THE FIRST SHOT - III
"Historians should love the truth. A historian has a duty to try to write only the truth."
By Prof. Justin McCarthy, University of Louisville -
(A speech first presented during a conference at Yeditepe University, Istanbul, 2002.
Continues from the previous issue…)

Armenian Revolutionary Organizations
The Dashnaktsuthiun Party, the Armenian Revolutionary Federa-tion, known usually as the Dashnaks, was founded in Tiflis in the Russian Empire in 1890. It joined earlier Armenian nationalist parties in planning the downfall of the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia. The party was socialist and nationalist in ideology.

It's Manifesto declared a "people's war against the Turkish government." It spoke of "the scared task of securing national freedom." Amidst calls for redistribution of land, communal brotherhood, and good government, the Dashnak Program of 1892 set forth its revolutionary intentions. These included organizing revolutionary committees and fighting bands and arming "the people. The Dashnaks declared their intention "to stimulate fighting and to terrorize government officials . . ." and "to expose government establishments to looting and destruction." In the ensuing years they carried out their plan.

The Dashnak motto (1896) was "Arms! Battle! The victory is ours!"
There is neither the time nor the need to describe here the organization and philosophy of the Dashnaks and the other Armenian revolutionary movements. Their own words indicate their purpose--bloody rebellion against the Ottoman Empire. It is more important to consider their deeds than to study their words. One thing must be understood about the purpose of the Armenian revolution, however:

The aim of the Armenian revolutionaries was very different than the aim of other nationalist revolutionaries. The people of Italy were Italian. Italian revolutions wanted a state where the majority ruled. Polish nationalists wanted to create a state for the Poles, who were an oppressed majority, ruled by a Russian minority. The same was true all over the world--whatever their methods, good and bad, nationalists at least fought for a state in which the majority would rule themselves. Map #4 It was not so with the Armenian

nationalists. Armenian revolutionaries fought to conquer a land in which they were less than 20% of the population. In the region they claimed, the so-called "Six Vilâyets," Muslims outnumbered them by more than four to one. Unlike the Poles, the Italians, the Uzbeks, the South Africans, the Algerians, or the Irish, the Armenians were not a large majority ruled by an imperial master.

They were a small group who wished to defeat the majority and seize their land. They were a small group that enlisted the aid of the enemies of their country, because they could never conquer the large majority of Muslims without outside help.

What would the Armenian nationalists have done if they had succeeded? History teaches from the sad example of the fate of the Turks of the Balkans. The only way to create an "Armenia" was to exile or kill the majority. There could never have been an Armenia state in Anatolia unless the revolutionaries had rid themselves of the Muslims.

This fact must be remembered whenever one considers the Ottoman response to the Armenian revolutionaries. The Ottomans were not only defending their government. They were defending the majority of their people against those who would deny majority rule. Moreover, they were defending those who would be dead or exiled if the revolutionaries succeeded.

1890s Rebellions
Armenian rebellions took place in Eastern Anatolia in the 1860s and earlier. But it was in the 1890s that the Armenian revolutionary organizations truly began to put their plans into effect.

In 1894, Armenians in the Sasun region rebelled against the government. Large rebel bands concentrated their attacks on symbols of the Ottoman State--tax collectors, government officials, official buildings. They also fought battles with Kurdish tribesmen. There had always been animosity between the Armenians and the Kurdish tribes. This much is understandable. Whether or not one approves of Armenian rebellion, it is understood that rebels attack the government and their old enemies. What happened next is not in any way excusable. The Ottoman army advanced on the rebels. As the rebels retreated they slaughtered the Muslim inhabitants of the villages in their path. In response, the army and local Muslims killed Armenians.

It was not the Muslims who began to kill Armenians. It was Armenians who began to kill Muslims. The result was horrible for both.

The actions of Armenian rebels in Zeytun and Maras in 1895 were all too similar. Their rebellion was a mass murder of Muslims of the region. The Armenian leader himself claimed to have killed 25,000 Muslims. The Ottoman army was not even allowed to punish the murderers. The European Powers protected them.

