ceasefire agreement signed December 5, 1917, the Turkish army initiated fresh attacks with vastly superior forces, and one by one captured Erzinka, Karin, Sarighamish, Kars, and on May 15, Alexandropol. The very existence of Armenia was in jeopardy.
May
Turkish troops captured the Sardarapat station. The Armenian army of regular troops and militia men went to a last gasp battle of life and death against the Turkish regular army. General Silikyan was charged with the responsibility of leading the Sardarapat defense. After enduring heavy losses on May 27, the remnants of the Turkish army fled to Alexandropol. The next day, May 28, the Republic of Armenia was proclaimed. The newly-established Armenian state was to exist two and half short years, until the Sovietization of Armenia.
June-September
Ignoring the June 14, 1918 Batum treaty, the Turkish troops attacked Alexandropol on August 15. The 15-hour Armenian resistance gave an opportunity to the Armenian refugees gathered from Karin, Kars, Ardahan and Ardvin to once again flee the city. The Turkish army slaughtered the rest of the inhabitants and attacked the refugees, adding numerous victims. The âSavage detachmentâ Tatar regiment on September 15 carried out a similar carnage in Baku, where 30,000 Armenians were slain.
September 19
in Arara, in Palestine, the Armenian Legion of the French army clashed against the Turkish army. Thanks to the victory Armenians at this battle, the Armenian Legion greatly contributed to the victory of the Allied countries over the Turks.
October 30
In the city of Mudros an armistice was signed between the Entente states and Turkey. Thus Turkey accepted defeat in World War I. This document makes provisions for the return of the Armenian survivors to their homes. Later the Entente states did not do anything to enforce the implementation of the Mudros armistice, which could have assisted ravaged Armenia. Instead, the Turkish government of Ankara rejected the Mudros armistice, actually invalidating it.
November â December
On November 28 the Eastern Legion, later renamed the Armenian Legion, entered Alexandrette port of Cilicia and managed to capture a number of important militray locales from Dec. 17 through Dec. 19.
November
Talaat, Enver and Jemal flee Turkey
1919
February 28
After the consolidation of the Nationalist-Kemalist forces in Turkey, massacres of the Armenians of Aleppo took place on February 28.
July 23
Kyazim Karabekir and colonel Mustafa Kemal as president opened the Turkish Nationalist Congress in Karin, most of the participants of which were former Young Turks. On August 7, finishing its sessions, the congress adopted a decision on the integrity and immunity of Turkey.
1920
January 21 â February 12
The heroic battle Marash began against the Turkish nationalists, lasting until February 12, 1920. On February 11 the French forces withdrew from Marash, leaving the cityâs Armenian population to the mercy of the Turkish troops. Armenians followed the French army, but were attacked by Turks along the way. The Turks brutalized and slaughtered the Armenians and the French during their withdrawal. While retreating, Armenians endured 3-5000 victims, while the French lost 800-1200, the freezing conditions exacerbating the attacks by the Turks.
January 27
At the session of the Istanbul military Mustafa Kemal stated the following about the Young Turks, âThose pashas committed unprecedented, unspeakable and incomprehensible crimes and for their personal interest they brought the country to its present state. They have committed all kinds of violence, they have organized deportations and massacres, they have burnt infants with petroleum, they have raped women and girls in front of their husbands and parents, they have stolen children from their parents, they have confiscated the real estate and property of Armenians, they have exiled Armenians to Mosul in deplorable conditions, they have drowned thousands of innocent people in the sea, they forced people to change their religion, they made starving old men walk for months and work, and they have forced young women to submit to dreadful brothels never encountered in the history of any other nationâ.
March 23
The Turkish-Mustafa gang led by Khosrov bek Sultanov butchered over 30,000 Armenians of Shushi, and robbed, destroyed and burnt to the ground the Armenian district of the town.
March 23 - October 15
On March 23 the heroic battle of Hadjin started against the joined forces of Turkish nationalists and Young Turks, and ended on October 15, 1920.
1 April 1920 â 8 February 1921
The heroic battle of Aintap started on April 1 and ended on February 8, 1921.
July 5
The verdict of Young Turk leaders was issued, according to which 4 out of 31 criminals - Talaat, Jemal, Enver and Nazim - were condemned to death, while the remainder of the 27 were condemned to imprisonment for different terms. After World War I the trial of Young Turk leaders began in Turkey, with charges of war crimes. Among the accusations was the organization and implementation of massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. However, several were charged âin absentiaâ as they had managed to flee the country.
August 4
On August 4, 1920 the Autonomous Cilician Republic of Armenia, led by Mihran Tamatyan, was proclaimed in Adana under French patronage. However, it was declared a republic in name only, as due to a fallout of Anglo-French relations, the French military authories became inclined to defend Turkeyâs position, leading to the dissolution of the newly-formed Armenian government.
August 10
In the Paris suburb of Sevres the victorious states of World War I signed a treaty with Turkey, a document of 13 parts and 433 Articles. Articles 88 and 89 recognized the Republic of Armenia as a free and independent state. The Articles state: âTurkey and Armenia, as well as the higher powers agree on leaving the border determination of Erzerum, Van and Bitlis between Turkey and Armenia to the decision of the US President Woodrow Wilson and accept his decision, as well as all the means he can suggest for Armenia to have sea access and on the mentioned territory any demilitarization of the Ottoman territory⦠From the moment of adopting this resolution Turkey waives all rights to these territoriesâ.
September 14
The French authorities of Adana gave an order to the Armenians refugees in Cilicia to leave for Istanbul, America, Marseille, Beirut, Dort-Yol, Iskenderun or elsewhere. The order initially concerned those 14,000 Armenians that were under French patronage, but later was augmented to include all Armenians.
September 23
Without any declaration of war, the Turkish army attacked Armenia and captured Alexandropol. Around 30 villages in the Alexandropol and Akhalkalak regions were overrun, with the inhabitants being greeted with pillage and slaughter. The Turkish troops were merciless in the degree of their cruelty and horror.
November- December
While Woodrow Wilson expresses his frustrations about implementing the new borders of the Republic of Armenia, Soviet forces regained total control of the Caucasus. At the end of November the Red Army entered Armenia. The ruling government of the short-lived independent Armenia, in an effort to avoid still more bloodshed and fraternal civil war, relinquished authority to the Bolsheviks, and on December 2 Armenia was Sovietized.
1921
March 15 â July 1922
One of the organizers of Armenian Genocide, Talaat, was assassinated in Berlin by an Armenian student, Soghomon Tehlirian. This was the beginning of the âNemesisâ (named after the goddess of revenge in Greek mythology) operation, worked out at the 9th session of the ARF party in autumn, 1919, the aim of which was to execute the death sentence of Young Turk leaders in Turkey. âNemesisâ was a clear, thoroughly worked out operation, which with time was efficiently implemented by the Armenian avengers, pursuing only the aim of justice. A special committee was formed to discover the hiding-places of the criminals living in different corners of the world. In June, Tehleryanâs trial for killing Talaat began in Germany, which in fact became a trial against the organizers of the genocide. Given European acknowledgment of Talaatâs responsibility as chief architect of the genocide, Tehlirian was acquitted. In Rome, on December 6, a bullet from a gun wielded by another Armenian avenger Arshavir Shirakyan killed the leader of the first Young Turk government â Said Halim. In Berlin on April 7, 1922 Armenian avengers Arshavir Shirakyan and Aram Yerkanyan executed the death sentence of the former governor of Trabzon Jemal Azmi and the founder of âTeshkilateshi Makhsuseâ criminal organization â Behaeddin Shakir. In Tbilisi on July 25 Armenian avengers Stepan Tsaghikyan, Artashes Gevorgyan and Petros Ter-Poghosyan murdered one of the butchers of the Armenian Genocide â Jemal Pasha.
March 16
In Moscow on March 16 a treaty on Soviet-Turkish friendship and fraternity was signed. It was signed at a time when Soviet Russia supported Kemalist Turkey, disregarding the latterâs expansionist policy towards Armenia. Thus the open questions regarding Armenia were settled without heed to Armeniaâs interest or historical justice.
March 20
Turkish-French Treaty of London
October 13
A treaty was signed in Kars between Turkey and the newly-established Armenian Soviet Republic, Georgian Soviet Republic and the Azerbaijani Soviet Republic. This treaty restated the points of the Moscow treaty and regarding territorial matters in Armenia, it was strongly anti-Armenian.
October 20
On October 20 the Turkish-French treaty was signed in Ankara resulting in the French troop pullout from Cilicia, lasting from December of 1921 until January 4 of 1922. The threat of new massacres led to the migration of 160,000 Armenians to Syria, Lebanon and Greece.
1922
August 4
On August 4 during the clash between Soviet and anti-Soviet forces in Central Asia, the Armenian soldier Hakob Melkumov killed the Minister of War of the Ottoman Turkey â Enver.
September 9
The Turkish army entered Izmir and massacred 10,000 Armenians and 100,000 Greeks. Three days later Izmir was set afire.
November
An international conference commenced in Switzerland on the question of the Middle East, lasting until July 24, 1923. The participants of the conference were Great Britain, France, Italy, Greece, Japan, Romania, Yugoslavia, Turkey and the US as an observer country. The delegation of the Armenian Republic was not allowed to take part at the conference, as it no longer represented Armenia, which had been absorbed into the Soviet Union. The Lausanne Conference also discussed the Armenian Question, but the Turkish delegation led by Ismet Pasha and Riza Nur Bey decisively spoke against the idea of founding any Armenian state on the territory of Turkey. In the end Turkey managed to dictate its will to the Entente countries. As a result the treaty included no mention of Armenia or of Armenians whatsoever. Thus by the Lausanne Conference the Armenian Question was temporarily closed and the territories to be delivered to Armenia by the Treaty of Sevres disappeared within the ethnically cleansed newly-determined borders of Republic of Turkey.
March 31
Ankara announced a verdict of "not guilty" concerning all those Turks who had been condemned by military or other courts.
November 30
Deportation of Armenians and Greeks from Pontus
1923
September
According to a new Turkish law the return of Armenians to Turkey was once and for all prohibited
1939
June
Against the will of the local population and disregarding Syriaâs opposition, the region of Alexandrette was annexed to Turkey, as a consequence of which around 40,000 Armenians were forced to leave their homes and settle in Syria and Lebanon between July 16-23.
September
A week before the invasion of Poland and the start of World War II, Adolph Hitler spoke of his orders "to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish race or language," and concluded his remarks by asking, "Who, after all, speaks today of the extermination of the Armenians?â | ||||||||
3581 | dbpedia | 2 | 45 | https://www.library.ucsb.edu/special-collections/collections/s_z_guides | en | Alphabetical List of Collections: S-Z | [
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] | null | [] | 2011-08-19T08:35:11-07:00 | A • B • C • D • E • F • G • H • I • J • K • L • M • N • O • P • Q • R • S • T • U • V • W • X • Y • Z Saadi (Ruth) Collection, ca. 1984-1993. Files relating to League of Women Voters – Santa Barbara concerns, including air pollution, energy, environment, growth and development, oil and gas, voting and elections. Ruth Saadi was an active member and Energy Director of the | en | https://www.library.ucsb.edu/sites/all/themes/custom/ucsblib_theme/favicon.ico | UCSB Library | https://www.library.ucsb.edu/special-collections/collections/s_z_guides | A • B • C • D • E • F • G • H • I • J • K • L • M • N • O • P • Q • R • S • T • U • V • W • X • Y • Z
Saadi (Ruth) Collection, ca. 1984-1993. Files relating to League of Women Voters – Santa Barbara concerns, including air pollution, energy, environment, growth and development, oil and gas, voting and elections. Ruth Saadi was an active member and Energy Director of the organization. (SBHC Mss 14).
Sackett, Edwin M. (1844-1915) [Artificer, New York Engineers, 50th Regiment (Vol), Company B]. Papers, including Civil War diary (1865), discharge, and typescript biographical sketch. (Wyles SC 363).
[Sacramento]. Bill (Joseph T.) Oral History, 1991-1994. Interviews with Joe Bill, an urban planner who served as Executive Director of the Community Redevelopment Agencies in Sacramento and Los Angeles, Director of Planning for the architectural firm of William L. Pereira, member of the New Communities Administration in Washington, DC., and advisor to UCSB Chancellor Barbara Uehling and her staff on the Long-Range Development Plan for UCSB. Related interviews with John C. Harkness, H. Ralph Taylor, Congressman James H. Scheuer, Yukio Kawaratani, Ray Hebert, Jack Bevash, James Langenheim, Niels Stoermer, Cesar Pelli, Edward Logue, Edward L. Barnes, Harry Cobb, Bruce Allen, and Edward Helfeld. (OH 18).
[Sacramento]. Gonzalez (Luis C.) Papers. Works of art on paper by the Sacramento, California based Chicano artist, also known as Louie-the-foot). (CEMA 74).
[Sacramento]. Lincoln Scrapbooks, ca. 1860s-1930s. Five scrapbooks, mainly clippings ca. 1860s-1930s, pertaining to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. Newspapers represented include the Christian Science Monitor, Examiner (New York), Harper’s Weekly, Los Angeles Times, New York Herald Tribune, New York Reformer, Northern N.Y. Journal, Sacramento Daily Union, Santa Barbara Daily News, Santa Barbara News-Press, and the Standard (Chicago). (Wyles Mss 93).
[Sacramento]. Royal Chicano Air Force Archives, 1973-1988. Extensive collection of slides and silkscreen prints, along with administrative records, news clippings, correspondence, exhibition descriptions and flyers, photographs, creative writings, and miscellaneous publications of the Sacramento-based artists collective. Founding members of the RCAF include José Montoya, Esteban Villa, Juanishi V. Orosco, Ricardo Favela, and Rudy Cuellar. (CEMA 8).
[Sacramento]. U.S. Mail Line, Oregon Stage Company. One document, Way-bill for Sacramento-Marysville run, 14 Dec. 1866. (Wyles SC 689).
[Sacramento]. Villa (Esteban) Papers, 1974-2002. Original sketches, correspondence, exhibition announcements, collected writings, and research files of the Sacramento Chicano artist and muralist, and one of the founding members of the Royal Chicano Air Force, an artists’ cultural collective. (CEMA 50).
St. Charles [Charles de] Peru Correspondence, 1870-1872. (SC 958).
St. George, George A. 1 letter (ALS) to [?] Wyant, thanking him for signing book. Bombay, India, 27 Oct. 1944. Laid in St. Geroge’s With Lyre and Saxophone (Spec PR9499.3.S23 W59 1943). (SC 124).
“St. Louis or Baron de Kalb, the First U.S. Ironclad, Launced Oct. 12th, 1861….” Engraving by George E. Perine & Co., New York, [ca. 1860s]. (Wyles SC 759).
[St. Mary’s Academy]. One letter (ALS) from unknown author to Rev. C. B. Perry of Baltimore, MD, re placement of two boys in St. Mary’s Academy, upon recommendation of a Mr. Flowers, who the author does not know “… but am of the opinion that he is a white man.” Washington, D.C., Feb. 18, 1886. (Wyles SC 1062).
Saint-Pierre, H. C. [Corporal, New York Volunteers, 76th Regiment, Company F; later, Judge]. One typescript ms re escape from the Confederate prison camp at Andersonville, n.d. (Wyles SC 368).
[Saipan]. Japanese Saipan Photograph Album, 1914-1944. About 170 b/w snapshots and a few postcard views, of the Japanese period in Saipan. Includes a number of shots of the local Saipan population and scenery, but most of the photos are of Japanese adults and children, families, groups, leisure activities, sports (including several shots of baseball teams), boy scouts, geishas, and the extensive sugar cane industry. (Bernath Mss 69).
[Saipan]. Neilson (Hugo) World War II Scrapbook, 1944-1945 [bulk date 1944]. 157 black and white snapshots (captions in English), documents, clippings, and two 1944 issues of the Seabees Coverall newspaper, on scrapbook pages and loose, compiled by Hugo Neilson, Seaman First Class, with the 51st NCB (Naval Construction Battalion). Includes images of Ulithi (Caroline Islands) – fellow seamen, base, chapel, living quarters, 51st shop crew, local terrain and huts (describes construction), building airstrip in 12 days; on board ship (showing cramped quarters); Saipan – Japanese women and children, prisoners (men), Suicide Point (where hundreds of Japanese civilians leapt to their deaths), Japanese fortifications, train, sugar mill, caves, African American Marines, shop crew and shop, building airstrip; and honorable discharge, Oct. 1945. (Bernath Mss 346).
Saipan, Philippines, and Guam Photograph Album, 1946-1950. (Bernath Mss 298).
Saipan Post-World War II Photograph Collection, ca. 1945-1946. 16 b/w snapshots, including aerial views of POW camp and local Saipan population. (SC 952).
[Salt Lake City]. Four letters (ALS) from I. R. (Ike) Thompson to William L. Vennard, 1861-1862. Includes description of 10 ½ day coach ride to Salt Lake City and account of the area. (Wyles SC 871).
Saltus, Edgar. One note (ANS) from American writer and philosopher Saltus to [?] Allen re a libelous aricle about Saltus. Laid in Eden: An Episode. [11 Apr. 1888]. (SC 272).
Saltzman, Nolan. Typescript autobiography and articles, ca. 1986-1987. (HPA SC 106).
Salvation Army. Dec. 23, 1893 issue of the War Cry (San Francisco, CA). (SC 1078).
[Samoa]. de Chetelat (Enzo) Papers, ca. 1901-1980s [bulk dates 1920s-1960s]. Autobiography, correspondence, documents, maps, reports, black/white photographs and photograph albums, several thousand color slides, and artifacts of a Swiss-born mining geologist who visited or worked in many countries from the 1920s to the 1970s, including Albania, Algeria, Bali, Belgian Congo, Brazil, British Honduras, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Ceylon, Czechoslovakia, Dahomey, France, French Guinea, French Guyana, French Polynesia, Ghana, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Macau, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mali, Martinique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria, Paracel Islands, Peru, Samoa, Senegal, Singapore, Somalia, Sumatra, Syria, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Upper Volta, Vietnam, and Yugoslavia. (Bernath Mss 316).
Sample [Kenneth C.] Civilian Conservation Corps Photograph Album, ca. 1933-1935. Includes images from South Dakota, North Dakota, Arkansas, and New Orleans. (Mss 275).
[San Diego]. Alurista [Alberto Urista] Papers, 1954-2010. Scripts, correspondence, photographs, autographed books and ephemera of the Chicano artist and poet, one of the leading literary figures of the Chicano Movement era, who helped to establish The Centro Cultural de la Raza in San Diego. (CEMA 21).
[San Diego]. Archer (John F.) Susohn Etching Plates, 1976. 18 original etching plates [linoleum cuts], used in Archer’s printed portfolio, Susohn: A Personal Journey (San Diego, CA: Atavistic Press, 1976). Also, author’s autograph copy of Susohn, no. 13 of an edition of 30, as well as other titles by Atavistic Press. (Printers Mss 29).
[San Diego]. California Picture Postcard Album, ca. 1900. 45 b/w and color picture postcards, mainly California, including several images of Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Catalina Island, San Diego, and Pasadena. Also a few from New Mexico and Kingman, Arizona. (SC 823).
[San Diego]. Centro Cultural de La Raza Archives, 1970-1999. Slides and other materials relating to the San Diego artists’ collective, co-founded in 1970 by Chicano poet Alurista and artist Victor Ochoa. Known as a center of indigenismo (indigenism) during the Aztlán phase of Chicano art in the early 1970s. (CEMA 12).
[San Diego]. Gray [Ethel C.] California, Canal Zone, Cuba Photograph Album, 1935. Album, approx. 100 pages, recording Ethel C. Gray’s six-week rail trip from NYC to the western U.S. (including Yosemite, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego), then by ship (S.S. Virginia) to the Canal Zone and Cuba. Includes photographs, postcards, railroad timetables, hotel brochures, menus, and other ephemera. (Bernath Mss 46).
[San Diego]. Mexican Revolution / U.S. Navy Picture Postcard Collection. Ten black/white picture postcards documenting U.S. Navy actions, mainly of the U.S.S. Maryland along the west coast of Mexico during the Mexican Revolution, ca. 1915. Includes images of the Maryland leaving San Diego Harbor, at Matazlan and Tuxedina Bay, and several photos of torpedoes fired at Mexican ships. (Wyles SC 948).
[San Diego]. One letter (ALS) from Lillie [?] to brother Maurice about personal matters and mutual acquaintances. San Diego, April 6, 1895. (SC 494).
[San Diego]. Ochoa (Victor) Collection, 1962-2000. Art files, exhibition files, ephemera, posters and prints and other printed matter, photographs and slides, correspondence files, and recordings of the Chicano painter/muralist long considered to be one of the pioneers of San Diego’s Chicano art movement and co-founder of the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park, a multidisciplinary community-based arts center devoted to producing and preserving Indian, Mexican, and Chicano art and culture. (CEMA 66).
[San Diego]. Prigoff (James) Slide Collection, 1975-2003. 429 slides, overwhelmingly of mural art and of spray can art, visually documenting important aspects of the Chicano art movement in California, in particular in the San Diego and Tijuana area. (CEMA 102).
[San Diego]. Torero (Mario) Collection. Materials of the San Diego artist, political activist, and teacher, also known as co-founder of several local cultural organizations, including the Centro Cultural de la Raza, the Chicano Park Murals Outdoor Museum, and the San Diego/Tijuana artists’ group United By Art (UBA). (CEMA 44).
[San Diego]. Torres (Salvador Roberto) Papers, 1934-2002 [bulk dates 1962-2002]. Personal and biographical information, files relating to professional activities and teaching, and correspondence of the Mexican-American artist, mural painter, and activist, best known for his work in creating San Diego’s Chicano Park, which includes the largest collection of Chicano murals in the world, and as a founder of the Centro Cultural de la Raza and Las Toltecas en Aztlán, a Chicano artists group. (CEMA 38).
[San Francisco]. Alternative Press Collection. Mainly U.S. newspapers, with an emphasis on California, but also some foreign titles. In most cases there are only single or scattered issues, not long runs. Included are newspapers environmental, issues, with titles such as Earth Times (San Francisco, CA, 1970) and Iowa Environmental News (Ames, IA, 1971). Some longer runs of newspapers such as Green Revolution, are cataloged separately. (Mss 169).
[San Francisco]. Asian American Theater Company (AATC) Archives. Administrative and financial records, correspondence, production files, scripts, audio and video recordings, photographs, slides, posters, and other materials relating to the San Francisco-based AATC, one of only three Asian American theaters in the United States, founded in 1973 by the Chinese American writer and playwright Frank Chin and others. (CEMA 9).
[San Francisco]. Beecher [John] Collection, ca. 1957-1977. Broadsides, prospectii, flyers, announcements, quartos, and other printed matter relating to radical poet, steel mill worker, teacher (San Francisco State and elsewhere), rancher, descendant of the New England abolitionist Beecher family, and printer John Beecher and his poetry. Several items were hand-set and printed at the Morning Star Press and Rampart Press by John and Barbara Beeecher. (Printers Mss 77).
[San Francisco]. Belcher, Sir Edward (1799-1877). One map, “Geological Plan of the Port of San Francisco, California,” coloured by Lieutenant E. Belcher, [Dec. 1826]. (SC 22).
[San Francisco]. Bill Graham Presents, 1967. Three psychedelic, color postcards/flyers, Wes Wilson artist, advertising events presented by Bill Graham at the Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco. Headliners include Jefferson Airplane and Butterfield Blues Band. (SC 982).
[San Francisco]. Bishop [Edith] Collection, 1892-1895. Correspondence and autographs from actors and actresses, to a San Francisco autograph collector. (SC 2).
[San Francisco]. Bookplate Collection, ca. 1800s-mid 1900s. Bookplates from various sources, mainly 20th century American, including a number from Santa Barbara and other parts of California. Included are works by artists/designers such as Marc Chagall. Some in the early 20th century Arts & Crafts style. Represented in the collection are bookplates for a number of well-known individuals such as Edward Borein, Charlie Chaplin, Sally Fields, and Tom Mix. Includes Paul Elder & Co. bookplates (Santa Barbara and San Francisco). (Printers Mss 34).
[San Francisco]. California and the West Picture Postcard Collection, ca. early 1900s. Includes 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. (Mss 231).
[San Francisco]. California Infantry, 3rd Regiment (Vols), Co. A. Civil War document appealing for volunteers. San Francisco, 18 Sept. 1861. (Wyles SC 308).
[San Francisco]. California Picture Postcard Collection. 17 items, including images of 1906 San Francisco earthquake and homes of Hollywood stars such as Bob Hope, Mickey Rooney, and Jack Benny, ca. late 1930s. (Wyles SC 608).
[San Francisco]. Chinese American Political Association Archives, 1984-2006 . Records of a San Francisco Bay Area organization focused on educating and empowering Chinese Americans in the political process. (CEMA 48).
[San Francisco]. Chinese American Voters Education Committee, Inc. (CAVEC) Archives, 1984-2000 [bulk dates 1986-1992]. Files of the CAVEC, a non-profit, non- partisan citizen education organization in the San Francisco Bay Area, founded in 1976 to help the large population of Asian immigrants become active participants in the civic life of the area. (CEMA 61).
[San Francisco]. Cobb, George H. One disbound photo album containing 115 black/white images, various sizes, of family and friends, Santa Barbara and Montecito scenes including Santa Barbara Mission and Riven Rock, President McKinley’s visit to Santa Barbara, San Francisco, ca 1900-1905. (Wyles SC 613).
[San Francisco]. “The Co-operato, No. 2.” Printed pamphlet for “Self Respecting, Self Supporting, Small Salaried Women,” San Francisco, CA, ca. 1899-1900. (SC 1005).
[San Francisco]. Dewing [James] Papers, 1865-1936. Thirteen items of Barbara DeWolfe’s grandfather, James Dewing, including a photograph, materials relating to his service in the 18th Regiment of Connecticut Infantry, Company A, during the Civil War (discharge papers, widow’s pension, GAR receipts), publishing/piano manufacturing business in San Francisco (letterhead stationery, calling card, court records re failure of the business), and death (memorial service address, National Cemetery Regulations). (Wyles SC 1012).
[San Francisco]. Dougan [Robert Ormes] Collection, ca. 1950s-1970s. Mainly printed ephemera from the Zamorano (Los Angeles) and Roxburghe (San Francisco) clubs, collected by Dougan, former President of the Friends of UCSB Library and Director of the Huntington Library, 1958-1972. (Printers Mss 39).
[San Francisco]. Driscoll [Mrs. Thomas] Oral History. Interview with a prominent Santa Barbara resident, re family history and their association with Admiral Farragut, Cyrus McCormick, Mark Twain, and Theodore Roosevelt. Also personal experiences of Santa Barbara elite society ca. 1900 and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Central Coast Regional Projects. (OH 34).
[San Francisco]. Gahagan [G. William] Collection, ca. 1935-1953 [bulk dates 1942-1945]. Includes propaganda magazines, pamphlets, and leaflets used both in the Pacific and Atlantic theaters of war; OWI outpost reports; U.N. Conference press releases, circulars, correspondence and photos relating to a public relations officer for the Office of War Information’s Overseas Branch in San Francisco. (Bernath Mss 8).
[San Francisco]. Galería de la Raza (GDLR) Archives, ca. 1966-1989. Administrative records, programs, subject files, correspondence, clippings, slides, photographs, serigraphs, posters, silkscreen prints, ephemera and other creative materials documenting activities of the San Francisco Bay Area Chicano cultural arts center. Includes work by many of the prominent Chicano(a)/Latino(a) artists, such as Juana Alicia, Rodolfo (Rudy) Cuellar, Alfredo De Batuc, Ricardo Favela, Gilbert Luján (Magu), Ralph Maradiaga, Juanishi Orosco, Irene Pérez, Patricia Rodríguez, and René Yañez. (CEMA 4).
[San Francisco]. Gonzalez (Maya) Papers. Slides of art work and biographical ephemera of acclaimed San Francisco-based Chicana painter and children’s book illustrator. (CEMA 103).
[San Francisco]. Gray [Ethel C.] California, Canal Zone, Cuba Photograph Album, 1935. Album, approx. 100 pages, recording Ethel C. Gray’s six-week rail trip from NYC to the western U.S. (including Yosemite, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego), then by ship (S.S. Virginia) to the Canal Zone and Cuba. Includes photographs, postcards, railroad timetables, hotel brochures, menus, and other ephemera. (Bernath Mss 46).
[San Francisco]. Gresham Family California Photograph Album, ca. 1900-1907. 189 mainly black and white photographs, assembled in a soft leather album by the Gresham family of San Francisco who travelled, in part, on their yacht “Gypsy.” Locations include Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, Santa Barbara (mission, alleged bullfight), Diamond Canõn, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz, San Mateo, Sausalito, Redwood, and Sacramento. Also a few images of Bagio, Philippines. (Mss 268).
[San Francisco]. Haight-Ashbury Collection, ca. 1967. Mainly handbills and broadsides advertising the cultural and political activities and perspectives of the hippie movement in and around Haight-Ashbury in the latter 1960s. (Mss 42).
[San Francisco]. Hooker, Joseph [1814-1879; Civil War Union General]. One letter (ALS) to James W. Denver (California Congressman), seeking aid for appointment in the Paymaster General’s Department, at a time after he had resigned from the army and failed at farming. San Francisco, 2 May 1857. (Wyles SC 517).
[San Francisco]. Huse [Charles E.] Diary, 1850-1857. Typescript draft of the diary, edited by William Henry Ellison and translated (from the Spanish) by Francis Price. The original two-volume manuscript diary is housed in the Santa Barbara Historical Society Library. Huse was a Harvard graduate who came to California shortly after the Gold Rush, first to San Francisco, then Santa Barbara. Much of the diary describes the transition of Santa Barbara from the Spanish to the American way of life. (Wyles Mss 5).
[San Francisco]. Johnson, Thomas P. Cancelled check from Sheriff Thomas P. Johnson to R. B Turner & Co., for $26.11. San Francisco: Palmer, Cook & Co., Bankers, Sept. 19, 1853. (Wyles SC 1073).
[San Francisco]. Kearny Street Workshop Archives, 1972-2002 [bulk dates 1980-2002]. Materials relating to the oldest multidisciplinary Asian American arts organization in the United States, which was established in 1972 as a collective of artists in San Francisco’s Chinatown/ Manila town neighborhood. (CEMA 33).
[San Francisco]. Kiewit (John S.) Photography Collection, ca. 1968-2000. More than 10,000 color and black/white prints, color slides, and black/white negatives. Color slides constitute the bulk of the collection. The images reflect what Kiewit saw on his travels throughout California and the West, as well as trips to other parts of the U.S. and the world. Prominent places and themes include Baja, barns and farms, Big Sur, buildings and building elements (doors and windows), Carmel [CA], Central Coast [CA], Channel Islands, Death Valley, fences, ghost towns, Hawaii, Hollister Ranch [CA], landscapes, Malibu [CA], Marin County [CA], New England, New Mexico, ocean views, Oregon, Oxnard [CA], rock formations, signs, surfing, trees, Utah, wildflowers, Wyoming, and Yosemite. Other countries represented in the collection include Cook Island, Costa Rica, El Salvador, England, France, Guatemala, Marques and Tahiti Islands, Mexico, Micronesia, and New Zealand. Most of the images were taken from the 1970s to the 1990s. (Mss 228).
[San Francisco]. Knowles (Joseph) Collection, 1920s-1930s. Correspondence, lists, and samples, mostly relating to Western Builder’s Supply Co. of San Francisco, ca. 1920s-1930s, and two letters (TLS) to George Washington Smith, Santa Barbara architect, re architectural and design catalogs and brochures being sent, 1922 and 1928. Related trade catalogs, also collected by Knowles, have been cataloged separately. (SC 717).
[San Francisco]. [Mexican Americans / California / Civil War]. 1 broadside, “A los Mexicanos – e Hispano-Americanos…,” San Francisco, 1863. (Wyles SC 930).
[San Francisco]. Myrick (David) Collection, 1965-1995. Several maps prepared for publications of David Myrick, on western railroad history, ghost towns, and San Francisco. (Wyles Mss 79).
[San Francisco]. Nash [John Henry] Collection, ca. 1918-1970 [bulk dates 1920s-1930s]. Edited copy of the catalog of books printed by Nash in San Francisco, printing specimens, prospectuses, offprints, correspondence, and related ephemera. (Printers Mss 27).
[San Francisco]. Paul Elder and Company Collection, ca. 1898-1936. Catalogs and lists, mainly issued by the Fine and Rare Book Department of Paul Elder & Co., San Francisco, as well as photocopies of title pages of Paul Elder imprints (copies of which are in the UCSB Libraries). (Printers Mss 30).
[San Francisco]. Posters of the 1960s, [bulk dates latter 1960s]. 27 original printed posters, many in vivid color, most advertising concerts and readings in Detroit, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara / Isla Vista, CA. Includes appearances by Big Brother & the Holding Company; Blood, Sweat & Tears; Richard Brautigan; Basil Bunting; Cream; Doors; Fugs; and John Mayall. Poster artists include Jim Blashfield, Gary Grimshaw, John Lodge, Carl Lundgren, and Chuck Miller. (Mss 265).
[San Francisco]. Roxburghe Club Collection, ca. 1928-1980. Printed announcements, invitations, keepsakes, membership lists, notices, and other printed items, ca. 1928-1980, produced by various members of the Roxburghe Club of San Francisco, including Lewis and Dorothy Allen, Arion Press (Andrew Hoyem), Grabhorn Press (Edwin and Robert Grabhorn), Grabhorn-Hoyem, Grace Hoper Press (Sherwood Grover), Lawton and Alfred Kennedy, John Henry Nash, Tamalpais Press (Roger Levenson), and Adrian Wilson Press. (Printers Mss 17).
[San Francisco]. Selver [Charlotte] Papers, 1957-1995. Personal and professional correspondence, writings, and sound records of Charlotte Selver, student of Elsa Gindler in Europe, and the person who introduced sensory awareness to the U.S. Closely connected to the Esalen Institute and San Francisco Zen Center. Her work is continued by the Sensory Awareness Foundation. (HPA Mss 33).
[San Francisco]. Sherman, William Tecumseh. One letter (ALS) to Dona [?], re sending funds with Sully [?]. The steamer Winfield Scott, in which Sully had embarked for home, was wrecked on an island [presumably one of the Channel Islands] not far from Santa Barbara. “This morning two steamers started to their relief. Fortunately the weather has been mild…” San Francisco, 7 Dec. 1853. (Wyles SC 16).
[San Francisco]. Sherman, William Tecumseh. One letter (ALS). San Francisco, 13 Sept. 1880. (Wyles SC 210).
[San Francisco]. Tebbetts (George P. and Mary) Memorial Collection, ca 1830s-1950s. Manuscripts, including three diaries, 1856, 1863, 1866, correspondence, photographs, ledgers/account books, scrapbooks, newspapers (incl. 1883-1885 Santa Barbara Daily Independent), papers and documents from the San Francisco Examiner. Also, tape and partial transcript of recording by Nathan A. Tebbetts. Artifacts, including three Colt revolvers, one framed oil painting and two wooden chests, apparently made at the Anna Blake School, in Santa Barbara. Also numerous books, mostly 19th century, cataloged separately. Also nine b/w photos of dirigibles, mostly above San Francisco, including one of Graf Zeppelin. (Wyles Mss 15).
[San Francisco]. Thompson, William C. [Commander, steamer Sarah Sands]. One letter (ALS), in Spanish, to the pastor of Mission San Antonio, re running out of coal and other supplies, and sending representatives to Monterey and San Francisco to obtain them. San Simeon Bay [California], 20 May 1850. Wyles SC 247).
[San Francisco]. Type Specimens Collection, 1785-1984. Advertisements, catalogs, flyers, leaflets, and lists, mainly by U.S. companies, but also a number from Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and the Netherlands. Includes some material from California firms such as the A. Carlisle & Co. (San Francisco), Border Printing Co. (San Francisco), California Electrotype and Stereotype Co. (Los Angeles), California Electrotyping Co. (San Francisco), University of California Press (Berkeley and Los Angeles). (Printers Mss 42).
[San Francisco]. Tyson [Seth H.] Correspondence, 1853, 1855. Six letters (ALS) from Tyson, a young man from Philadelphia, mostly to his mother, re the California Gold Rush in Calaveras County. Also includes typescript transcriptions of the letters. Early letters talk about working in San Francisco and on farms, but later ones mainly concern his prospecting ups and downs, the hard work, problems with lack of water in the rivers, difficult financial dealings, and general uncertainty of life in the gold fields. (Wyles SC 253).
[San Francisco]. “View of San Francisco, formerly Yerba Buena, in 1846-7, before the Discovery of Gold….” Color [lithograph?], print on paper, by Bosqui Eng. & Print Co. [active ca. 1863-1906]. (SC 1028).
[San Francisco]. Wilke [William Hancock] Collection, arly 1900s. Examples of illuminations and book plates Wilke did for the press of John Henry Nash, as well as numerous drawings and water colors of San Francisco scenes, and two original posters for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, 1915. (Printers Mss 23).
[San Francisco]. World Tour Photograph Album, 1907-1908. 458 b/w snapshots of a world tour by an unknown American woman with images from Gibraltar, Spain, France, Egypt, Ceylon, India, Burma, Java, Singapore, Philippines, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Hawaii, and San Francisco Bay. (Bernath Mss 79).
San Francisco Songs, ca. 1860s-1870s. 15 items. (Wyles SC 981).
Sanchez (Gil) Collection, 1974-2008 . Personal and biographical information, correspondence, Thousands of drawings, research materials, photographs, and other materials of the Mexican American architect whose restoration projects have included the Santa Barbara Presidio, Mission San Juan Bautista, San Juan Capistrano, Mission Santa Clara, the Peralta Adobe, Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park Adobe, and Juana Briones Adobe. (CEMA 15).
[Sanchez, Thomas]. Bason (Robert E.) / Capra Press Records, ca. 1969-2004. Includes production and financial files from years Bason owned Santa Barbara-based Capra Press, as well as some earlier material from the Noel Young years. Correspondents include: Edward Abbey, Raymond Carver, Gretel Ehrlich, Tess Gallagher, Ursula LeGuin, Ken Millar, Margaret Millar, Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Lawrence Clark Powell, Thomas Sanchez, and John Sanford. (Printers Mss 59).
Sand, George (1804-1876) [pseudonym of Armandine Aurore Lucile Dudevant]. French novelist and playwright. Holdings include Consuelo (1846) in English [Spec PQ2400.A3 S53 846b], Légendes Rustiques (1858) [Printers Z257.S263 1858], Fanchon the Cricket (1891) [Spec PQ2411.P4 E5 1891], Little Fadette (1928) [Spec PQ2411.P4 E5 1928], and The Devil’s Pool (1929) [Spec PQ2408.A46 1929].
Sanders [James] China and Philippines Photograph Album, ca. 1920s. (Bernath Mss 264).
Sandstone Center (Topanga, CA). Calendars, 1975-1976. (HPA SC 107).
[Sanford, John]. Bason (Robert E.) / Capra Press Records, ca. 1969-2004. Includes production and financial files from years Bason owned Santa Barbara-based Capra Press, as well as some earlier material from the Noel Young years. Correspondents include: Edward Abbey, Raymond Carver, Gretel Ehrlich, Tess Gallagher, Ursula LeGuin, Ken Millar, Margaret Millar, Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Lawrence Clark Powell, Thomas Sanchez, and John Sanford. (Printers Mss 59).
[Sanford, John]. Bason (Robert E.) Collection of the Writings of John Sanford (1904-2003). (Mss 266)./li>
Sanford, John. One letter (ALS) from author Sanford to Harden Goldstein, responding to request for information about his earlier publications. Encino, California, 12 May 1947. (SC 266).
Sanford, John B. / Smith [Robert W.] Collection, ca. 1982-1991. Mainly correspondence from Sanford to Smith. Also includes typescript drafts of articles by Sanford, and other material about Sanford and his work. (Mss 34).
Sanford, Junius [Ohio Infantry, 128th Regiment]. One Civil War document (ADS): Mustering Out, 13 July 1865. (Wyles SC 385).
Sanger, Margaret. One letter (TLS) to Robert B. Sweet re his article concerning birth control technique. New York, 1 Nov. 1932. (SC 267).
Sanger [Margaret] Birth Control Collection, ca. 1921-1966 [bulk dates 1930-1936]. 26 booklets, pamphlets, programs, and other printed ephemera relating to birth control advocate Margaret Sanger and organizations such as the American Birth Control League, Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau (Margaret Sanger, Director), Birth Control Federation of America, Inc. (Margaret Sanger, honorary chairman of the board), Margaret Sanger Research Bureau, National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control (Margaret Sanger, Chairman/President), and the Western States Conference on Birth Control and Population Problems. (Mss 220).
[Santa Barbara]. ACCESS Collection, 1965-1988. Files pertaining to the Alternative Comprehensive Environmental Study System (ACCESS) project in Santa Barbara county. (SBHC Mss 29).
[Santa Barbara]. Adams (Perry) – Murder from Within Papers, ca. 1967-1980. Files relating to Isla Vista organizations and issues; correspondence (1980) and typescript draft of Adams’ unpublished study Murder from Within, co-authored with Fred T. Newcomb, alleging the JFK assassination was engineered by the U.S. Secret Service; and scattered issues of newspapers, mainly of Isla Vista, Santa Barbara, and California alternative press. (Mss 1).