In Van in the same year the rebels, and many innocent Muslims and Armenians, died when the Armenian nationalists once again rebelled. In Adana in 1909 it was the same; Armenians rebelled, confident of European support that never came. Although the Armenians suffered the greater mortality, Armenian rebel forces unquestionably began the conflict. The Turks responded. They were not only protecting their state; they were protecting their people.

In Sasun, in Van, in Zeytun, in Maras, and in Adana, it was Armenian rebels who began the slaughter. It was the Armenian rebels who began to murder their fellow Ottoman citizens. It was not the Turks who attacked the Armenians. It was the Armenians who attacked the Turks.

World War I
The events of World War I cannot be understood without first looking at the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913. Those wars gave revolutionaries a reason to believe that their methods would be successful. Nationalist rebel bands killed the Turks of the Balkans and drove them from their homes. Invading armies finished the job of murder and exile. Muslims, most of them Turks, had been a slight majority in Ottoman Europe in 1912. By the end of the Balkan Wars they were a distinct minority. 27% of the Muslims of the Ottoman Balkans had died. What remained were Bulgarian, Greek, Montenegrin, and Serbian states that had rid themselves of their Muslim populations.

Lands that had Muslim majorities now had Christian majorities. This was exactly what the Armenian revolutionaries would have to do on a greater scale, and it had worked in the Balkans.

Both sides learned the lessons of the Balkan Wars. The Turks knew what would happen to them if revolutionaries succeeded. The intentions of the Armenian rebels were the same as the intentions of those who had forced the Turks from the Balkans. They wished to rid Eastern Anatolia of its Muslim majority, so that it could become "Armenia." To do so they would use the same tactics that had been effective in the Balkans.

Even before the first world war began, Armenian guerilla bands had begun to organize in the Russian Empire. These included Armenians from both Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Approximately 8,000 Ottomans went to Kagizman to train and organize. 6,000 went from Anatolia to Igdir, more to other training camps. They returned to fight the Turks and to aid the Russian war effort. Large caches of guns, ammunition, supplies, and even uniforms had been hidden in depots in Anatolia, ready for use.

These were not small units of guerillas. They were not a few men committing random acts of terrorism. There were indeed innumerable such individual acts, but the main Armenian attack came from well-armed and trained rebel bands. They may have numbered as many as 100,000 men. In Sivas Vilâyeti alone Ottoman officials estimated 30,000 Armenian partisans.

The mythology of Armenian history holds that peaceful Armenians were attacked without provocation by Turks. The reality was far different. To understand the situation, one should attempt to visualize the situation on the Ottoman-Russian border in Spring of 1915. The Ottoman Army on the Russian Front was in ruins. Enver Pasa had tried to defeat the Russians with a bold but ill-conceived attack at Sarikamis. He had failed badly.3/4 of his army had been lost. All that stood between the Ottoman heartland and Russian invaders were the remnant of the Ottoman Army in the East. Some of these were very good troops. The gendarmerie divisions, made up of gendarmes from the East who knew the territory well, were particularly effective. But the Ottoman forces were few. The Russians were more numerous and better equipped. The only chance the Ottoman forces had was to hold their defensive positions. Every man was needed at the front.

However, thousands of men could not advance to the front. They were needed to fight behind the lines. Indeed, some of the best soldiers were withdrawn from the front and sent to fight internal enemies, Armenian rebels.

The Russian Front was in danger. Ultimately it collapsed. Ultimately the Russians invaded and conquered Eastern Anatolia, bringing with them triumphant Armenian rebels.

The Russian invasion of Anatolia in 1915 was spearheaded by units made up of Armenians from both Ottoman Anatolia and Russia. Armenians served as scouts for the Russian Army. Most important, bands of Armenians hampered transportation and cut military communications throughout the Ottoman East.

The internal threat from Armenian guerillas, Armenian "chette" bands, was a serious threat to the existence of the Ottoman Empire and a real threat to the lives of the Muslims of Anatolia.