[Santa Barbara]. Artists’ Collection. Primarily correspondence, clippings, and photographs collected by Margaret [?], re Robert Henri, William Merrit Chase, and Santa Barbara artists William Louis Otte and Della Shull, ca. 1907-1957. (SC 481)
[Santa Barbara]. Bason (Robert E.) / Capra Press Records, ca. 1969-2004. Includes production and financial files from years Bason owned Santa Barbara-based Capra Press, as well as some earlier material from the Noel Young years. Correspondents include: Edward Abbey, Raymond Carver, Gretel Ehrlich, Tess Gallagher, Ursula LeGuin, Ken Millar, Margaret Millar, Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Lawrence Clark Powell, Thomas Sanchez, and John Sanford. (Printers Mss 59).
[Santa Barbara]. Benet [Linda] – Graham Mackintosh Collection. (Printers Mss 60).
[Santa Barbara]. Bittmann (Miss M. C.) Photograph Album, ca. 1905-1906. 96 black and white snapshots, captions in English, with images of Italy (Florence, Venice, Milan), England (London), New York City, Panama Canal, Nicaragua (Corinto), Mexico (Mazatlan), California (Nordhoff – Ojai Valley many on horseback, Santa Barbara), and Alaska (Inland Passage, Kenai Peninsula, Seward, Fort Gibbon). (SC 1048).
[Santa Barbara]. Borein, Edward. One black and white inscribed, mounted photograph of western artist Borein. Santa Barbara, California, 16 Sept. 1930. (Wyles SC 683).
[Santa Barbara]. Borein, Edward. Poster advertising The Pinto Horse, by Charles Elliott Perkins; illustrated by Edward Borein. First edition was published in 1927. (SC 985).
[Santa Barbara]. Broadside Collection, ca. 1939-1991 [bulk dates 1960s-1980s]. More than 200 printed items, most American, English language, mainly poetry, many in limited editions, some signed. Authors include Robert Bly, Ray Bradbury, Richard Brautigan, Joseph Brodsky, Charles Bukowski, Tom Clark, Andrei Codrescu, Robert Creeley, Fielding Dawson, Clayton Eshleman, William Everson, William Faulkner, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, M. F. K. Fisher, Robert Frost, Allen Ginsberg, Michael Hannon, Seamus Heaney, Robinson Jeffers, LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Denise Levertov, Oscar Lewis, Larry McMurtry, Henry Miller, Judyl Mudfoot, Pablo Neruda, Joyce Carol Oates, Octavio Paz, Lawrence Clark Powell, Kenneth Rexroth, Jerome Rothenberg, Thomas Sanchez, John Sayles, Timothy Sheehan, Gary Snyder, Henry David Thoreau, John Updike, Diane Wakoski, and Peter Whigham. Presses and printers, many Santa Barbara, include Aetheric Press (Santa Barbara), Arundel Press (Los Angeles), Cadmus Editions (Santa Barbara), Capra Press (Santa Barbara), Cranium Press (San Francisco), Crepuscular Press (Madison, WI), Doggeral Press (Santa Barbara), Gehenna Press (Northampton, MA), Janus Press (West Burke, VT), Grabhorn Hoyem (San Francisco), Kairos Editions (Santa Barbara), Graham Mackintosh (Santa Barbara), Meadow Press (San Francisco), Moving Parts Press (Santa Cruz, CA), Mudborn Press (Santa Barbara), Ninja Press (Sherman Oaks, CA), Old Hand Press (Santa Barbara), Painted Cave Press (Santa Barbara), Harry and Sandra Reese (Isla Vista, CA), Sand Dollar Press (Berkeley, CA), Sand River Press (Los Osos, CA), Sun Moon Bear Press (Healdsburg, CA), Table-Talk Press (Santa Barbara), Unicorn Bookshop (Goleta, CA), Noel Young (Santa Barbara). (Mss 212).
[Santa Barbara]. Brown, Pat [Governor of California]. Mimeograph script for KEYT [Santa Barbara television station] for program "Campaign Special #1," showcasing local developments during his tenure, Sept. 25, 1962. (SC 381).
[Santa Barbara]. Burns [Vincent Godfrey] Collection, ca. 1930s-1969. Drafts of writings, as well as correspondence, clippings, and other ephemera of poet and journalist Burns, who wrote in a populist style on patriotic and homespun American subjects and who lived in Santa Barbara for a time. (Mss 13).
[Santa Barbara]. California Missions and Santa Barbara Area Glass Slides, ca. early 1900s. 39 color and black /white glass slides of California missions, including Santa Barbara mission; also Summerland Oil Wells, Los Banos, beach,olive trees, and Arlington Hotel in Santa Barbara. Firms include: A. D. Handy (Boston) and Putnam & Valentine (Los Angeles). (Mss 271).
[Santa Barbara]. California Picture Postcard Album, ca. 1900. Album, ca. 1900, containing 45 black/white and color picture postcards. Mostly California, including several images of Santa Barbara (Potter Hotel, ocean front, mission, Santa Cruz Island), Los Angeles (court house, street scenes, parks), Santa Monica (Soldiers’ home, pier), Catalina Island, San Diego (La Jolla, Coronado Hotel, Ramona’s Marriage Place), and Pasadena (valley view, Hotel Raymond). Also a few postcards from New Mexico (mainly train stations) and Kingman, Arizona (city and countryside). (SC 823).
[Santa Barbara]. Calkins (James A.) Collection. Family and local history collection of b/w photos and clippings relating to the Calkins family and Santa Barbara area, including Zaca Lake Ranch. (SBHC Mss 24).
[Santa Barbara]. Chase [Harold S.] Oral History, 1975. Interviews with others about Santa Barbara realtor, developer, and civic leader Chase, re his coming to Santa Barbara, Hope Ranch development, role in public affairs, including earthquake and depression relief, fundraising for Cottage Hospital, wildlife conservation, and family life. (OH 26).
[Santa Barbara]. Chase, Pearl. Carbon copy of a letter (TLS) from Pearl Chase to John A. Hussey, Historian, National Park Service, San Francisco, re birth of Isabel Larkin, believed to be first child born in California of American parents. Santa Barbara, September 1962. (SC 388).
[Santa Barbara]. Chroma Litho Collection, [ca. 1980s]. 10 color examples of work by Santa Barbara-based Chroma Litho printers. (SC 1037).
[Santa Barbara]. Church [Donald R.] / Santa Barbara Old Mission Postcard Collection, ca. early 1900s. Picture postcards, b/w and color, many mailed, with messages. (SBHC Mss 62).
[Santa Barbara]. City Club of Santa Barbara. Constitution and By-Laws, incorporated Nov. 2, 1936, and revised Feb. 8, 1960. (SC 747).
[Santa Barbara]. Climatological Data, ca. 1957-1973 [bulk dates 1959-1961]. Climatological data sheets from Point Mugu, Santa Barbara, Santa Maria; also shorter runs of data, in folders, from areas such as Coal Oil Point, Ellwood, Punta Gorda, Rincon Point, Goleta, Carpinteria, Summerland, and Montecito. Includes hourly data on wind, sky cover, waves, and visibility. (SBHC Mss 65).
[Santa Barbara]. Clyde [George] Scrapbooks, 1965-1976. Six large scrapbooks with clippings of oil stories, many relating to the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill, but also earlier and later articles, from 1965 to 1976. The clippings are from the Santa Barbara News-Press, as well as other papers from Santa Barbara to Ventura, and the Los Angeles Times. Clyde worked for the Santa Barbara News-Press for a number of years and was a member of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors from 1964 to 1973, which included the period of the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill and its aftermath. During his time on the Board, he is best remembered for leading the fight against offshore oil leasing. (SBHC Mss 53).
[Santa Barbara]. Cobb, George H. One disbound photo album containing 115 black/white images, various sizes, of family and friends, Santa Barbara and Montecito scenes including Santa Barbara Mission and Riven Rock, President McKinley’s visit to Santa Barbara, San Francisco, ca 1900-1905. (Wyles SC 613).
[Santa Barbara]. Cole [David L.] Collection, early 1900s. California and Santa Barbara area ephemera. (Mss 168).
[Santa Barbara]. Community Development and Conservation Collection (CDCC), ca. 1895-1980s. Also known as the Pearl Chase Collection, focusing on Santa Barbara history in the 20th century. Included are papers relating to several hundred local organizations (especially pertaining to architecture, gardens, housing, land use, and planning), as well events such as Fiesta, Chase family papers, and numerous photographs of local scenes. (SBHC Mss 1).
[Santa Barbara]. Conway (Joel) / Early California Aviation Photograph Collection, ca. 1909-1950s [bulk dates 1910s]. About 400 separate images (many copy negatives and copy prints) compiled by Santa Barbara photographer Joel Conway, the bulk relating to the aviation activities of the Christofferson brothers and the Loughead (Lockheed) Aviation Company (headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA for a time in the 1910s), most depicting early California aviation history, many related to Santa Barbara. Also, images of Bauhaus Brothers, biplanes, Glenn Curtiss, dirigibles, Amelia Earhart, Graf Zeppelin, George Fiske Hammond, “Wild” Bill Kohler, Charles Lindbergh, John K. Northrop, Bert Saxby, Katherine and Marjorie Sinson, and Al Wilson. (SBHC Mss 79).
[Santa Barbara]. Conway (Joel) / Flying A Studio Photograph Collection, ca. 1910s-1997 [bulk dates 1910s]. The collection mainly contains black and white prints and negatives relating to the Flying A Studios (aka American Film Manufacturing Company), a film company that operated in Santa Barbara (1912-1920), as well as supporting documentation. The collection materials were acquired by Joel Conway from various sources, including the abandoned studio. Conway was a photographer who had come from Chicago and who collected a large number of photographs over the years, including many with a Santa Barbara focus. (SBHC Mss 78).
[Santa Barbara]. Conway [Joel] Oral History, 1973. Interviews with the Santa Barbara photographer and collector of historical photographs, re development of his collection, early motion picture and television history and stars, including Flying A Studio in Santa Barbara and 1950s House on Un-American Activities. Central Coast Regional Projects. (OH 30).
[Santa Barbara]. Covarrubias, Maria. One letter (ALS), in Spanish, written on her behalf by her daughter, to her brother, re death of family members including her husband, Jose Maria (a prominent judge and legislator). Santa Barbara, Oct. 1871. Includes translation. (SC 78).
[Santa Barbara]. Davis [George Wesley] Photograph Album, ca. 1895-1900. Album of George Wesley Davis, with images of the 1895 Santa Barbara Flower Show, other Santa Barbara locales, a newspaper clipping by Davis about a trip to Cuba around the time of the Spanish American War, and related commercial photographs of Cuba, some with captions. (SBHC Mss 80).
[Santa Barbara]. Dent, Rowley E. Diary, partly relating to Santa Barbara, 1870. (Wyles SC 76).
[Santa Barbara]. Dunlap (Margaret S.) Papers, ca. 1940s-1990s. Bio/personal files, sketch books, slides, photographs and other material of a local artist who created many public art works in Santa Barbara. (SBHC Mss 67).
[Santa Barbara]. E. Conway & Co. Ledgers, [1860s]. Two handwritten ledgers with manuscript documents and maps pertaining to the E. Conway & Company purchase of lands in Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, and Contra Costa counties, with early information about oil development in California. (Mss 184).
[Santa Barbara]. English (Robert A.) Collection, ca. 1967-1970. Mainly materials relating to the activities of the Community Council to End the War in Vietnam and other peace efforts in the Santa Barbara area. Included are correspondence, flyers, clippings, and scrapbooks. (SBHC Mss 5).
[Santa Barbara]. Ensemble Theatre Company of Santa Barbara Records, 1979-2002. Production files, administrative files, and videotapes of the Ensemble Theatre Company, founded in 1979. (PA Mss 47).
[Santa Barbara]. G.E. Tempo Collection, 1957-1969. Mainly unclassified speeches, papers, publications, research and technical memoranda and proposals of G. E. Tempo, a Santa Barbara-based think-tank working on long-range solutions to national defense and weapons systems issues. (Mss 139).
[Santa Barbara]. G. E. Tempo Collection, ca. 1972-1973. Pamphlets and ephemera from the UCSB Library’s Local History File, re the Santa Barbara-based long-range research and planning component of the General Electric Company, and protests against it. (SC 692).
[Santa Barbara]. Gault [William Campbell] Collection, ca. 1937-1996. Published material by Santa Barbara crime and young adult fiction writer William Campbell Gault. Also, awards, correspondence, a few black and white photographs of Gault and fellow mystery writers, and mystery and sport stories mainly appearing in pulp magazines from the latter 1930s to the early 1960s. (Mss 284).
[Santa Barbara]. Geiger, Maynard. Uncorrected page proofs for Father Maynard Geiger’s Indians of Mission Santa Barbara… [Spec F869.S45 G3848 1960]. (SC 713).
[Santa Barbara]. Geiger [Father Maynard] Oral History, 1975. Interviews with Father Geiger re his life, history of the Franciscan order and the Santa Barbara Mission, and Father Junipero Serra. Central Coast Regional Projects. (OH 40).
[Santa Barbara]. Genns [Whitney T.] Oral History, 1971. Interview with Santa Barbara rare book dealer Genns re childhood in New Jersey-New York in 1910s, World War I, Greenwich Village in the 1920s-1930s, prohibition, jazz greats, Washington, D.C. during the New Deal, and FDR. Central Coast Regional Projects. (OH 41).
[Santa Barbara]. Genns [Whitney T.] Photograph Collection, ca. 1941-1978. Photographs of the Genns family and Santa Barbara bookstore. (Mss 39).
[Santa Barbara]. Get Oil Out (GOO) Collection, ca. 1969-1990. Office files (bylaws, minutes, fundraising, publications, newsletters), governmental action, legal, and subject files, mainly pertaining to efforts to contain and monitor oil industry off coast of Santa Barbara, especially in the aftermath of the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill. (SBHC Mss 10).
[Santa Barbara]. Gilbar [Steven] Collection, ca. 1840s-1990s [bulk dates 1980s-1990s]. Research files, including correspondence, articles, clippings, and photographs pertaining to Steven Gilbar and Dean Stewart’s Tales of Santa Barbara (1994) and Literary Santa Barbara (1998). Also, related monographs and serials, which have been cataloged separately. (Mss 171).
[Santa Barbara]. Gonzales, R. P. F. Jose M. One document (ADS), in Spanish, re a marriage. Santa Barbara, 28 April 1852. (SC 127).
[Santa Barbara]. Gresham Family California Photograph Album, ca. 1900-1907. 189 mainly black and white photographs, assembled in a soft leather album by the Gresham family of San Francisco who travelled, in part, on their yacht “Gypsy.” Locations include Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, Santa Barbara (mission, alleged bullfight), Diamond Canõn, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz, San Mateo, Sausalito, Redwood, and Sacramento. Also a few images of Bagio, Philippines. (Mss 268).
[Santa Barbara]. Griggs and Hanford Families. Photographs, deeds and other legal documents re Griggs and Hanford families some pertaining to Santa Barbara, CA and residence at 905 E. Haley St., ca. 1870s-1921. Santa Barbara photographers include Hayward & Muzzall, M. A. Rees, and Sturtevant. (SC 469).
[Santa Barbara]. Hamilton [Donald] Papers, ca. 1980-1997. Correspondence, notes, flyers, clippings and other material, primarily relating to Hamilton’s work as a homeless advocate in Santa Barbara. (SBHC Mss 45).
[Santa Barbara]. Hansen [Alfred J.] Collection, 1969-1988. Records of the Veterans of World War I, District 7, which included Santa Barbara and surrounding areas. Hansen was a district commander at one point, and also was active in the local unit. (Bernath Mss 21).
[Santa Barbara]. Harmer (A. Bertrand) Photograph Collection, ca. 1925. Ca. 156 b/w prints of Spanish Colonial Architecture, taken by Harmer in 1925, the year of the Santa Barbara earthquake. Harmer was an architect who designed many of the Spanish-style buildings in Santa Barbara. (SBHC Mss 72).
[Santa Barbara]. Heath (Richard A.) / Early Lockheed History Collection, ca. 1880s-2005. Early history of the Loughead (later Lockheed) family and aircraft company, located in Santa Barbara, ca. 1916-1921. Assembled by Richard A. Heath. Includes numerous photographs. (SBHC Mss 76).
[Santa Barbara]. Hollister Family Photographs, ca. late 1800s. 11 cabinet card portraits, nine cartes de visite portraits, and one landscape cabinet photo of William Hollister in a grove, in front of his house. (SC 899).
[Santa Barbara]. [Hollywood]. Seven printed programs of movies shown at the California Theatre, “The Family Theatre” at 20 Canon Perdido St., Santa Barbara, CA, 1936-1937. (SC 743).
[Santa Barbara]. Humphries (Marie) Oil Scrapbook, ca. 1934-1938. Small scrapbook with clippings, many from a column in the Santa Barbara Daily News entitled “In the Oilfields,” with latest news on drilling on the Santa Barbara Mesa and Elwood fields, as well as Ventura (incl. [Robert] Moran’s Oil Ridge Oil Co.), and Palos Verdes Hills area, many describing Humphries’ Rolling Hills Petroleum Co. ventures. Also, several black and white snapshots of Humphries, Mesa drilling, and other unidentified oil fields. (SC 1113).
[Santa Barbara]. Kelley, Berta Lee Winniford. Bound typescript of poems and diary extracts, entitled Moods - Ever Changing and To Each His Gift, along with related correspondence and photo. Oral History 53 also relates to Kelley. (SC 829).
[Santa Barbara]. Kelley [Lloyd Amos and Berta Lee Winniford] Oral History, 1981. Discussion of the problems faced in running a family business during the Depression and how Lloyd Kelley built Kelley’s Corner, a Santa Barbara landmark, into a thriving establishment after World War II. Central Coast Regional Projects. (OH 53).
[Santa Barbara]. Kellogg, Spencer, Jr. One letter (ALS) to Mrs. [?] Hatch thanking her for the gift of her book of poems. October 10, n.y. Found in Kellogg’s Out of the Deep (Santa Barbara: Schauer Printing Studio, 1944). (SC 438).
[Santa Barbara]. Knowles (Joseph) Collection, 1920s-1930s. Correspondence, lists, and samples, mostly relating to Western Builder’s Supply Co. of San Francisco, ca. 1920s-1930s, and two letters (TLS) to George Washington Smith, Santa Barbara architect, re architectural and design catalogs and brochures being sent, 1922 and 1928. Related trade catalogs, also collected by Knowles, have been cataloged separately. (SC 717).
[Santa Barbara]. League of Women Voters Collection, ca. 1970s-1990s. Primarily research files of the organization, relating to issues such as the oil industry, LAFCO and Goleta annexation. (SBHC Mss 2).
[Santa Barbara]. Levy (Rachel) Santa Barbara Autograph Album, 1880s. Autographs and messages from friends, relatives, teachers, many of whom were members of the Santa Barbara Jewish community of the latter nineteenth century. (SC 1114).
[Santa Barbara]. Lyon, Ray B. (Judge). Correspondence, clipping and three typescript essays re deer in California, one entitled "Deer of Santa Barbara," ca. 1953. (SC 409).
[Santa Barbara]. Mackey Expedition to Santa Cruz Island. Log, 1 July 1912. (SC 186).
[Santa Barbara]. Mallory, Lee. Collection of correspondence, reviews and related materials, mostly photocopies, to and from various poets and editors, pertaining to Mallory’s Painted Cave Books of Goleta, CA, and elsewhere, ca. 1973-1975. (SC 499).
[Santa Barbara]. Moldaver [Lee] Collection, ca. 1977-1993. Primarily relating to the Santa Barbara Mass Transit District (SBMTD) and related transportation-related issues. Also includes files relating to the Citizens Planning Association of Santa Barbara County, Inc. (CPA) and the Environmental Defense Center (EDC). (SBHC Mss 30).
[Santa Barbara]. Ovington, Earle. One letter (TLS) to [Curtis] Freschel, re successful investments. Santa Barbara, CA, 25 July 1922. (SC 231).
[Santa Barbara]. Packing Labels, early-mid 1900s. Five printed color packing labels for lemons packed by companies in Santa Barbara County, California. (SC 1105).
[Santa Barbara] Pettee Family History, ca. 1960s. Ten page history of the Salisbury, CT Pettee family and Santa Barbara descendant Frank Pettee. Found with Frank Pettee’s Retracing My Steps: An Autobiography (Santa Barbara: Schauer Pringtin Studio, 1959). (SC 615).
[Santa Barbara]. Posters of the 1960s, [bulk dates latter 1960s]. 27 original printed posters, many in vivid color, most advertising concerts and readings in Detroit, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara / Isla Vista, CA. Includes appearances by Big Brother & the Holding Company; Blood, Sweat & Tears; Richard Brautigan; Basil Bunting; Cream; Doors; Fugs; and John Mayall. Poster artists include Jim Blashfield, Gary Grimshaw, John Lodge, Carl Lundgren, and Chuck Miller. (Mss 265).
[Santa Barbara]. Ridland [John] Collection, ca. 1957-1999. Contains material relating to Santa Barbara area poets and presses, including ephemera and other items laid in printed works; Isla Vista items relating to the troubles of 1970 and including a piece by Ridland entitled "Eyes and Ears on Isla Vista: An Unpublished Review from 1970"; and his papers, which include his files as faculty advisor of the UCSB student publication, Spectrum. (SBHC Mss 47).
[Santa Barbara]. Robbins [Thomas S.] Collection, 1855. Five documents (ADS), relating claims on the estate of an early Santa Barbara resident. (SC 751).
[Santa Barbara]. Rojas (Arnold R.) Papers, ca. 1964. Corrected typescript, galley and page proofs for Rojas’ The Vaquero, published by McNally and Loftin, Charlotte and Santa Barbara, 1964. Rojas also wrote several other works on the California vaqueros. (SC 715).
[Santa Barbara]. Ruhge [Justin] Collection, ca. 1970s-2001. Primarily research files relating to Santa Barbara and Goleta history. (SBHC Mss 27).
[Santa Barbara]. Rypins [Alice B.] Papers, 1960, 1970-1980s [bulk dates 1970-1983]. Mainly local government publications, newsletters, pamphlets and other files relating to Santa Barbara area water projects. Alice Rypins (1910-1998) was a City of Santa Barbara, Board of Water Commissioner and a City Council member. (SBHC Mss 3).
[Santa Barbara]. Saadi (Ruth) Collection, ca. 1984-1993. Files relating to League of Women Voters – Santa Barbara concerns, including air pollution, energy, environment, growth and development, oil and gas, voting and elections. Ruth Saadi was an active member and Energy Director of the organization. (SBHC Mss 14).
[Santa Barbara]. “Scenes from California” Photograph Album, 1888. Four albumen prints, including one of Santa Barbara Mission, in a handmade soft leather album entitled “Scenes from California” and dated 1888. Also, images of Helmet Rock (California coast); Soda Spring, Shasta; and oak trees (with elderly man seated), El Monte. Scenes from Monterey and San Francisco are lacking from the album. (SC 832).
[Santa Barbara]. Scott-McIntosh Petroleum, Incorporated Collection, ca. 1928-1930. Correspondence, notes, reports and aerial photographs re Elwood Oil Field. (SC 532).
[Santa Barbara]. Sea Mosses of Santa Barbara Album, ca. 1874-1875. (SBHC Mss 77).
[Santa Barbara]. Sharp [Robert C.] Papers, ca. 1963-1974. Includes bids, contracts, leases, logs, reports, charts, and court records pertaining to oil drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel, mainly regarding lawsuits stemming from the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill. (SBHC Mss 7).
[Santa Barbara]. Simpkins [Herbert C.] Collection, ca. 1918-2000 [bulk dates 1970s-1980s]. Items collected by Herbert C. Simpkins on a variety of subjects, including the environment, Get Oil Out [GOO] and Santa Barbara oil spill, Ku Klux Klan, Santa Barbara and UCSB flyers on contemporary social issues, and World War II. (Mss 218).
[Santa Barbara]. Skofield, Ray L. Telegram to H. L. Hitchcock of Santa Barbara, the first plane-to-ground commercial radio message, June 27, 1929, together with a Santa Barbara News-Press article detailing the story, Feb. 2, 1958. (SC 279).
[Santa Barbara]. Spaulding, Edward Selden. One letter (ALS) from Santa Barbara author and first headmaster of Laguna Blanca School, Edward Selden Spaulding, to Alice (Mrs. Thomas) Driscoll, talking about stories he has written. [Santa Barbara, CA], 1968. Laid in Spaulding’s Venison and a Breath of Sage (1967). (SC 547).
[Santa Barbara]. Storke, Charles Albert. Collection of letters, photographic negatives, and clippings, mainly pertaining to Andersonville [Civil War] survivors, ca. 1911-1912. (SC 292).
[Santa Barbara]. Storke, Charles Albert. Two letters (ALS) from H. C. Chatfield-Taylor, in part about times at Cornell and one carte de visite of Storke as adolescent (Osh Kosh, WI photographer), n.d. (SC 293).
[Santa Barbara]. Storke [Charles Albert (C. A.)] Collection. (SBHC Mss 40).
[Santa Barbara]. Storke (Charles A., II) Collection, ca. 1911-1998. Papers of Charles A. Storke II, Montecito resident, newspaperman, businessman, son of Thomas M. Storke. (SBHC Mss 38).
[Santa Barbara]. Storke [Thomas M.] Collection. Includes scrapbook, speeches, photo, miscellaneous articles by Storke and copies of awards presented to him, and numerous condolences to his wife re his death. (SBHC Mss 37).
[Santa Barbara]. Story, Ala. Collection, compiled by Ala Story, American British Art Center board member and, later, Santa Barbara resident. Mainly correspondence from poet Marianne Moore, also a 1947 letter (ALS) from Robert Frost, and photographs of E. E. Cummings, ca. 1944-1966. (SC 295).
[Santa Barbara]. Suman (Alvaro) Papers. Materials of a longtime Santa Barbara Chicano resident, painter, sculptor, and ceramicist. (CEMA 90).
[Santa Barbara]. UCSB, Department of History, Public Historical Studies Program Records, 1955-1995 [bulk dates 1977-1994]. Contains research and publication files for projects such as the Painted Cave fire study, Santa Barbara County vintners project, and Santa Barbara district attorney history project, as well as correspondence, conference and lecture files, and other documents. (UArch 41).
[Santa Barbara]. UCSB History and Antecedents Collection, 1880-2004. Collection brings together materials from multiple sources on the growth of the university from a small normal school at the turn of the 19th century to the large state university it is today. The collection is arranged generally chronologically and by subjects such as predecessor institutions, important figures in UCSB history, previous campuses, events, etc. (UArch 100).
[Santa Barbara]. UCSB Public History Interviews, 1978. Mainly interviews with Santa Barbara area fire department, forest service, and government employees re fires and firefighting. Also some interviews re water issues and the 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake. (OH 76).
[Santa Barbara]. UCSB, Office of Public Information Subject Files, ca. 1941-1993. Includes files on academic planning, Academic Senate, Arts & Lectures events, Associated Students, Bakke case, buildings, Chancellor's events and activities, Charter Day, colleges, Commencement, convocations, departments, development, Drama Series, enrollment, faculty, financial aid, history (UCSB, Goleta, and Santa Barbara), honors and awards, issues, Lecture Series, Music Series, propositions, radio and television, Regents, residence halls, statewide issues, student affairs, University Day, University Edition, and university relations. (UArch 12).
[Santa Barbara]. Veblen [Paul] Papers, ca. 1960s-1970s. Notes and articles about the Santa Barbara News-Press and Paul Veblen’s involvement in the John Birch Society ‘skirmish’; letters and copies of letters to Veblen from Pearl Chase, along with her copy of Seven Hundred Chinese Proverbs, inscribed to him. (SBHC Mss 69).
[Santa Barbara]. Walnut Park Tract, Santa Barbara, California. Abstract of Title, 1905. (SC 801).
[Santa Barbara]. Walton Family Photographs, 1907. Four glass plate negatives of the 50th anniversary of the Waltons, said to have run the first drygoods store in Santa Barbara. (SBHC Mss 74).
[Santa Barbara]. Webb (Margaret Ely) Collection, ca. 1920s-1950s. Correspondence, Christmas greetings and watercolor sketches by Santa Barbara book artist, book plate designer, and printmaker Margaret Ely Webb (1877-1965), as well as essays by/about her. (SC 328).
[Santa Barbara]. Weingand et al, v. County et al (Channel Island Drilling) Collection. (SBHC Mss 31).
[Santa Barbara]. Whigham [Peter] Collection, ca. 1980-1987. Manuscript and typescript drafts of Santa Barbara author, scholar, and translator Peter Whigam’s verse translation of Dante [Alighieri’s] Cantos [Divine Comedy], photograph, three letters (ALS), resumé, memorial booklet by Ralph Sipper, and bibliography. (SC 754).
[Santa Barbara]. Whistler, James A. Two engraved maps of Anacapa Island, by artist Whistler, 1854. (SC 703).
[Santa Barbara]. White, Stewart Edward (1873-1947). One mimeograph copy of an untitled 156 page work by American author and one-time (1903) Santa Barbara resident, Stewart Edward White. Includes chapter headings such as “Creative Living,” “Discomfort and Unhappiness,” and “The Group Idea.” Burlingame, CA, Dec. 1, 1933. (SC 335).
[Santa Barbara]. White, William Allen. Four letters (TLS) from William Allen White, American author, politician, and editor and owner of the Emporia Gazette [Kansas] to/about Southwest artist, illustrator and Santa Barbara resident Fernand Lungren, re Lungren’s work and personal reminiscences of times with him, 1905-1935. (SC 336).
[Santa Barbara]. Whitehead [Richard S.] Papers, ca. 1909-1974. Alphabetical and geographical files pertaining to land use and planning, from the County of Santa Barbara Director of Planning at the time of the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill. (SBHC Mss 9).
[Santa Barbara]. Willson [Charles Devon] Collection, ca. 1918-1925. Mainly correspondence to Willson, manager of the El Mirasol Hotel in Santa Barbara, about hotel matters. Includes some correspondence relating to the 1925 earthquake. (SC 701).
[Santa Barbara]. Young (Noel) / Capra Press Collection, ca. 1930s-1970s. The collection contains biographical information about Noel Young (1922-2002), including typescripts from early diaries in the 1930s and through his college years, typescripts mainly of short stories, but also poetry and plays, by Young, memorabilia from trips, photographs, and some material relating to his Santa Barbara-based Capra Press. (Printers Mss 46).
[Santa Barbara]. Young [Noel] / Capra Press Oral History, 1983. Interviews with the Santa Barbara publisher. (OH 104).
Santa Barbara African American Local History Collection, 1994-1997 . Documents, photographs, and interviews collected as part of a Black Santa Barbara Historical Calendar, a collaborative research project in the Black Studies Department at UCSB. The aim of the calendar was to call attention to local personages and events important in Santa Barbara’s African American community. (CEMA 99).
Santa Barbara African American Oral History Project Collection. Documents, photographs and interviews pertaining to Santa Barbara African American local history. Included are 19 tapes of interviews with prominent members of the Black Santa Barbara community. (CEMA 42).
Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez Turnpike Road Co. Document dated Apr. 25, 1868. (SC 862).
Santa Barbara and Suburban Railway Photographs, 1913. Four b/w photos and copies (various sizes), showing Miss Ednah A. Rich, President of the State Normal School, being presented with a spike maul, which she used to drive the golden spike at the end of the Normal School Extension of the Santa Barbara & Suburban Railway, Nov. 6, 1913. (SC 844).
Santa Barbara Area Newpapers, ca. 1887-1992. Single issues or short broken runs of newspapers from the local area, including Carpinteria, Goleta, Isla Vista, Santa Ynez Valley, Montecito, and Santa Barbara. Newspapers with substantial runs have been cataloged separately. (SBHC Mss 50).
Santa Barbara Authors Collection. Articles, bibliographies, biographies, and other material collected on an ongoing basis about Santa Barbara authors. Papers of individual authors are kept as separate collections and are listed by surname. Also, cataloged separately, are signed and first editions of hundreds of past and present authors with local connections. See the Special Collections webpage Santa Barbara Authors and Publishers for more detailed information. (SBHC Mss 68).
Santa Barbara Citizens Commission on Civil Disorders Collection, 1970. List and audio recordings of a series of hearings held from June 17, 1970 to September 1, 1970. (SBHC Mss 57).
Santa Barbara City and Coast Map, 1928. Large, ca. 30” x 80” map, with hand-colored key and shadings of areas owne/operated by oil companies of the time. (SC 956).
Santa Barbara Civic Light Opera Records. (PA Mss 56).
Santa Barbara College. One document (AD) listing original pledges for the college, 1869. The college has no connection to the present University of California, Santa Barbara. (SC 268).
"Santa Barbara Community Resources." Mimeographed school project organized by Hanne Sonquist, with lists of local organizations and services provided, 1973. (SC 534).
Santa Barbara Concert Posters, ca. late 1960s. Six original color posters, mainly of Jim Salzer Presents events at the Santa Barbara Fairgrounds. Headliners include Eric Clapton, Cream, The Fugs, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, and Vanilla Fudge. (SC 1032).
Santa Barbara Contemporary Issues Collections. Papers of 20th century local officials, legislators, organizations, and individuals dealing with issues such as the airport, education, flood control, government, health, housing, land use and planning, natural resources, oil, political reform, taxes, transportation, water, and the wilderness. Collections are listed individually.
Santa Barbara Correspondence. One letter (ALS) from Thomas Irvine (Santa Barbara) to C. H. Peters (Carson City, Nevada), re a financial matter, 3 April 1897. Also one letter (TL) from State Bank & Trust Co. (Carson City) to Thomas P. Hawley (Santa Barbara), 11 Dec. 1906, and one letter (ALS) response from Hawley, 14 Dec. 1906, re stocks in Goldfield Consolidated Mining Co. (SC 567).
Santa Barbara County, California. Superintendent of Schools. Seven World War II era documents, including five War Emergency Bulletins and others about evacuation of Japanese children and air raid signals, 1941-1942. (SC 630).
Santa Barbara Earthquake Photographs, 1925. 50 b/w photographs, many relating to the 1925 earthquake. (SC 700).
Santa Barbara Girls School, 1917-1920s. Two illustrated brochures extolling the virtues of the school’s location and curriculum. Includes class lists. (SC 963).
Santa Barbara Jazz Society Records. Records of Santa Barbara organization dedicated to the appreciation of jazz music. (PA Mss 71).
Santa Barbara Libertarian Party. Eleven issues of the Santa Barbara Libertarian newsletter, 1975-1976. (SC 711).
Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Poster for the 25th anniversary of the Museum, 1941-1966. (SC 987).
Santa Barbara Oil Spill Poster, 1969. One black and white poster of oil rig and oil spill on water’s surface, with caption “January 28, 1969.” (SC 1034).
Santa Barbara Oil Spill Scrapbook, 1969. One scrapbook with clippings tracing the history of the Santa Barbara Oil Spill of January 1969. The clippings cover the period from January to May 1969, most from the Santa Barbara News Press, but also including California Oil World, El Gaucho [UCSB], Lompoc Record, Long Beach Press Telegram, Los Angeles Herald, Los Angeles Times, Oil and Gas Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, and Santa Maria Times. (SBHC Mss 52).
Santa Barbara Parapsychology Collection, ca. 1970s-1980s. Newsletters, magazines, catalogs, flyers, articles, records of experiments, correspondence, subject files, and other material, mainly printed, collected by Santa Barbara resident Dr. David T. Phillips and primarily pertaining to parapsychology-related groups, studies, and issues in Santa Barbara, southern California, and elsewhere in the U.S. (ARC Mss 48).
Santa Barbara Photograph, ca. late 1880s. One black and white panorama, showing harbor, city, mission, and electrical poles [Santa Barbara received electricity in 1887]. (SC 1035).
Santa Barbara Photographs, late 1800s-early 1900s. Single items and small groups of photographs, acquired from various sources. (SBHC Mss 61).
Santa Barbara Picture Postcards, ca. 1900s-1950s. About 90 b/w and color postcards of various Santa Barbara area scenes, acquired over the years from various sources. Includes Santa Barbara and Montecito residences and gardens, harbor and beaches, foothills, bird’s eye views, Santa Barbara Mission, and former Riviera campus of Santa Barbara College (now UC Santa Barbara). (SBHC Mss 36).
Santa Barbara Public School Art Fair. Invitation, 23 May 1912. (SC 269).
Santa Barbara Vintners Collection, ca. 1990s- . Newsletters, flyers, wine labels, articles/clippings, and other ephemera relating to vintners in the Santa Barbara County area (including Santa Ynez Valley, Lompoc, Santa Maria). (SBHC Mss 63).
Santa Barbara Water Resources Collection, ca. 1959-1984. Files relating to Santa Barbara area water districts, groundwater, and hourly precipitation records. (SBHC Mss 16).
Santa Barbara World War I Recruitment Poster. (SC 881).
[Santa Cruz Island]. Mackey Expedition to Santa Cruz Island. Log, 1 July 1912. (SC 186).
[Santa Cruz Island]. Kiewit (John S.) Photography Collection, ca. 1968-2000. More than 10,000 color and black/white prints, color slides, and black/white negatives. Color slides constitute the bulk of the collection. The images reflect what Kiewit saw on his travels throughout California and the West, as well as trips to other parts of the U.S. and the world. Prominent places and themes include Baja, barns and farms, Big Sur, buildings and building elements (doors and windows), Carmel [CA], Central Coast [CA], Channel Islands, Death Valley, fences, ghost towns, Hawaii, Hollister Ranch [CA], landscapes, Malibu [CA], Marin County [CA], New England, New Mexico, ocean views, Oregon, Oxnard [CA], rock formations, signs, surfing, trees, Utah, wildflowers, Wyoming, and Yosemite. Other countries represented in the collection include Cook Island, Costa Rica, El Salvador, England, France, Guatemala, Marques and Tahiti Islands, Mexico, Micronesia, and New Zealand. Most of the images were taken from the 1970s to the 1990s. (Mss 228).
[Santa Ynez Valley]. Lyons [Jeannette] Oral History, 1975. Family and local history, mainly Santa Ynez Valley, including experiences as a teacher and, later, curator of the Santa Ynez Historical Museum. Central Coast Regional Projects. (OH 60).
“Sarah Bernhardt in ‘Phedre’, Hearst’s Greek Theatre, May 17, 1906.” One black and white panoramic photograph. (SC 1029).
Saroyan, William. One note (ANS) to Lena and Joe Petracca, bon voyage wishes. Malibu, 15 Mar. 1958. (SC 270).
Satir [Virginia] Collection, 1916-1993. Extensive collection of personal and professional manuscript materials, organizational records, and audiovisual materials from the noted family therapist. (HPA Mss 45).
Satir [Virginia] Oral History. Interviews with family therapist Satir. (OH 82).
[Saudi Arabia]. Gildea [James G.] Middle East Railroad Collection, ca. 1940s-1970s [bulk dates early 1950s]. Bulk of collection is documents and photos re construction of Saudi Government Railway, ca. early 1950s. Gildea later lived in Santa Barbara. (Bernath Mss 219).
[Saudi Arabia]. Trans-Arabian Pipeline Photograph Collection, ca. 1947. 80 black and white snapshots of the early days of the Bechtel Company’s construction of the Saudi Arabia portion of the Trans-Arabian Pipeline (Tapline), carrying oil via a 30 inch line to tankers in the Mediterranean. Includes images of marine terminal construction on the eastern Saudi Arabian coast, Bechtel and local boats, trucks with pipe and other heavy machinery, American, Saudi Arabian, and Indian workmen, Arab in traditional dress with falcon, Arab men, women and children, and camels. (SC 1099).
Saudi Arabia Oil Photograph Collection, ca. 1936-1939. 199 black and white snapshots from a disbound album, captions in English on the back of many photographs, taken by an unidentified American involved in developing the early oil industry in Saudi Arabia at a time when U.S. interests, particularly Standard Oil of California [SOCAL], were supplanting British interests in the area. Most images relate to construction of oil camps in eastern Saudi Arabia, mainly at Abu Hadriya Camp (incl. prefab and other building construction, colleagues, Arab workers and living quarters, pipelines, oil wells and fire at one). Also local population and street scenes in village near Abu Hadriya, Al Khobar (Saudi coast – first oil barge; marine terminal), Jubail (Saudi coast – people and street scenes), local Bedouins and camels, Bahrain (pier and local scenes). (Bernath Mss 366).
Savage, Henry. One letter (ALS) to [Muriel Stuart?], n.d. Laid in Savage’s Richard Middleton, the Man and His Work (1922). (SC 259).
Savage Mining Company (Virginia, Nevada). Daily report and vouchers, 1876-1898. (Wyles SC 896).
Saxon [A. H.] Papers. Typescript of The Life and Art of Andrew Ducrow and the Romantic Age of the English Circus, and accompanying essay. (PA Mss 11).
Sawders [James] Photograph Collection, ca. 1930s-1950s. Approx. 890 b/w prints, most 8x10, many countries. Most taken by Charles Phelps Cushing, 51 E. 42nd St., NY (1884-1973; was a Kansas City reporter for a time, died in Bronx) and distributed by James Caleb Sawders. Sawders was an American photojournalist who travelled to China in the early 1930s, according to one website. A few photos with Sawders credit alone. A few others were taken by Jack Lewis and distributed by Sawders. (Bernath Mss 172).
Sawyer (A. T.) Cuba Letter, 1839. (SC 1116).