Before any Armenians were deported, before any Armenian nationalist politician was hung, before any Armenian died at the hands of an Ottoman soldier, even before war was officially declared, Armenian nationalists had begun to organize their rebellion. The actions of the Armenian rebels were not simply rebellion. Ottoman Armenians acted as agents of the Russian Army.

They made war on their own country, the Ottoman Empire, and fought on the side of its main enemy, the Russian Empire. As they freely admitted at the time, they were traitors who had enlisted with their country's worst enemy.

In order to see the effect of the Armenian Rebellion, one need only look at the map. Only the main centers of rebellion are shown. Armenian bands were actually traveling throughout Eastern Anatolia, hindering transportation, cutting communications lines, and attacking isolated Muslim villages. Only the regions of major activity by large bodies of men can be shown on the map.

At first glance, some of the regions of rebellion seem to be oddly chosen. Why Sivas?

It seems an unlikely place for a rebellion. Only 13% of the population of Sivas Vilâyeti was Armenian. Sivas was far from the front, far from possible Russian support. But look at the roads. In order to reach the battle with the Russians, troops and supplies had to pass through Sivas.

Retreating soldiers also were forced to pass through Sivas. Sivas was also the hub for the telegraph system that extended to the battle zone. The city and province of Sivas were transportation and communication bottlenecks. Any disruption in Sivas was a blow against the Ottoman war effort.

The regions of Armenian rebellion in Cilicia and Urfa were also in regions with great strategic importance.

Because the Taurus tunnels had not been completed, war materials and soldiers for the theater of war in Iraq had to be trans-shipped in Cilicia, then travel on through the Urfa Region.The British seriously considered attacking in Cilicia rather than Gallipoli (and would have been far more successful if they had.)

Armenian forces in Van and in the Russian border areas also had a potential strategic effect. The Russians had moved into Western Iran.

They threatened Ottoman positions in the East and ultimately intended to attack into Iraq and join with the British. (No one expected that the Ottomans would defeat the British in Iraq.) In order to check the Russian advance, the Ottomans should have moved East.

There were only two possible roads from Anatolia into Iran--the routes through Bayezit in the North or through Van in the South. Is it only coincidence that these two were major centers of Armenian rebellion?

Until someone is able to research Russian army orders to Armenian units, we will not know how much of the Armenian rebellion was well planned to aid the Russians. It seems unlikely that such strategic points were chosen at random. The important point, however, is not why they were chosen but the grave danger they presented to the Ottoman forces. The Ottomans needed to put down the revolt. They needed to do so because Armenian forces were slaughtering Muslims, but they also needed to do so for military reasons. The Armenian rebels were enemy forces that were contributing to Ottoman defeat.

The main Armenian contribution to the Russians was the fact that their rebellion occupied so many Ottoman soldiers and gravely hindered the Ottoman war effort.

But from the standpoint of humanity, the worst effect of the Armenian rebellion was the mortality of the innocent Muslim civilians killed by the Armenian rebels and, it should not be forgotten, the mortality of the innocent Armenian civilians who were killed in revenge.

It was Armenian rebels who began the killing. By far the greatest number of dead were Muslims.

Why did the Ottomans deport the Armenians? They did it to remove a civilian population that would surely aid and comfort the enemy, as had been proven. Perhaps most of the Armenians would not have acted against the Ottomans, but how could anyone know who would and who would not aid the Russians, the British, and the French? I believe that, in the heat of war and in their desire to defend their Empire and its people, the Ottomans went too far and deported many who were no threat. But it should never be forgotten that the Ottomans had good reason to act as they did. Nor should it be forgotten that it was the Armenians and Russians who first forced Muslims from their homes. One fact cannot be doubted. During World War I, as for 100 years before, it was not the Turks who first attacked the Armenians. It was the Armenians who first attacked the Turks.

(Part IV)

(For full text of this speech please visit www.ataa.org)