Sawyer [James H.] Papers, 1861-1865, 1879-1882 [bulk dates 1861-1865]. Primarily correspondence and diaries of a Civil War Union soldier in the Connecticut Infantry, 18th Regiment (Vol.), Company B. (Wyles Mss 33).
Saybrook Institute (San Francisco, CA). Catalog, 1985-1986. (HPA SC 108).
Schedel, Hartmann (1440-1514). German historian and humanist scholar. Holdings include early editions of his major work, Liber Cronicarum (1493), which has come to be known as The Nuremberg Chronicle [Spec D17.S34 1493 vault and Printers Z241.S31 S3 vault]. Individual leaves from the Chronicle are also in the collection [Printers Z241.S31 S3253 1493 vault and Printers Z241.S31 S3257 1493 vault]. Fine press edition of Sarmatia: The Early Polish Kingdom (1976) by Plantin Press [Spec DK4190.S313 and Printers Z239.P53 S333 1976]. See also The Nuremberg Chronicle (1950) by Ellen Shaffer [Printers Z241.S31 S48 1950], The Nuremberg Chronicle Designs (1969) by Adrian Wilson [Printers Z241.S31 W5], and Hartmann Schedels Weltchronik (1988) by Elisabeth Rücker [Printers Z241.S31 R83 1988].
Scheffer, Charles. One letter (ALS) from Minnesota State Treasurer to President Elect Abraham Lincoln, re recommendation for district attorney. St. Paul, Minnesota, 12 Nov. 1860. (Wyles SC 198).
Schlien [John] Oral History. Interviews re Carl Rogers. Humanistic psychology project. (OH 2).
Schmidt [Erich F.] Persepolis Excavation Slides. Glass slides taken by Schmidt at archaeological sites, including Persepolis, ca. early part of the 20th century. (Bernath Mss 19).
Schmidt (Oswin) Polar / Arctic Travel Album, 1912. 160 original photographs, some panorama shots, and chromolithographs, as well as route maps, postcards, and menus of a voyage on the S.S. Grosser Kurfürst of the Norddeutscher Lloyd Line, from Bremerhafen (Germany) to Scotland (Edinburgh), Iceland (Reykjavik and Tröllafos), Spitzbergen, King Jacob Land, and Norway (Lyngseidet, Tromsoe, Malde, Balholmen, and Bergen). Includes images of people, settlements, villages, and towns, surrounding countryside, coast, icebergs, glaciers, Laplanders and reindeer, and Norwegian whale fishery. Captions in German. (Bernath Mss 311).
Schmitz (Alfred and Carol) Collection, ca. 1967-2008. Mainly first editions, many signed, of Booker Prize winner and shortlist books, together with related correspondence (mainly Booker authors), publicity, and other ephemera. (Mss 267).
Schmook, Henry A. [Private, New York National Guard, 3rd Regiment, Company A]. One document (ADS): Discharge by Disbandment, 27 Apr. 1869. (Wyles SC 380).
Schott [Valerian] China Photograph Album, 1941. (Bernath Mss 329).
Scientific Notebook. Handwritten geometrical definitions, scientific and mathematical problems and equations, with drawings; also including notes on railroad curves and superstructures. Author unknown, possibly from Philadelphia area (notebook includes table of time differences, using Philadelphia as the baseline), ca. mid 19th century. (SC 806).
[Scotland]. Ash (Marinell) Collection, 1970s and 1980s. Correspondence and related printed ephemera, re Scottish history. Accompanies a book collection on the same topic. (SC 519).
[Scotland]. Panama Canal / Southwest U.S. / Europe Photograph Album, 1926. 250+ b/w snapshots, apparently of a family’s 1926 travels, including the Isle of Mull, Isle of Skye, west coast and lochs of Scotland. (Bernath Mss 71).
[Scotland]. Polish Army World War II Photograph Presentation Album, 1941. Album with 52 b/w snapshots, captions in English. The soldiers were part of a Polish, British, and Norwegian force that captured Ankenes and Narvik [Norway] from the German forces in May, 1940, and broke the chain of German victories in World War II. Includes images of Scotland, around St. Andrews, where the soldiers were based. (Bernath Mss 60).
[Scotland]. Schmidt (Oswin) Polar / Arctic Travel Album, 1912. 160 original photographs, some panorama shots, and chromolithographs, as well as route maps, postcards, and menus of a voyage on the S.S. Grosser Kurfürst of the Norddeutscher Lloyd Line, from Bremerhafen (Germany) to Scotland (Edinburgh), Iceland (Reykjavik and Tröllafos), Spitzbergen, King Jacob Land, and Norway (Lyngseidet, Tromsoe, Malde, Balholmen, and Bergen). Includes images of people, settlements, villages, and towns, surrounding countryside, coast, icebergs, glaciers, Laplanders and reindeer, and Norwegian whale fishery. Captions in German. (Bernath Mss 311).
Scott Antarctic [Terra Nova] Expedition Photographs, 1910-1913. Glass plate negatives. (Bernath Mss 111).
Scott, Clement (1841-1904). One letter (ALS) from English theatre critic, playwright, and travel writer Clement Scott, to J. L. Toole, asking him to forward [an article?] to the editors of the Dramatic College Annual. [London?], 18 June 1866. (SC 470).
Scott, David S. [Private, Indiana Infantry, 8th Regiment (Vol), Company H]. One Civil War letter (ALS) to Miss Kate Missimer. Camp near St. Genievieve, Missouri, 15 Mar. 1863. (Wyles SC 323).
Scott, Hugh Stowell (1863?-1903). One letter (ALS) from underwriter in Lloyd’s and novelist Scott, re changes to his book, Slave of the Lamp. Merstham, Surrey, [U.K.], 21 Aug. 1891. (SC 471).
[Scott, Robert]. South Pacific Photograph Album, ca. 1901-1902. 140+ b/w photographs of a voyage, probably by a British passenger embarking at London, on the New Zealand ship S.S. Rakaia. Includes images of Robert Scott’s ship Discovery in dry dock for repairs in Lyttleton Harbour, on the way to explore Antarctica, Nov. 1901. (Bernath Mss 283).
Scott, Thomas A. One Civil War letter (ALS) to Dr. John Swinburne re Medical Board to examine applications for brigade surgeons. 20 Sept. 1861. (Wyles SC 270).
Scott, Walter (1771-1831). Scottish novelist and poet. Holdings include Ballads and Lyrical Pieces (1806) [Spec PR5306.B3 1806], Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field (1810) [Spec PR5311.A1 1810], The Vision of Don Roderick (1811) [Spec PR5313.V5 1811], The Border Antiquities of England and Scotland (1814) [Spec DA880.B72 S3], Guy Mannering (1815) [Spec PR5317.G8 1815], Paul’s Letters to His Kinfolk (1816) [Spec PR5320.P36], Tales of My Landlord (1816) [Spec PR5322.T3 1816], Rob Roy (1818) [Spec PR5322.R6 1818], The Abbot (1820) [Spec PR5317.A2 1820], The Monastery (1820) [Spec PR5320.M6 1820], The Fortunes of Nigel (1822) [Spec PR5317.F6 1822], The Pirate (1822) [Spec PR5320.P5 1822], Peveril of the Peak (1822) [Spec PR5320.P4 1822], Quentin Durward (1823) [Spec PR5321.A1 1823], Redgauntlet (1824) [Spec PR5322.R4 1824], Woodstock (1826) [Spec PR5322.W6 1826], Anne of Geierstein (1829) [Spec PR5317.A6 1829], Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (1830) [Spec PR5320.L47 1830], Harold the Dauntless (1843) [Spec PR5313.H5 1843], and The Lady of the Lake (1847) [Spec PR5308.A1 1847]. Fine press editions of Wandering Willie’s Tale (1905) by T.N. Foulis [Printers Z239.2.F66 S3673 1905], Ivanhoe (1940) by the Limited Editions Club [Printers Z239.L5 S36 1940], and The Two Drovers (1971) by the Kindle Press [Printers Z239.K43 S3]. See also Scott on Himself: A Selection of the Autobiographical Writings of Sir Walter Scott (1981) [Spec PR5334.A2 1981]. Additionally, Scott’s poems have been recorded on phonograph cylinders, such as Bonnie Dundee [PA Cylinder 0082], and 78 rpm records, including They Bid Me Sleep [PA ARVM-14590].
Scott, Winfield [Lieutenant General]. One portrait [printed engraving], by H. B. Hall, “From a recent Photograph by Brady,” n.d. (Wyles SC 718).
Scott-McIntosh Petroleum, Incorporated Collection, ca. 1928-1930. Correspondence, notes, reports and aerial photographs re Elwood Oil Field [Santa Barbara, CA], including images of Coal Oil Point and Goleta Point (now USCB). (SC 532).
Scrapbook – Advertising Literature, ca. 1890-1903. Correspondence, flyers, clippings, catalogs, lists and other advertising items, most relating to East Coast firms, laid and glued in a worn copy of Mark Twain’s A Tramp Abroad, being used as a scrapbook. Assembled by S. Tillinghast of La Plume, PA. (SC 843).
Screen Guild Players Recordings, 1942-1948. Recordings of 32 Screen Guild Players radio programs used as a fundraising effort for the Motion Picture Relief Fund featuring many contemporary stars. (PA Mss 28).
Sea Fern Album, ca. latter 1800s. Album containing seven mounted sea fern specimens, together with a black and white photograph of the [southern California?] coast, bound from a section of backbone of a whale cast up on Long Beach, California, with a red silk tie at the spine of the album. (Printers Mss 75).
Sea Mosses of Santa Barbara Album, ca. 1874-1875. (SBHC Mss 77).
Seabury [Samuel] Naval Papers, ca. 1871-1882. (Wyles Mss 112).
Seabury, William Marston. One letter (TLS) to Judge Paul J. McCormick re the motion picture industry. Laid in Seabury’s Motion Picture Problems. New York, 1 June 1929. (SC 274).
Seago [Edward B.] Correspondence, 1934-1935. Six letters (ALS) by the circus writer to [Raymond Toole-] Stott, mainly about articles he is working on. (SC 275).
Searle, Alan (Secretary to Somerset Maugham). Two letters (TLS) to Laurence Brander, one praising Brander’s book on Maugham, 1963, and one about Maugham’s death, 1966. Villa Mauresque, 1963, 1966. (SC 276).
Sears, E[dmund] H[amilton] (1810-1876). Holograph poem, untitled and undated, by the Massachusetts Unitarian parish minister and author of the carol “It Came upon the Midnight Clear.” (SC 472).
Seaver, Benjamin F. One letter (ALS) to his father, Henry [?], and grandmother, re personal and family matters. New York, July 15, 1836. (SC 662).
Sedgwick [John] Papers. One carte de visite photo of John Sedgwick, Civil War Union General, 6th Army Corps, and a 13 page handwritten report by him, to Brig. Gen. S. Williams of the Army of the Potomac, concerning movements of the 6th Army Corps around Fredericksburg, Virginia, from April 28 to May 5, 1863. (Wyles SC 201).
Self Determination (Santa Clara, CA). Flyer, directory, and journal, ca. 1977-1979. (HPA SC 109).
Self-Help Graphics and Art Archives, ca. 1960-1992. Extensive collection of silk screen prints and slides, as well as organizational records, photographs, and ephemera of the Los Angeles cultural arts center and studio. Founded in the early 1970s, during the height of the Chicano Civil Rights movement, by Mexican artists, Carlos Bueno and Antonio Ibañez, and several Chicano artists, including Frank Hernandez and Sister Karen Boccalero. (CEMA 3).
Selfridge / China Photograph Albums, ca. 1890s-1900. Two photograph albums of scenes in China, including Shanghai, Peking, and Tientsin [Tianjin], apparently from the period preceding and during the Boxer Rebellion. Includes snapshots and picture postcards. (Wyles Mss 56).
Selver [Charlotte] Papers, 1957-1995. Personal and professional correspondence, writings, and sound records of Charlotte Selver, student of Elsa Gindler in Europe, and the person who introduced sensory awareness to the U.S. Closely connected to the Esalen Institute and San Francisco Zen Center. Her work is continued by the Sensory Awareness Foundation. (HPA Mss 33).
[de Sena, Jorge]. Huerta [Alberto] Collection, 1977, 1982. Six framed color photographs, 1977, of Jorge de Sena and José Luis López Arangueren and others; and 27 slides of Jorge de Sena, youth to time in Santa Barbara, copies of photographs, courtesy of Mecia de Sena, July 1982. Huerto is in several of the color prints. (Mss 233).
Seneca (c.4 BC-65 AD) [full name Lucius Annæus Seneca]. Roman philosopher and playwright. Holdings include Senecae, Clarissimi Stoici Philosophi, Nec Non Poetae Accutissimi (1522) [Spec PA6664.A2 1522], Tragoediae (1631) [Spec PA6664.A2 1631], Opera Omnia (1649) [Spec PA6661.A2 1649], and Seneca’s Morals by Way of Abstract (1693) [Spec BJ214.S4 M6 1693]; fine press editions of Seneca, His Tenne Tragedies Translated into English (1927) from Thomas Newton’s 1581 translation [Spec PS3509.L76 Z3 S4], and On Friendship: Extracts from Epistulæ Morales (1938) by Ward Ritchie Press [Printers Z239.W35 S4].
[Senegal]. de Chetelat (Enzo) Papers, ca. 1901-1980s [bulk dates 1920s-1960s]. Autobiography, correspondence, documents, maps, reports, black/white photographs and photograph albums, several thousand color slides, and artifacts of a Swiss-born mining geologist who visited or worked in many countries from the 1920s to the 1970s, including Albania, Algeria, Bali, Belgian Congo, Brazil, British Honduras, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Ceylon, Czechoslovakia, Dahomey, France, French Guinea, French Guyana, French Polynesia, Ghana, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Macau, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mali, Martinique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria, Paracel Islands, Peru, Samoa, Senegal, Singapore, Somalia, Sumatra, Syria, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Upper Volta, Vietnam, and Yugoslavia. (Bernath Mss 316).
[Senegal]. Mendell [Edward] Travel Slide Collection, 1980s-1990s. More than 2000 large-format color slides containing images of Edward Mendell’s post-retirement travels around the world, photographing endangered species for the World Wildlife Fund, and also of people in far-flung places such as Bhutan, Burma, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Iceland, Mali, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Orissa (India), Philippines, Senegal, and Thailand. (Mss 247).
Senegal Photograph Collection, ca. late 1920s-early 1930s. 60 black/white photos, captions in French. (Bernath Mss 242).
74th Regiment Indiana Veteran Association. Cards and flyer re Civil War reunions, 1908-1915, along with calling cards of Henry G. Potter and Major A. P. Bass. (Wyles SC 1067).
Severin, Francis T. Vita and articles, ca, 1953-1974. (HPA SC 110).
Severy [Hazel W.] Oral History, 1972. Interview with the UCSB professor and former head of the Department of Natural Resources. Subjects include Stanford University, David Starr Jordan, Pacific College of Osteopathy, and UCSB. History of Science Project. (OH 83).
Severy [Hazel W.] Papers, 1914-1955. Scrapbook, with clippings, photographs, programs, and related materials, documenting UCSB in its early pre-university years. (UArch FacP 37).
[Severy, Hazel W.]. UCSB History and Antecedents Collection, 1880-2004. Includes series on Hazel Severy – teacher of science, home economics, and chemistry, and Chair of the Science and Mathematics Department at the Santa Barbara State Normal School – containing scrapbooks, school registers, account books, and clippings dating from the Sloyd School to the Santa Barbara State College era. (UArch 100).
Seward, William [H.] [U.S. Secretary of State], and Horatio Seymour [Governor of New York]. Certification of Power of Attorney and related Civil War documents, 30 July 1864. (Wyles SC 203).
Seward, William H. [U.S. Secretary of State]. One Civil War letter (ALS) to Judge Charles A. Peabody of New Orleans. Department of State, Washington, [D.C.], 11 Feb. 1863. (Wyles SC 204).
Seymour, Horatio (1810-1886). One ALS to J.R. Simms. Utica, [New York], 13 Feb. 1869. (Wyles SC 205).
Shakespeare, William (1564-1616). English playwright and poet. Holdings include the fourth folio edition of 1685 [Spec PR2751.A4 vault]; Alexander Pope’s edition of The Works of Shakespear (1728) [Spec PR2752.P7 1728]; Samuel Johnson’s edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare in Eight Volumes (1765) [Spec PR2752.J7 1765]; George Steevens’ nine-volume set The Dramatic Works of Shakespeare (1802) [Spec PR2753.S8 1802]; The Shakesperian Diary and Almanack (1869) [Spec PR2771.S5]; Roméo et Juliette: Tragédie en Cinq Actes (1875) in French [Spec PQ1983.F743 R58 1782]; the 40-volume Edinburgh Folio of The Works of Shakespeare (1901) [Spec PR2753.H46 1901]; the 38-volume Limited Editions Club set of The Comedies, Histories & Tragedies of William Shakespeare (1939) [Printers Z239.L5 S47]; and Shakespeare Psychiatry (1944) [Printers Z239.S5 S5]. Facsimile editions of a 1602 printing of The Merry Wives of Windsor [Spec PR2750.B26], The First Folio of Shakespeare from 1623 (1968) [Spec PR2751.A15 1968], The Second Folio of 1632 (1987) [Spec PR2751.A25 1987], and The Complete King Lear, 1608-1623 (1989) featuring parallel text from multiple early sources. Fine press editions include Romeo and Juliet by Duprat & Co. (1892) [Spec PR2831.A2 S7], the Heritage Club (1937) [Printers Z239.W37 S53 1937], and the Allen Press (1988) [Printers Z239.A46 S53 1988]; A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Aldine House Press (1895) [Spec PR2827.A2 G6 1895b and Printers Z276.5.S494 1895] and by the Grabhorn Press (1955) [Printers Z239.G7 S49 1955]; the tercentenary edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1909) by Doves Press [Printers Z239.2.D65 S52 vault]; The Sonnets of William Shakespeare by Riccardi Press (1913) [Printers Z239.2.R45 S534 1913], the Peter Pauper Press (1936) [Printers Z239.P4 S4], and by Plantin Press (1974) [Printers Z239.P53 S488]; Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1922) [Printers Z257.S429 1922] and As You Like It (1930) [Spec PR2803.A2 H3 1930 vault], both with Art Nouveau illustrations by John Austen; The Phoenix and the Turtle (1938) by Pear Tree Press [Printers Z239.2.P37 S52]; The Poems of Shakespeare (1939) by the Overbrook Press [Printers Z239.O8 S53 1939 vault]; The Master Mistris (1946) by the Golden Eagle Press [Spec PR2848.A2 M37 1946 and Printers Z239.G648 S55 1946]; An Exhortation to Marriage (1946) also by the Golden Eagle Press [Printers Z239.G648 S53]; several proof sheets for the Peter Pauper Press edition of The Tragedy of Hamlet (c.1950) with illustrations by Valenti Angelo [Printers Z239.P4 S434 1950 vault]; Shake-Speares Sonnets (1956) by the Anvil Press [Spec PR2848.A1 1956 vault]; The Poems of William Shakespeare (1958) by the Heritage Press [Printers Z239.H46 S53]; The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra by the Grabhorn Press (1960) [Printers Z239.G7 S437 1960 vault] and by the Circle Press (1979) [Printers Z239.2.C372 S53 1979]; The Taming of the Shrew (1967) by Grabhorn-Hoyem [Spec PR2832.A2 W77 1967]; Of Imagination All Compact (1971) by Grabhorn-Hoyem [Printers Z239.G71 S53 1971]; King Lear by the Circle Press (1973) [Spec PR2819.A2 K45] and Theodore Press (1986) [Printers Z239.J35 S535 1986 vault]; Songs from Shakespeare’s Plays (1974) by Officina Bodoni [Spec PR2768.D415 vault]; Venus & Adonis (1975) by the Arion Press [Spec PR2845.A1 1975]; and Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1997) by the Arion Press [Printers Z239.A726 S534 1997]. Several of Shakespeare’s poems, as well as scenes from his plays, have served as the basis for 78 RPM records, such as Hamlet: Six Excerpts (1940) performed by Maurice Evans [PA Columbia M651].
[Shakespeare, William]. Ogden [C. K.] Collection. Purchase in 1957 by the University of California of a library of 100,000 books from the estate of Ogden, creator of Basic English. The collection subsequently was distributed among the UC campuses. The highlight of the UCSB component is a Shakespeare Fourth Folio (1685).
Shakespeare – Timon of Athens Leaf. Pages 1-2 of early printing of The Life of Timon of Athens. (SC 914).
"Shall the Extension of Slavery Be Prohibited?" Broadside, supporting the John C. Fremont/William L. Dayton ticket, 1856. (Wyles SC 803).
Shanghai, China Photograph Collection, ca. 1948-1949. 182 b/w snapshots, mainly Shanghai, taken by an American serving in the U.S. Navy. (SC 896).
Shanghai Photograph Album, ca. 1920s. (Bernath Mss 113).
Shanghai Steam Navigation Co. Photograph Album, ca. 1860s-1875. Leatherbound photograph album with 125 cartes-de-visite (cdv) and 6 cabinet size cards, including a signed and dated cdv of Rutherford B. Hayes. Mainly images of employees, their wives and children, and people associated with the Shanghai Steam Navigation Co., which became the leader in the American China trade and major importer of opium into China. (Bernath Mss 47).
Shapiro, Norman. One copy of a typed essay signed by Norman Shapiro re his method of producing drawings. Brightwaters, New York, Nov. 1985. Laid in Shapiro’s, Daring Durea [Printers Z257.S439 1985]. (SC 589).
Shapiro [S. R.] Bookplate Collection. Personal collection of bookplates. Also, printed book arts, small and fine press items, donated in memory of his parents, Herman and Gertrude Nathan Shapiro. (Printers Mss 32).
Shapiro [Stewart] Oral History, 1990. Life history of the UCSB professor of confluent education and clinical psychologist. (OH 84).
Shapiro [Stewart B.] Papers, 1966-1987. Materials from a UCSB professor of confluent education, relating to the humanistic psychology movement. (HPA Mss 34).
Sharp [Robert C.] Papers, ca. 1963-1974. Includes bids, contracts, leases, logs, reports, charts, and court records pertaining to oil drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel, mainly regarding lawsuits stemming from the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill. (SBHC Mss 7).
[Shaw, George Bernard]. Steinhauer [Harry] Papers, ca. 1928-1959. Correspondence and related materials of Steinhauer, Professor of German in the UCSB Department of Foreign Languages, with Max Barthel, Hermann Hesse, H. L. Mencken, Erich Maria Remarque, George Bernard Shaw, and Fritz von Unruh. (UArch FacP 19).
Shaw, George Bernard. One letter (ALS) to [Augustine?] Birrell re political strategies. London, 12 Mar. 1930. Also an undated invoice to Shaw and a b&w print of Shaw. (SC 277).
Shaw, George Bernard. One note (ANS), re advice on successfully establishing new magazines, to J. S. Vader, Leisure Magazine (Australia), 26 Jan. 1947. (SC 605).
Shaw (W. B.) South Africa Photograph Album, 1918. Album commemorating a visit of Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Shaw to the C. J. Lappan family, at Shenfield house, in South Africa. 32 black/white photos, including Lappan and Shaw family members on the porch of Shenfield house, surrounding countryside, a shot of the family by a wagon with the caption "The Voortrekkers," as well as several images of local South African women, children, and their compounds. (Bernath Mss 54).
Shea, John Dawson Gilmary. One letter (ALS) from customer John Bap[?] re Shea’s book History of the Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States, 1529-1854. Bangor, Dec. 19, 1854. (SC 561).
Shead [F.] India Northwest Frontier Photograph Album, 1929-1930. (Bernath Mss 196).
[Sheinbaum, Stanley K.]. Correspondence, presentations, publications, and audiovisual materials relating to Sheinbaum’s involvement with the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions (CSDI) may be found in the CSDI Collection (Mss 18).
Sheinbaum (Stanley K.) Collection, ca. 1970s-2001. Articles about Sheinbaum, copy of oral history transcript with Joan Didion, and copy of oral history transcript by UCLA. Includes material about his association with CSDI and later New Perspectives magazine. Includes files, ca. latter 1970s-mid 1980s, kept by Stanley K. Sheinbaum mainly during his tenure as University of California Regent [1977-1989], at a time when UC was involved in divestment of South African investments, due to the political situation there. (Mss 217).
Sheldon [Gar] – Mining Engineer’s Correspondence, 1880s. Mainly letters from Sheldon, with the Corralitos Company in Chihuahua State, Mexico, to family, about personal affairs and local news such as an earthquake in 1887. (Wyles SC 1009).
Shell, Fred B. One Civil War sketch map of Vicksburg and one carte de visite photograph of Shell, a war correspondent for Harpers Weekly, with Grant’s army during the siege of Vicksburg, 1863. (Wyles SC 199).
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft (1797-1851). English novelist. Holdings include The Last Man (1833) [Spec PR5397.L37 1833] and a fine press edition of Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus (1934) by the Limited Editions Club [Spec PR5397.F7 1934]. See also Helen Moore’s Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1886) [Spec PR5398.M6].
Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822). English poet. Holdings include Alastor, or, The Spirit of Solitude (1816) [Spec PR5407.A1 1816 vault], Prometheus Unbound (1820) [Spec PR5416.A1 1820 vault], Queen Mab (1821) [Spec PR5417 1821 vault], Hellas (1822) [Spec PR5410.A1 1822b], Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1824) edited by his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley [Spec PR5402 1824], The Masque of Anarchy (1832) [Spec PR5412.A1 1832 vault], The Shelley Papers (1833) [Spec PR5403.M4], and The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1886) [Spec PR5402 1886]. Fine press editions of Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats printed by John Henry Nash (1922) [Printers Z239.N3 S49] and the Chiswick Press (1935) [Printers Z239.2.C36 S5], Poems and Lyrics (1943) by Peter Pauper Press [Printers Z239.P4 S49], Italian Idylls (1968) by the Offcut Press [Spec PR5422.I8 1968], and The Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1974) by the Heritage Press [Spec PR5402 1974].
Shelton Watters & Co. One document (ADS), agreeing to pay $160 for "hire of two negroes Anderson and Walker…" [Virginia], 1849. (Wyles SC 129).
Shepard (Isaac F.) Collection, ca. 1830s-1880s. Commander of the 52nd U.S. Infantry, Colored, from 1863 onwards, making him ranking regimental officer (initially as Colonel, later as Brigadier General) of all colored troops in the Union. Includes an 1863 diary, Court of Inquiry Papers, and related correspondence, which document a seminal incident in which Shepard defended his troops against hostile treatment by white Union troops, was arrested, but subsequently had all charges dismissed by Gen. Grant and was restored to his command. (Wyles Mss 74).
Shepherd [Alfred James] Papers, ca. 1930s-1950s. Includes material relating to Taiwan, Japan, and Guam. (Bernath Mss 251).
Sheridan, Phillip. One engraving, carte de visite size, of Sheridan in uniform, with stamp of Joseph Ward, Boston, on reverse. (Wyles SC 642).
Sheridan, Phillip [Henry] [Civil War Union General]. One letter (ALS), copy, to Colonel Robert Breckenridge. San Francisco, 5 Oct. 1875. (Wyles SC 206).
Sherman Table. One printed Civil War document: Clothing allowance, authorized by L. T. Thustin, Acting Chief Paymaster, Department of the Cumberland. Louisville, KY, July 7, 1865. (Wyles SC 510).
Sherman, Thomas W. [Civil War Union General; 1813-1879]. One document (ADS): Report of persons (mainly teamsters, also wagonmasters, clerks, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and saddlers) and articles hired for Nov. 1861. Quartermaster, U.S. Army, Hiltonhead, South Carolina. (Wyles SC 511).
Sherman, William Tecumseh. One engraving, carte de visite size, of Sherman in uniform, with stamp of Joseph Ward, Boston, on reverse. (Wyles SC 633).
Sherman, William Tecumseh. One b/w cabinet card size photograph of Sherman in uniform, later in life. (Wyles SC 634).
Sherman, William Tecumseh. One letter (ALS) to Dona [?], re sending funds with Sully [?]. The steamer Winfield Scott, in which Sully had embarked for home, was wrecked on an island [presumably one of the Channel Islands] not far from Santa Barbara. “This morning two steamers started to their relief. Fortunately the weather has been mild…” San Francisco, 7 Dec. 1853. (Wyles SC 16).
Sherman, William Tecumseh. One letter (ALS) to General M. G. Vallejo. Washington, D.C., 11 Aug. 1879. From: Pearl Chase Collection. (Wyles SC 209).
Sherman, William Tecumseh. One letter (ALS). San Francisco, 13 Sept. 1880. (Wyles SC 210).
Sherman, William Tecumseh. Printed | ||||
3581 | dbpedia | 1 | 47 | https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/mudros-armistice-of/ | en | Mudros, Armistice of | [
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] | null | [] | 2024-07-02T21:48:34+00:00 | The Armistice of Mudros was signed on 31 October 1918 between the Ottoman government and a British-led Allied delegation aboard the HMS Agamemnon in the port of the Greek-held island of Lemnos, bringing a formal end to the Ottoman army’s participation in the First World War. | en | /wp-content/themes/encyclopedia19141918/assets/img/favicon.ico | 1914-1918-Online (WW1) Encyclopedia | https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/mudros-armistice-of/ | By James Ryan
The Armistice of Mudros was signed on 31 October 1918 between the Ottoman government and a British-led Allied delegation aboard the HMS Agamemnon in the port of the Greek-held island of Lemnos, bringing a formal end to the Ottoman army’s participation in the First World War.
Occupation of Constantinople
Following the capitulation of Bulgaria in late September 1918, which Talat Pasha (1874-1921) personally witnessed as he was returning from Germany, the CUP leadership resigned from the Ottoman cabinet on 8 October. The resignation was a recognition that terms of surrender in the war effort needed to be negotiated shortly and that the current leadership was in no credible position to negotiate them. While figures like Talat Pasha and Djemal Pasha (1872-1922) effectively left the stage at this point, the new grand vizier, Ahmet İzzet Pasha (1864-1937) was trusted by the CUP though he was not a member of the organization. Likewise, the cabinet and bureaucracy remained stocked with CUP figures. Armistice talks were initiated by the British General Charles Townshend (1861-1924), who had been imprisoned on the Prince’s Islands since his capture at Kut al-Amara in 1916. Ahmet İzzet Pasha’s government sent a delegation headed by Hüseyin Rauf (1881-1964), a senior CUP figure who had initially opposed the entry into the war on the side of Germany, to handle negotiations with the British aboard the HMS Agamemnon anchored near Mudros on the Aegean Sea. The selection of Rauf is key in that he had previously represented Turkish interests at the negotiations that resulted in the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, was not involved in the deportation and mass murder of the Empire’s Armenian subjects, and maintained close relations with figures that would ultimately plan the resistance effort under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal (-1938). Leading the British delegation was Admiral Somerset Gough-Calthorpe (1865-1937), commander of the Mediterranean Fleet. After the signing of the armistice, Gough-Calthorpe would be appointed the British Commissioner to the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman government agreed to demobilize and cede access to the Bosphorus Straits to British ships. A partition of the Empire would not be imposed until the conclusion of postwar treaties and until the British won agreements to allow the occupation of strategic points and the policing of areas of potential unrest. The armistice also included the surrender of prisoners of war and Armenian prisoners in Constantinople, the expulsion of German and Austrian forces from Ottoman lands, the surrender of wireless telegraph and cable stations, and a ban on coal and oil exports. The most immediate effect of the armistice was the British-led occupation of Constantinople, which informally began on 13 November 1918 and would officially begin on March 16, 1920. The occupation would extend beyond the control of military fortification to the policing of the bulk of the city against potentially rebellious supporters of the Turkish independence struggle underway in Anatolia. Constantinople would remain under Allied occupation until after the signing of the Armistice at Mudanya on 11 October 1922.
Partition of the Ottoman Empire
No partition was delimited by the armistice, but the occupations to come were foreshadowed by the terms agreed upon. In addition to Allied control over key points of the Trans-Caucasian railway, the Allies – mainly the British – won the surrender of all garrisons in the Hejaz, Yemen, Syria, and Mesopotamia, forces and ports in Cyrenaica and Tripolitania were to be handed over to Italy. Additionally, “in case of disorder…” the Allies reserved the right to occupy any part of the “…six Armenian vilayets” including Sis, Haçin, Zeytoun, and Aintab. Remaining Ottoman statesmen and forces hoped to take advantage of Wilson’s Fourteen Points to proclaim a new nation, but plans to colonize the former Ottoman territories had been well-publicized in the last year of the war. Following the conferences in San Remo and the signing of the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920, the partition of the Arab provinces by British and French forces as well as the occupation of western Anatolia by Greece, would be formalized.
Control of the Straits
Seven of the first nine clauses – out of twenty-five in total – of the Armistice established Allied control of the Bosphorus Straits. The provisions included the occupation of all fortifications on the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, clearing sea mines, minefields, and torpedo tubes, the surrender of all war vessels in Turkish occupied waters, free access to all Turkish ports, and the right to occupy “any strategic points in the event of a situation arising which threatens the security of the Allies.” The Straits regime would be further negotiated between the French and British at the San Remo conferences in winter 1919-1920, and a formal internationalization of the waterway and its surroundings was formalized in August 1920 with the signing of the Treaty of Sèvres.
Withdrawal from the Caucasus
Following the outbreak of revolution in Russia in late 1917 and prior to the final assaults by Arab and British forces in the Levant and Syria in 1918, the Ottoman army took advantage of Russian disarray to fortify Ottoman positions in the Caucasus, and to shore up good relations with Muslim forces in Azerbaijan. Following Edmund Allenby (1861-1936) 1918 assault in Palestine, plans for a more forceful push in the Caucasus were abandoned, and the Mudros Armistice ordered the full evacuation of Turkish troops from “North-West Persia” and “Trans-Caucasia” in addition to the Allied occupation of Batum and Baku, securing key points on the railway between those two port cities which were crucial for the transport of Caspian oil.
Treaty of Sevres (1920)
The San Remo conferences produced an agreement to partition the Ottoman Empire, formalized on 10 August 1920 in the Treaty of Sèvres. It left the Ottomans with a rump state across northern Anatolia, with Constantinople as its capital, and a temporary claim to Kurdish regions north of Mosul. While the Empire retained formal control over the capital city, the Straits were internationalized, and coordination between the remaining Ottoman forces now engaged in an Independence struggle in Anatolia was breaking down. Eastern Thrace and the surroundings of Izmir were ceded to Greece, the Italians were awarded a sphere of influence over Antalya and its surroundings, and an Armenian republic was created in eastern Anatolia, though none of the Allied powers were capable of defending it against Turkish forces. The treaty also formalized the mandate system in the Arab provinces, granting , and to the British in Transjordan, as far north as Mosul, and .
Turkish War of Independence
The organization of a nationalist resistance under the banner of the twelfth of President Wilson’s Fourteen Points began within a month of the Mudros Armistice. From Eastern Thrace to Kars, branches of the group “Society for the Defense of Rights” (müdafaa-i hukuku milliye) were formed to promote Turkish sovereignty in the months leading up to the Greek invasion of Izmir in May 1919. In the midst of the invasion, Mustafa Kemal fled Istanbul for Samsun where he would set about coordinating resistance forces and uniting Defense of Rights Societies in successive congresses in Erzerum and Sivas. Fighting broke out first in January 1920 in the southeast region of Cilicia between Muslim-Turkish resistance fighters and French-backed Armenian groups. Fighting by regular Turkish troops would begin in September 1920, where their forces under Kâzim Karabekir (1882-1948) achieved victory over Armenian and Russian-Bolshevik troops by the end of November. Following these victories, attention would turn to the western front in 1921. The Greek army would be rebuffed in Eskişehir in January and again in April but would break through in the summer further south near Afyon. Following this defeat, Mustafa Kemal took full control of the Turkish forces, emerging victorious along the Sakarya river. After an offensive against the Greek forces, fighting would end in early September when Turkish troops entered Izmir. In October, an armistice granting control over Anatolia and Constantinople would be ceded by the Allied and Greek forces to the Turkish army led by Mustafa Kemal.
James Ryan, University of Pennsylvania | ||||
3581 | dbpedia | 0 | 70 | https://armenianweekly.com/2013/12/11/the-woman-in-the-wall/ | en | The Woman in the Wall: A Story of People, Places, and Things | [
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"Vahe Habeshian"
] | 2013-12-11T00:00:00 | Special to the Armenian Weekly In 2005, a Turkish workman named Murat finds a dusty postcard hidden behind the wooden panels of a wall in an old house in south-central Turkey, in the city of [...] | en | The Armenian Weekly | https://armenianweekly.com/2013/12/11/the-woman-in-the-wall/ | Special to the Armenian Weekly
In 2005, a Turkish workman named Murat finds a dusty postcard hidden behind the wooden panels of a wall in an old house in south-central Turkey, in the city of Antep (Gaziantep).
On the front of the postcard is the black-and-white image of a woman in a long black dress; she’s holding a handgun in her right hand and a rifle in her left. Bandoliers are wrapped across her chest and around her waist. Nearly lost among the bullets and leather is a round brooch or medallion above her left breast.
In English, at bottom-left, is an embossed signature, “M. H. Halladjian,” and at bottom-right is a place name, “Aintab Asia-Minor.” On the back of the postcard is handwriting in a language that’s alien to Murat; only a part of a date is comprehensible: 1910.
* * *
Halfway through the first week of a draining two-week “pilgrimage” through historic Armenia, on May 26, 2013, our group of 12 Armenian “pilgrims” arrives in Antep (Ayntap, or Aintab, in Armenian). Our guide, Armen Aroyan, explains that the city was renamed Gaziantep—”Heroic Antep”—for having repulsed British and French armed forces in 1921, during the war of “liberation” that resulted in the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923.
As we drive through the city, it seems vaguely familiar, though I’ve never been here before. I can see parts of Beirut and Aleppo in both the old and the new buildings, the dusty cobblestoned streets, the small shops lining them.
Our van pulls up to an imposing structure overlooking a main street. It’s the Sourp Asdvadzadzin (“Holy Mother of God”) Church, built in 1892, now converted to a mosque and renamed Kurtuluş Camii (“Liberation” mosque), Armen explains. After the long drive from Musa Dagh in our brand new Mercedes passenger van, we gladly begin to exit. My son, Garin Shant, my youngest, bounds out like a falcon fleeing a gilded cage; others, including my father, move out wearily, stretching old muscles that have grown accustomed to the inertia of sitting and waiting. All of us gradually make our way up, toward the church-mosque.
The wooden doors on the side of the building, facing us, are locked. The members of the group move on in various directions around the building, taking pictures. I walk to the “front” of the church-mosque, toward a wide walkway/courtyard overlooking the street; I’m actually at the back of the church, behind the altar, I find out later. Leaning against the railing I look over the edge. Across the street, I can see half-standing ruins of large houses with red clay roof tiles, and I notice a small, cross-shaped opening or window—then another. Considering their proximity to the church, and their grand size, they must be formerly Armenian-owned homes, I think to myself. I take pictures of them with my iPhone, knowing full well that I am too far to be able to capture the images of the windows.
I hear, then see, a small old man off to the side, behind me, sweeping the ground. His faded, oft-torn and oft-mended clothes hang loosely on his small frame; his shoes, too, are worn. For a split second I think he’s wearing a shalvar and pabuches.
He sweeps seemingly in slow motion, in half-hearted, incomplete strokes; just as likely, he’s simply too old, his range of motion limited, his limbs atrophied and no longer limber. I greet him with my nearly nonexistent Turkish and try to ask whether the mosque is open.
He motions that I follow… He’s dealt with tourists before. I follow. His pace is maddeningly slow. He doesn’t walk. He shuffles. Haltingly. I slow my pace to match his; he has the key, after all. And I don’t want to be rude, to imply with eager steps that he should walk more quickly. But I’m restless—have been for the entire trip so far—as if wanting to quickly reach the next place, then the next and the next, but also wanting to stay, absorb the essence of each site, to feel a part of it. Yet I can do neither.
Eventually, the old man reaches the wooden doors, in the meantime having built a small following of pilgrims curious to see what lies within the church-mosque. The doors creak and slowly swing open. The old man steps in, takes off his dusty shoes, and places them on a rack. We follow him in and take off our shoes, too.
We make our way around a partition to enter the church-mosque proper and are immediately confronted by the overwhelming red of an overly large Turkish flag dominating the wall in front of us, the only thing of color in relatively stark surroundings, though the interior of the church is beautiful. The oriental carpet beneath our stockinged feet makes the space seem tolerable, hospitable.
I immediately begin to walk along the walls, looking up and down for a remnant of anything Armenian, as I’ve done throughout the trip. (And, if I’m to be honest, as I’ve done all my life, pretty much everywhere I go. I suppose that’s what happens when one’s sense of home feels fragile and hazy.)
I find nothing on the cold walls of the church-mosque. Until I look up, high above what used to be the altar, above yet another large Turkish flag, and notice a medallion-shaped…something. The abandoned altar is too dark, and I can’t tell what the shape contains because what had once been there has eroded with time, or it has been intentionally chipped away. It’s even possible that it had contained nothing in particular, I think, then quickly dismiss it.
I take a few pictures, again knowing that I likely wouldn’t be able to capture a clear-enough image of what had once been there. Only after I place the iPhone in my pocket does the thought occur to me: Many Armenian churches have the figure of a dove or the letter “Է” above the altar—signifying, respectively, the Holy Spirit and God. Whichever had been there, the presence of neither seems very apparent now in the church-mosque.
Normally, I wouldn’t feel great affinity toward a religious symbol—Christian, Armenian, or otherwise. But in its current, altered state, that empty medallion shape elicits…what? Resentment? Loss? Anger? Frustration? Sorrow? Those and much more that I cannot name, or probably even comprehend.
No wonder ancient (and not so ancient) cultures have assigned and ascribed so much power to symbols, amulets, and other talismanic objects, believing they hold power in, and influence over, the physical world.
They affect thought. And so they effect change.
In this case, it is the absence of an object—rather, the existence of a mere hint of it—that casts a powerful presence, substantiating what I sense and feel and know: that this building is not now what it once was, that what it is now isn’t really what it is, or is made to seem to be.
Every molecule of every remaining inanimate object of Historic Armenia is a microcosm of immense loss, massive erasure, and a brutal re-rendering of reality.
* * *
A stranger has joined us in the church-mosque. Armen introduces a few of us to an Antep native, Murad, a tall, thin, mustachioed Turk with dark hair tied back into a ponytail. He seems at once laid back and intense—the type who subsists on coffee and cigarettes. Apparently he and Armen are old friends. They do some catching up, discussing pictures of old Armenian homes that Murad has recently emailed to Armen.
At some point, standing in the middle of the church-mosque, Murad takes out some papers from his bag. A few of us gather around as he explains, in English, about a project he’s been working on. The papers are photocopied pages of an Armenian book, Ayntapi Goyamarde (“Ayntap’s Battle for Survival”) about the Armenian battles of self-defense against Turkish attacks in 1920-21. The author is A. Kesar, and the book was published in 1945, in Boston, by the Hairenik Press. I was once an editor at the Hairenik, I point out, surprised, never imagining that I would come across anything in the middle of Ayntap that would remind me of my long years in the Hairenik building in Watertown, Mass.
The cover page has notes in Turkish and English scribbled over and around the title. Murad flips through some pages, and we see how nearly every millimeter of white space between the lines of printed Armenian text contains handwritten Turkish. Murad explains that he has taught himself the Armenian alphabet, and with the help of dictionaries he’s been translating the Armenian text into Turkish so that he may learn the untaught history of his hometown.
I’m incredulous: Really? Why? How? A Turk learning Armenian so that he could translate the Armenian view of events in his “heroic” hometown nearly a century earlier?
The setting—an Armenian church seized and converted into a Turkish mosque and ironically renamed “liberation”—makes the proposition seem even more surreal: A Turk who is, in essence, “converting” Armenian text into Turkish. But now the intent is to reveal, not obscure, to reclaim, to name things as they are. To liberate.
Murad, an electrical engineer by training, tells us some of the back-story. The following is the version he emailed to me a couple of months after we’d met:
“Once upon a time I was a house restorer. At that time, I did not have sufficient information about the original (Armenian) owner of the buildings. I’d only have information on the owners after 1923, when the Turkish Republic was declared. During the restoration of an old house in the Kayajik region [of Antep], we had to restore some wooden parts of the house. The house had seven rooms and a big living room. I started to work in a small room on the first floor of the house. The architectural style of that room was that all of the walls were covered with wood, but unfortunately most of the wood was destroyed by the effect of humidity. For this reason, we decided to renovate all the wooden parts of this room. But we had to be careful when removing the old wood because the limestone under the wood could be damaged.
“When I started the removing operation, I found a picture between the limestone of the wall and the wooden part. First, I thought it was an ordinary paper, but when I looked it carefully I noticed that it is a photograph covered by dust. When I cleaned the dust, I saw a young woman with arms [weapons] and I could read, ‘Aintab Asia-Minor’ and ‘M.H. Halladjian.’ I thought most probably M.H.H. was a photographer and this is a very old photo. When I looked the back side, I could read only ‘21…1910.’
“As you can guess, I could not read the other parts of the writing. I thought the writing is in the Arabic language because at that time Ottomans used Arabic letters for writing. When I asked a friend who knows Arabic, he said, ‘This writing is not Arabic, it could be the Armenian language.’ Later, I met a family [of Armenians] who visited Antep, and they translated the writing.
Transliteration (in Western Armenian)
Hankoutsial heros Kevork Chavoushi
Digin ayri Heghine.
=
Mer hishadagi nvere asd[?]
Diar Hovhannes yev
Digin Piranian
21 Houlis 1910 H.H.T.
Aintab
The English translation
Deceased hero Kevork Chavoush’s
Wife, the widow Heghine.*
=
Our memento this/here[?]
Mr. Hovhannes and
Mrs. Piranian
21 July 1910 A.R.F.
Ayntap
“Before the translation, I had one question: ‘Who was M.H. Halladjian?’ But after the translation, I had more than five questions. ‘Who were these women and men?’ Then, I decided to search for the history of Antep. These [events] happened in 2005.
“Later, I met with Armen Aroyan, and he gave a Xerox copy of the book K. Sarafian’s Brief History of Aintab. After reading that book, I decided to learn the Armenian language, because the history of Antep can not be researched and understood without the Armenian language. Now I can read, and with the help of a dictionary I can understand Armenian.”
* * *
The Murat of 2005 had become the Murad we met in 2013 at the Sourp Asdvadzadzin Church/Liberation mosque of Ayntap/Aintab, Antep/Gaziantep. At some point, I find out later from a mutual friend, he had changed the spelling of his name.
I’m not certain why. But I know it has something to do with people, places, and things.
*The Armenian Weekly cannot verify the veracity of the claim that the woman in the photo is in fact the wife of the celebrated fedayee Kevork Chavoush. In Roupen DerMinassian’s memoirs, the author notes that Chavoush’s wife’s name was Yeghso (not Heghine). In addition, there is no evidence that Yeghso was a fedayee. | |||||
3581 | dbpedia | 2 | 69 | https://huderlem.github.io/porymap/manual/scripting-capabilities.html | en | Scripting Capabilities — porymap documentation | [
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] | null | [] | null | en | ../_static/porymap-icon-2.ico | null | Custom Scripts Editor¶
Your custom scripts can be managed with the Custom Scripts Editor accessible under Options -> Custom Scripts....
At the top there are three basic buttons for managing your scripts:
Opens a prompt to create a new script file, which will be populated with a basic template.
Lets you add an existing script file to Porymap that you’ve already created or downloaded from elsewhere.
Any edits made to your scripts while Porymap is already open will not be reflected until you select this button.
Below these buttons is a list of all the custom scripts you have loaded for your project. Each entry will have a text box showing the path of the script file. This path can be freely updated, or you can choose a new path with the button next to it. The button will open the script file in your default text editor, and the button will remove it from the list. The check box to the left of the filepath indicates whether your script should be running. If you’d like to temporarily disable a script you can uncheck this box.
Writing a Custom Script¶
Let’s write a custom script that will randomize grass patterns when the user is editing the map. This is useful, since it’s cumbersome to manually add randomness to grass patches. With the custom script, it will happen automatically. Whenever the user paints a grass tile onto the map, the script will overwrite the tile with a random grass tile instead.
First, open the Options -> Custom Scripts... window and select the button. This will open a file save prompt; let’s name our new script file my_script.js and save it. We’ve successfully added a new script! We can now see it listed in the editor.
At the moment our script doesn’t do anything. Let’s select the button to open it and write the actual code that will power the grass-randomizer. Once the script file is open you will notice that there are several empty functions already inside. These are special “callback” functions that will be called automatically for certain events that occur while Porymap is running. We’re interested in the onBlockChanged() callback, since we want our script to take action whenever a user paints a block on the map.
// Porymap callback when a block is painted. export function onBlockChanged(x, y, prevBlock, newBlock) { // Grass-randomizing logic goes here. }
We can leave the rest of the callback functions in here alone, or we can delete them because we’re not using them. Every callback function does not need to be defined in your script. Note: For Porymap to be able to execute these callback functions they need to have the export keyword. The rest of the functions in your script do not need this keyword.
In addition to the callbacks, Porymap also supports a scripting API so that the script can interact with Porymap in interesting ways. For example, a script can change a block or add overlay text on the map. Since we want to paint random grass tiles, we’ll be using the map.setMetatileId() function. Let’s fill in the rest of the grass-randomizing code.
Note
For pokeemerald/pokeruby users: We only have 1 regular grass metatile, but if you want to try this script you could replace const grassTiles = [0x8, 0x9, 0x10, 0x11]; in the code below with const grassTiles = [0x1, 0x4, 0xD]; to randomize using tall grass and flowers instead!
function randInt(min, max) { min = Math.ceil(min); max = Math.floor(max); return Math.floor(Math.random() * (max - min)) + min; } // These are the grass metatiles in pokefirered. const grassTiles = [0x8, 0x9, 0x10, 0x11]; // Porymap callback when a block is painted. export function onBlockChanged(x, y, prevBlock, newBlock) { // Check if the user is painting a grass tile. if (grassTiles.indexOf(newBlock.metatileId) != -1) { // Choose a random grass tile and paint it on the map. const i = randInt(0, grassTiles.length); map.setMetatileId(x, y, grassTiles[i]); } }
Let’s apply our changes by selecting the button. Because we’ve added a new script we’ll be met with this confirmation prompt. Accept this prompt by selecting YES.
Now let’s test our script! If we try to paint grass on the map, we should see our script inserting a nice randomized grass pattern.
Registering Script Actions¶
The grass-randomizer script above happens implicitly when the user paints on the map. However, other times we probably want to call the custom script on demand. One of the API functions Porymap provides is the ability to trigger scripting functions from the Tools menu, or a keyboard shortcut. To do this, we will usually want to register the action when the project loads. Here is an example script where some custom actions are registered.
export function applyNightTint() { // Apply night palette tinting... } // Porymap callback when project is opened. export function onProjectOpened(projectPath) { utility.registerAction("applyNightTint", "View Night Tint", "T") }
Then, to trigger the applyNightTint() function, we could either click Tools -> View Night Tint or use the T keyboard shortcut. Note: Like callbacks, functions registered using utility.registerAction() also need the export keyword for Porymap to call them.
Now that we have an overview of how to utilize Porymap’s scripting capabilities, the entire scripting API is documented below. | ||||||
3581 | dbpedia | 0 | 27 | https://mirrorspectator.com/2018/09/20/remembering-the-armenian-victory-at-the-battle-of-arara-september-19-1918/ | en | Remembering the Armenian Victory at the Battle of Arara, September 19, 1918 | [
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"The Armenian Mirror-Spectator"
] | 2018-09-20T00:00:00 | By Barbara Merguerian With so many events to commemorate this year — the centennial of the first Armenian Republic and the 30th anniversary of the massive Spitak earthquake, to mention […] | en | http://mirrorspectator.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/favicon-16x16.png | The Armenian Mirror-Spectator | https://mirrorspectator.com/2018/09/20/remembering-the-armenian-victory-at-the-battle-of-arara-september-19-1918/ | General Allenby’s campaign came to an abrupt halt, however, when instead of receiving the expected additional men and supplies to continue his campaign, he was ordered to transfer large numbers of his troops to the European front, to counter a major German offensive in the spring of 1918. Only with the arrival of reinforcements in late summer, including units of the French Foreign Legion and the Armenian Legion, was he able to resume the offensive.
Finally, on September 18, 1918, Allenby launched a major attack northward. As a first step, the Armenian Legion was ordered to seize a key front-line position at the heights of Arara, located opposite Rafat and south of Nablus, in Palestine (present-day Israel). The Legionnaires faced strong artillery bombardment from the Turkish Seventh Army, firmly entrenched on the heavily fortified heights and commanded by General Mustafa Kemal (later Ataturk), under the overall command of the German General Otto Liman von Sanders. The Armenians fought brilliantly and achieved their objective on the first day of the attack, September 19, 1918.
Legionnaire Manoog “Khan” Baghdasarian afterwards described the significance of the battle as follows: “According to the English, by their own confession, they had made three attempts to capture Arara, but had failed.” He continued, “Finally, it was destined for the Armenian Legion to capture that position and achieve a successful conclusion for the battle of Palestine.”
General Allenby was well satisfied with the victory. “The Oriental Legion, or Armenian Legion, played an important role in the great attack which took place on September19, 1918 on the Palestinian front,” he reported the next day. “Of this I am proud.”
The victory did not come without losses. On the day after the battle, the Legionnaires gathered together and in a simple but solemn ceremony buried their 23 comrades who had fallen in battle. An additional 65 men had been wounded. (In 1925, the bodies of the 23 Legionnaires buried at Arara were re-interred in the Armenian Cemetery in Jerusalem, where a monument was erected over a common grave.)
The Turkish Army was now in full retreat, and General Allenby’s forces met little resistance in their advance north to Aleppo, Damascus, and finally Beirut, which they entered on October 20, 1918. There the Syrian troops were separated and the Oriental Legion was renamed the Armenian Legion (Légion Arménienne).
Turkey withdrew from the war, according to the terms of the Mudros Armistice, signed on October 30, 2018. Soon after, World War 1 came to an end with the Armistice of November11, 2018.
The British and French now took steps to bring about the partition of Turkey according to the terms of their secret agreements. As a ready force familiar with the territory, the Armenian Legionnaires were sent immediately to occupy strategic positions in Turkey.
Over the next several months, with General Allenby in overall command and serving under French officers, the Armenian Legionnaires occupied the major population centers of Adana, Aintab, Marash, Urfa and Hajin. An estimated 120,000 Armenian civilians who had been forced out of their homes during the Genocide now returned, feeling safe under the protection of the Allied forces. The Armenian Legionnaires believed that they had finally realized their dream of defending and safeguarding part of the Armenian homeland.
Postwar Settlement
After the war, however, the Allied governments were unable to translate their brilliant military victories in the Middle East into a just settlement. Exhausted by their heavy losses during the war, they were unable to reach agreement on the peace terms. British troops withdrew from Cilicia in the fall of 1919, leaving French forces.in control. Finding itself overextended in postwar overseas commitments, France did not adequately supply these forces, and the Turkish Nationalists were quick to take advantage of the situation and mount armed opposition to foreign occupation.
As Turkish attacks intensified, French forces began to withdraw, beginning in Marash in February 1920. As the French withdrew, often with heavy losses, they also began to disband the Armenian Legionnaires in a process that was completed by September 1920. Finally in October 1921 France signed the Ankara Accord with Nationalist Turkey and agreed to the final withdrawal of French troops from Cilicia, leaving the Armenian population to the mercy of the Turks. Armenians were either massacred or forced to depart in this savage continuation of the Genocide.
Bitter, disillusioned, and disappointed, the Legionnaires gradually resumed their lives. Yet the ultimate failure of their hopes and dreams does not diminish their valor, sacrifice, and devotion to their nation. Their brave action offered a vivid demonstration that Armenians could successfully take their destiny into their own hands and make meaningful gains on their own behalf. The ideals that had inspired the Armenian participation in the Legion were never lost, and the Armenian quest for freedom and independence continued. | ||||
3581 | dbpedia | 1 | 84 | https://www.academia.edu/40137103/_The_Very_Limit_of_Our_Endurance_Unarmed_Resistance_in_Ottoman_Syria_during_the_First_World_War | en | ‘The Very Limit of Our Endurance’: Unarmed Resistance in Ottoman Syria during the First World War | http://a.academia-assets.com/images/open-graph-icons/fb-paper.gif | http://a.academia-assets.com/images/open-graph-icons/fb-paper.gif | [
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"Khatchig Mouradian",
"columbia.academia.edu"
] | 2019-08-21T00:00:00 | In Hans-Lukas Kieser, Margaret Lavinia Anderson, Seyhan Bayraktar, and Thomas Schmutz, eds., The End of the Ottomans: The Genocide of 1915 and the Politics of Turkish Nationalism (London: I.B. Tauris, 2019) | https://www.academia.edu/40137103/_The_Very_Limit_of_Our_Endurance_Unarmed_Resistance_in_Ottoman_Syria_during_the_First_World_War | Much of the literature on the destruction of the Ottoman Armenians tells the story of a state captured by a radical party that enforced genocidal measures throughout the land. Scholarship about genocidal activity at the local level, however – what social scientists might call ‘the periphery’– is still in its infancy. The aim of this chapter, therefore, is to examine such activity on the Ottoman periphery, focusing on the district of Aintab (or Anteb) – modern day Gaziantep. The chapter has two parts. Drawing upon primary sources from Ottoman, Armenian, British and French archives, as well as from memoirs and personal papers, the first part examines the persistent efforts of some of Aintab’s most prominent citizens to get the central government to expel the district’s Armenians, demands that seem to have enjoyed locally a considerable level of social support. Yet, for some time these demands encountered resistance from several powerful civil and military figures. The result was that Aintab’s Armenians were deported later than most of their eastern neighbours. The second part of the argument focuses on events after the genocide: the successive British and French occupations of the district; the return to Aintab of Armenians who had managed to survive; their efforts to recover their property; and then a second, and final, expulsion.
In this article, I provide a reassessment of what is referred to as the second phase of the Armenian genocide, emphasizing the role of an Armenian-led humanitarian network in saving thousands of lives. The scholarship (and the popular discourse) on humanitarian efforts during the Genocide focuses on western missionaries and consuls, who emerge as selfless heroes protecting and saving hundreds of thousands of helpless Armenians. Armenian agency is neglected. Here, I argue that it was the Ottoman Armenians who drove this humanitarian resistance waged in the Ottoman Empire. Western humanitarianism provided tremendous material and moral support, yet it was the Armenians themselves who led the resistance effort and shouldered the larger share of the burden, distributing humanitarian aid and funds to deportees huddled in church and school courtyards and, ultimately, in concentration camps – despite the dangers involved. This Armenian-led humanitarian resistance network comprised of church committees, influential Armenian dignitaries, doctors, and nurses, as well as missionaries and local Muslims and Christians helped anchor and support thousands in Aleppo in 1915-1916, and saved the lives of thousands of others elsewhere in Syria.
Known for his rigid policies towards Arab nationalists and Zionists during his posting in Greater Syria, Cemal Pasha and his role in the Armenian genocide has always remained an issue of contention. There are important accounts of Cemal’s activity, particularly during the First World War, which have found him to have had no active role in the deportation and extermination of Armenians – here differing from the other two pillars of the CUP, Enver and Talaat. On the contrary, such accounts argue that he extended a helping hand to Armenians in so far as his authority and power would allow, and that he even faced off against members of the central government in Istanbul and the CUP head office to do so. This chapter will question that argument, examining the politics of Cemal Pasha during the war, while concentrating on his approach to the Armenian matter. I will also explore his own responsibility for the genocide and discuss the context and contingencies of the way in which his role as a genocide perpetrator manifested itself
This article explores how and why deportation and elimination of the Armenians of Antep were carried out during World War One (WWI). In particular, it scrutinizes the political and social context in which local authorities, provincial elites, and ordinary Muslims radicalized their views and policies against Armenians. It highlights the crucial role played by local elites and actors who prospered through acquisition of Armenian property and wealth. In this respect, the article argues that the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP)’s genocide and deportation decision enjoyed a certain level of social support through the practice of effective power and control mechanism(s) at the local level.
Using Meskeneh as a case study, I examine the world of concentration camps during the Armenian Genocide, focusing on its organization and administration, everyday life, brutality, corruption, collaboration, escape, and resistance. I argue that despite the violent mechanisms of control, the destruction of the Armenians did not progress unhindered. Deportee agency proved key. Camp inmates caught between the threat of re-deportation and burial ditches sought a way out by collaborating with, appeasing, manipulating, or resisting the system. Even those considered the weakest and needing protection most, the children, exercised agency: they begged, rummaged for food, and relayed messages to other camps clandestinely. This case study highlights the integral role of victim agency in the history of the Armenian Genocide.
"Morgenthau’s memoir is an indisputable testimony to ‘The Murder of a Nation.’ From the American Embassy in Constantinople, he worked relentlessly to reveal these crimes and to pressure the U.S. government to intervene with the aim of saving the survivors of the Armenian Genocide. This monumental task seemed impossible at a time when the U.S. was firmly committed to isolationism and neutrality in its foreign policy. This situation required a difficult balance between the strong moral obligation Morgenthau possessed regarding the suffering Armenians and his defined role in representing his country. In the end, he chose to go beyond the limits of U.S. policy to reveal the horrors of the Armenian Genocide. As such, Morgenthau’s interventionist steps concerning the fate of the Armenians should be applauded as a heroic act"
This real-life memoir chronicles the journey of Arousiag Magarian over a four year period as she struggles to survive during the Armenian Genocide (1915-1919). Originally written in a small notebook in Armenian, the authors (Arpi Poladian and Troy E. Spier) have translated and prepared for the reader a version in literary English that hopes to capture all of the nuance from Magarian's deeply emotional voice. Finally, a description of the historical circumstances surrounding Aintab and her residents during this time period is provided by Dr. Ümit Kurt, a scholar of the late Ottoman Empire. | |||||
3581 | dbpedia | 0 | 31 | https://dokumen.pub/the-turkish-war-of-independence-a-military-history-1919-1923-2021008010-2021008011-9781440878411-9781440878428.html | en | The Turkish War of Independence: a Military History, 1919 | [
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] | null | [] | null | It is exceedingly rare to run across a major historical event that has no comprehensive English-language history, but su... | en | dokumen.pub | https://dokumen.pub/the-turkish-war-of-independence-a-military-history-1919-1923-2021008010-2021008011-9781440878411-9781440878428.html | Table of contents :
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter One: The End of World War I
Chapter Two: Call to Arms
Chapter Three: To the First Inönü Campaign
Chapter Four: The Long War against Insurgents
Chapter Five: A Short War on the Eastern Front
Chapter Six: The Franco-Turkish War
Chapter Seven: Second I˙nönü and Kütahya-Eskis¸ehir
Chapter Eight: The Culminating Point at Sakarya
Chapter Nine: Operational and Strategic Pause
Chapter Ten: The Great Offensive and the Pursuit to Izmir
Chapter Eleven: The Advance to the Straits and the Armistice
Chapter Twelve: The Treaty of Lausanne and the Establishment of the Turkish Republic
Conclusion
Appendix A: Casualties by Professor Konstantinos Travlos
Appendix B: Campaigns of the Turkish War of Independence
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Citation preview | |||||
3581 | dbpedia | 1 | 21 | https://newlinesmag.com/essays/a-schindler-for-the-armenians/ | en | A Schindler for the Armenians | [
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"Ümit Kurt"
] | 2022-03-28T11:00:00+00:00 | An Ottoman naval officer refused to take part in the genocide of a century ago | en | New Lines Magazine | https://newlinesmag.com/essays/a-schindler-for-the-armenians/ | I believe that it was really due to Lorenzo that I am alive today; and not so much for his material aid, as for his having constantly reminded me by his presence, by his natural and plain manner of being good, that there still existed a just world outside our own, something and someone still pure and whole, not corrupt, not savage, extraneous to hatred and terror; something difficult to define, a remote possibility of good, but for which it was worth surviving.
These are the words of Primo Levi from his book “If This is a Man (published in the U.S. as Survival in Auschwitz).” A Holocaust survivor who was sent to Auschwitz in 1944, Levi was speaking of Lorenzo Perrone, whom he called his rescuer.
The American director Steven Spielberg brought this story to life through Oskar Schindler, a businessperson and member of the National Socialist Party who sought to rescue the Jews he hired at the factory he owned during the Holocaust. A significant niche within Holocaust literature details the actions of non-Jews who endangered their own lives to rescue Jews.
While the literature may be less extensive, the era that encompasses the 1915-17 Armenian genocide brims with tales of Muslim Kurds, Arabs and Turks who protected and saved Armenians and put their own lives in danger by hiding them in their homes until nearly the end of World War I.
These individuals took vital risks by ignoring the declaration from the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), then the ruling Ottoman government, that Muslim “homeowners who have hidden and protected Armenians in violation of government decisions be executed in front of their residence and their houses burned.”
Ottoman naval Lt. Cemil Bahri Kunneh was one individual who resisted this order from the CUP, saving approximately 2,000 Armenians from certain death.
Kunneh was born in Aleppo in 1892. His father was from the village of Kurdan in Jendires, a Kurdish settlement unit that is part of the Afrin region located in the northwest of the Syrian province. His mother, Emine Ali, was from Hopka, a village connected to the Rajo region. Kunneh was 4 when his father died, and his mother raised him by herself.
He enrolled in the Naval Military Academy (Mekteb-i Bahriye) in Istanbul in early 1906 and graduated as a mechanical mülazımevvel (lieutenant) from the academy in 1910. This was where he obtained the title of bahri (marine). That same year, Kunneh enrolled in the Law School at the Darülfünun (present-day Istanbul University). He studied there for a year but later quit his law education and went to England to gain expertise in mechanics at the John Thornycroft motor factory in Basingstoke. In 1912, with the outbreak of the Balkan Wars, Kunneh was enlisted in the Ottoman Army and rewarded for his bravery in the battle.
Kunneh was assigned to Birecik, part of Urfa, in the Great War as the Armenian deportation and genocide ensued. Here, he served as the manager of a maritime workshop, building military transport vessels for Turkish troops on the Euphrates River. He executed his duty under the command of the Ottoman Seventh Army. Birecik contained one shipyard that belonged to the Ottoman state, and Kunneh managed a sizable ship construction sector established there during WWI.
He assisted as many Armenians avoid deportation as he could. Some were en route to their deaths in the Syrian desert (they had to cross the Euphrates River along with Turkish military convoys traveling to Syria and Palestine) when Kunneh signed them up to work as laborers and craftsmen in the shipyard. Here, they found salvation working in the blacksmith’s section of the yard, working the bellows in the workshop, operating as stonemasons, painters and clothiers.
Deportees from the largely Armenian city of Aintab were able to set up tents along the river with their families and were saved. Kunneh also ensured the distribution of food, clothing and medication procured from the Red Crescent and Red Cross. Fugitive Armenian soldiers, women sold at slave markets, the elderly and orphans were also among those he helped.
Hagop Muradian was a key Armenian figure whom Kunneh rescued. Born in 1872, Muradian was a famous photographer in Aintab who dedicated himself to community work in the city. During the genocide, Muradian was in Birecik, where he found work as a carpenter at the Ship Construction Workshop with Kunneh and was thus spared deportation to Deir ez-Zor. Muradian went to Aleppo immediately after the Armistice in late 1918. He assumed the representation of the Armenian National Union Protestant Congregation there and became one of its founding members.
Kunneh’s marriage to Dikranuhi Gullizian was a critical factor behind his efforts to protect Armenians. Both Dikranuki’s father, a prominent clergyman in the Aintab Armenian community, and sister were victims of the genocide. Kunneh met Dikranuhi at the start of the genocide when deportations were underway. She was fleeing with her mother and younger sister first to Cerablus (now named Karkamış) and eventually ended up in Birecik. Dikranuhi encouraged Kunneh to hire numerous Aintab Armenians, including Hagop Muradian, at the workshop in Birecik.
After World War I, and with the consent of her husband, Dikranuhi settled in Aleppo, where she stayed for the rest of her life. Kunneh and Dikranuhi had four children to whom they gave both Arabic and Armenian names: Bahri (Antranig), Maazaz (Anahid), Meziet (Diana) and Nader (Noubar).
Kunneh’s actions during the genocide still left him at risk following the end of the war. His position in the army suggested he was a rule-following member of CUP (the Unionists) and therefore complicit in the persecution of Armenians. On May 24, 1915, the Entente (Britain, France and Russia) issued a declaration “promising to hold Ottoman leaders and officials accountable for atrocities against Christians.” Immediately after the war, an earnest hunt for Unionists began in Istanbul. Those identified as being involved in the atrocities against Armenians were arrested and then tried before the military courts (Divan-ı Harbi Örfi). A sizable portion of these individuals later faced exile to Malta.
Aware of this and grateful to Kunneh for saving their lives, a number of Armenians wrote a letter aimed at protecting him from arrest by explaining how Kunneh defied orders from the Ottoman government and helped not only Armenians but also British and Russian soldiers. The letter was sent to the Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul and to Patriarch Zaven Der Yeghian, requesting that it be forwarded to the occupying British and French forces in Istanbul at the time.
Kunneh was a conscientious, anti-Unionist, Ottoman military officer who used the power and authority he derived from his position to save Armenians from being sent to camps in Meskene, Ras ul-Ayn and Deir ez-Zor. He was also taking advantage of their labor, making rational decisions as a military bureaucrat.
The Armenian genocide was a mass violence event committed by a wide-ranging group of perpetrators. The individuals who were involved in this atrocity did so in line with their own decisions, and regardless of the circumstances, they hold individual responsibility. Alleging that this mass violence was carried out only by a group headed by Talat Pasha, the head of central government and the chief architect of the genocide, and the CUP would disregard the aggregate dimension of the genocide and the individual responsibilities of those who partook of their own free will. To execute mass violence on such a scale, the CUP needed an effective organizational capacity on multiple levels — psychological, ideological, economic, social, military — and cadres to carry it out. For this, the CUP relied on the support and consent of local elites.
Kunneh chose to not participate in this collective crime and not share complicity. He resisted group pressure, fear of ostracization, and the imperative to obey authority and the orders of his superiors. Kunneh was fundamentally motivated by his belief in humanity and his endless love for Dikranuhi. His Kurdish Arab ethnic background also likely played a pivotal role in his efforts to rescue the Armenians under his jurisdiction. Historically, Ottoman Kurds and Arabs were oppressed and treated unequally by the central authorities within the empire vis-a-vis Turkish people in numerous eastern, southeastern and Arab provinces. This created a sense of sympathy and empathy among these two ethnic groups toward Armenians. Kunneh was affected by that.
Kunneh died in Aleppo on May 25, 1967. He was survived by Dikranuhi, who died at the age of 93 on June 15, 1986. Dikranuhi was among the last of the Armenian women who married Arabs and started families during the Armenian genocide and massacres in Aleppo, which may have saved them from deportation and almost certain death in on of the concentration camps at Deir ez-Zor, Meskene, Rakka and Ras ul-Ayn. Many did not end their marriages after the war and continued on with their lives as Christians without pressure from their husbands. Although the Armenian community accepted these women, it wasn’t always wholehearted; they were given particular names — not pejorative ones — among the Armenian community.
Despite Kunneh’s extraordinary hope and courage to rescue Armenians during the genocide, for which Dikranuhi played no small part, the Turkish government and society has ignored their contribution to humanity and instead insists that the Armenian genocide is farcical. There are no books about Kunneh’s persona and his deeds, no films, no television series. Posthumuously honoring Kunneh and those Turks, Kurds, Arabs and Armenians who rescued those from genocide is fundamental to erasing a fixed notion of Turkish identity and deserves a place in Armenians’ collective memory. | |||||
3581 | dbpedia | 1 | 76 | https://armenianweekly.com/2013/12/11/the-woman-in-the-wall/ | en | The Woman in the Wall: A Story of People, Places, and Things | [
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"Vahe Habeshian"
] | 2013-12-11T00:00:00 | Special to the Armenian Weekly In 2005, a Turkish workman named Murat finds a dusty postcard hidden behind the wooden panels of a wall in an old house in south-central Turkey, in the city of [...] | en | The Armenian Weekly | https://armenianweekly.com/2013/12/11/the-woman-in-the-wall/ | Special to the Armenian Weekly
In 2005, a Turkish workman named Murat finds a dusty postcard hidden behind the wooden panels of a wall in an old house in south-central Turkey, in the city of Antep (Gaziantep).
On the front of the postcard is the black-and-white image of a woman in a long black dress; she’s holding a handgun in her right hand and a rifle in her left. Bandoliers are wrapped across her chest and around her waist. Nearly lost among the bullets and leather is a round brooch or medallion above her left breast.
In English, at bottom-left, is an embossed signature, “M. H. Halladjian,” and at bottom-right is a place name, “Aintab Asia-Minor.” On the back of the postcard is handwriting in a language that’s alien to Murat; only a part of a date is comprehensible: 1910.
* * *
Halfway through the first week of a draining two-week “pilgrimage” through historic Armenia, on May 26, 2013, our group of 12 Armenian “pilgrims” arrives in Antep (Ayntap, or Aintab, in Armenian). Our guide, Armen Aroyan, explains that the city was renamed Gaziantep—”Heroic Antep”—for having repulsed British and French armed forces in 1921, during the war of “liberation” that resulted in the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923.
As we drive through the city, it seems vaguely familiar, though I’ve never been here before. I can see parts of Beirut and Aleppo in both the old and the new buildings, the dusty cobblestoned streets, the small shops lining them.
Our van pulls up to an imposing structure overlooking a main street. It’s the Sourp Asdvadzadzin (“Holy Mother of God”) Church, built in 1892, now converted to a mosque and renamed Kurtuluş Camii (“Liberation” mosque), Armen explains. After the long drive from Musa Dagh in our brand new Mercedes passenger van, we gladly begin to exit. My son, Garin Shant, my youngest, bounds out like a falcon fleeing a gilded cage; others, including my father, move out wearily, stretching old muscles that have grown accustomed to the inertia of sitting and waiting. All of us gradually make our way up, toward the church-mosque.
The wooden doors on the side of the building, facing us, are locked. The members of the group move on in various directions around the building, taking pictures. I walk to the “front” of the church-mosque, toward a wide walkway/courtyard overlooking the street; I’m actually at the back of the church, behind the altar, I find out later. Leaning against the railing I look over the edge. Across the street, I can see half-standing ruins of large houses with red clay roof tiles, and I notice a small, cross-shaped opening or window—then another. Considering their proximity to the church, and their grand size, they must be formerly Armenian-owned homes, I think to myself. I take pictures of them with my iPhone, knowing full well that I am too far to be able to capture the images of the windows.
I hear, then see, a small old man off to the side, behind me, sweeping the ground. His faded, oft-torn and oft-mended clothes hang loosely on his small frame; his shoes, too, are worn. For a split second I think he’s wearing a shalvar and pabuches.
He sweeps seemingly in slow motion, in half-hearted, incomplete strokes; just as likely, he’s simply too old, his range of motion limited, his limbs atrophied and no longer limber. I greet him with my nearly nonexistent Turkish and try to ask whether the mosque is open.
He motions that I follow… He’s dealt with tourists before. I follow. His pace is maddeningly slow. He doesn’t walk. He shuffles. Haltingly. I slow my pace to match his; he has the key, after all. And I don’t want to be rude, to imply with eager steps that he should walk more quickly. But I’m restless—have been for the entire trip so far—as if wanting to quickly reach the next place, then the next and the next, but also wanting to stay, absorb the essence of each site, to feel a part of it. Yet I can do neither.
Eventually, the old man reaches the wooden doors, in the meantime having built a small following of pilgrims curious to see what lies within the church-mosque. The doors creak and slowly swing open. The old man steps in, takes off his dusty shoes, and places them on a rack. We follow him in and take off our shoes, too.
We make our way around a partition to enter the church-mosque proper and are immediately confronted by the overwhelming red of an overly large Turkish flag dominating the wall in front of us, the only thing of color in relatively stark surroundings, though the interior of the church is beautiful. The oriental carpet beneath our stockinged feet makes the space seem tolerable, hospitable.
I immediately begin to walk along the walls, looking up and down for a remnant of anything Armenian, as I’ve done throughout the trip. (And, if I’m to be honest, as I’ve done all my life, pretty much everywhere I go. I suppose that’s what happens when one’s sense of home feels fragile and hazy.)
I find nothing on the cold walls of the church-mosque. Until I look up, high above what used to be the altar, above yet another large Turkish flag, and notice a medallion-shaped…something. The abandoned altar is too dark, and I can’t tell what the shape contains because what had once been there has eroded with time, or it has been intentionally chipped away. It’s even possible that it had contained nothing in particular, I think, then quickly dismiss it.
I take a few pictures, again knowing that I likely wouldn’t be able to capture a clear-enough image of what had once been there. Only after I place the iPhone in my pocket does the thought occur to me: Many Armenian churches have the figure of a dove or the letter “Է” above the altar—signifying, respectively, the Holy Spirit and God. Whichever had been there, the presence of neither seems very apparent now in the church-mosque.
Normally, I wouldn’t feel great affinity toward a religious symbol—Christian, Armenian, or otherwise. But in its current, altered state, that empty medallion shape elicits…what? Resentment? Loss? Anger? Frustration? Sorrow? Those and much more that I cannot name, or probably even comprehend.
No wonder ancient (and not so ancient) cultures have assigned and ascribed so much power to symbols, amulets, and other talismanic objects, believing they hold power in, and influence over, the physical world.
They affect thought. And so they effect change.
In this case, it is the absence of an object—rather, the existence of a mere hint of it—that casts a powerful presence, substantiating what I sense and feel and know: that this building is not now what it once was, that what it is now isn’t really what it is, or is made to seem to be.
Every molecule of every remaining inanimate object of Historic Armenia is a microcosm of immense loss, massive erasure, and a brutal re-rendering of reality.
* * *
A stranger has joined us in the church-mosque. Armen introduces a few of us to an Antep native, Murad, a tall, thin, mustachioed Turk with dark hair tied back into a ponytail. He seems at once laid back and intense—the type who subsists on coffee and cigarettes. Apparently he and Armen are old friends. They do some catching up, discussing pictures of old Armenian homes that Murad has recently emailed to Armen.
At some point, standing in the middle of the church-mosque, Murad takes out some papers from his bag. A few of us gather around as he explains, in English, about a project he’s been working on. The papers are photocopied pages of an Armenian book, Ayntapi Goyamarde (“Ayntap’s Battle for Survival”) about the Armenian battles of self-defense against Turkish attacks in 1920-21. The author is A. Kesar, and the book was published in 1945, in Boston, by the Hairenik Press. I was once an editor at the Hairenik, I point out, surprised, never imagining that I would come across anything in the middle of Ayntap that would remind me of my long years in the Hairenik building in Watertown, Mass.
The cover page has notes in Turkish and English scribbled over and around the title. Murad flips through some pages, and we see how nearly every millimeter of white space between the lines of printed Armenian text contains handwritten Turkish. Murad explains that he has taught himself the Armenian alphabet, and with the help of dictionaries he’s been translating the Armenian text into Turkish so that he may learn the untaught history of his hometown.
I’m incredulous: Really? Why? How? A Turk learning Armenian so that he could translate the Armenian view of events in his “heroic” hometown nearly a century earlier?
The setting—an Armenian church seized and converted into a Turkish mosque and ironically renamed “liberation”—makes the proposition seem even more surreal: A Turk who is, in essence, “converting” Armenian text into Turkish. But now the intent is to reveal, not obscure, to reclaim, to name things as they are. To liberate.
Murad, an electrical engineer by training, tells us some of the back-story. The following is the version he emailed to me a couple of months after we’d met:
“Once upon a time I was a house restorer. At that time, I did not have sufficient information about the original (Armenian) owner of the buildings. I’d only have information on the owners after 1923, when the Turkish Republic was declared. During the restoration of an old house in the Kayajik region [of Antep], we had to restore some wooden parts of the house. The house had seven rooms and a big living room. I started to work in a small room on the first floor of the house. The architectural style of that room was that all of the walls were covered with wood, but unfortunately most of the wood was destroyed by the effect of humidity. For this reason, we decided to renovate all the wooden parts of this room. But we had to be careful when removing the old wood because the limestone under the wood could be damaged.
“When I started the removing operation, I found a picture between the limestone of the wall and the wooden part. First, I thought it was an ordinary paper, but when I looked it carefully I noticed that it is a photograph covered by dust. When I cleaned the dust, I saw a young woman with arms [weapons] and I could read, ‘Aintab Asia-Minor’ and ‘M.H. Halladjian.’ I thought most probably M.H.H. was a photographer and this is a very old photo. When I looked the back side, I could read only ‘21…1910.’
“As you can guess, I could not read the other parts of the writing. I thought the writing is in the Arabic language because at that time Ottomans used Arabic letters for writing. When I asked a friend who knows Arabic, he said, ‘This writing is not Arabic, it could be the Armenian language.’ Later, I met a family [of Armenians] who visited Antep, and they translated the writing.
Transliteration (in Western Armenian)
Hankoutsial heros Kevork Chavoushi
Digin ayri Heghine.
=
Mer hishadagi nvere asd[?]
Diar Hovhannes yev
Digin Piranian
21 Houlis 1910 H.H.T.
Aintab
The English translation
Deceased hero Kevork Chavoush’s
Wife, the widow Heghine.*
=
Our memento this/here[?]
Mr. Hovhannes and
Mrs. Piranian
21 July 1910 A.R.F.
Ayntap
“Before the translation, I had one question: ‘Who was M.H. Halladjian?’ But after the translation, I had more than five questions. ‘Who were these women and men?’ Then, I decided to search for the history of Antep. These [events] happened in 2005.
“Later, I met with Armen Aroyan, and he gave a Xerox copy of the book K. Sarafian’s Brief History of Aintab. After reading that book, I decided to learn the Armenian language, because the history of Antep can not be researched and understood without the Armenian language. Now I can read, and with the help of a dictionary I can understand Armenian.”
* * *
The Murat of 2005 had become the Murad we met in 2013 at the Sourp Asdvadzadzin Church/Liberation mosque of Ayntap/Aintab, Antep/Gaziantep. At some point, I find out later from a mutual friend, he had changed the spelling of his name.
I’m not certain why. But I know it has something to do with people, places, and things.
*The Armenian Weekly cannot verify the veracity of the claim that the woman in the photo is in fact the wife of the celebrated fedayee Kevork Chavoush. In Roupen DerMinassian’s memoirs, the author notes that Chavoush’s wife’s name was Yeghso (not Heghine). In addition, there is no evidence that Yeghso was a fedayee. | |||||
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