Just “1915 Armenian Genocide” or “1915-1923 Armenian Genocide”?

97th 1915 Remembrance Day is left behind.  US President Mr. Barack Obama talked about tragic events of 1915. I don’t know if I am right in thinking that, in general, the third party around the world interested in Armenian Question for their own reasons and have come to believe that there was an Armenian Genocide, think of a single event which took place in the year of 1915.

However when we visit websites and blogs which belong to Armenians we notice that the event is expanded to quite a wide span of time from 1915 to 1923, that is nine ( 9 ) years.  If any community were subject to genocide for 9 years the whole world rise to stop it at the time and if it could really be realized not a single soul should have survived.

Let’s have a brief look at what happened in those years.  1915 was the second year of the First World War. With a declining economy having gone under the custody of European great powers the Ottoman Empire had to choose to join WWI with the Central Powers in August 1914. As soon as the order of Ottoman mobilization was issued on 3 August 1914, Armenian revolutionary organizations met and “decided to incite unrest, massacres, and acts of incendiarism behind the front and to induce Armenian soldiers to desert the army with their weapons. … After Russia declared war against the Ottoman Empire, on 2 November 1914, a large number of Armenians deserted the Ottoman army and took up arms as rebels.”[1] Even eminent people like Karakin Pasdermadjian --who went by the nom de guerre "Armen Garo No. 1"--, Erzurum Representative in the Ottoman Chamber of Deputies went over to the Russians with almost all the Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman Third Army and returned at their head — burning villages and killing the Muslim peasants who fell into his hands. On 21 December 1914, the Ottoman military campaign opened on the Caucasian front and on 4 January 1915, the Ottoman army was disastrously defeated at Sarıkamış. Besides terrible weather the betrayal of the Armenian population in the rear caused a disaster with 60,000-80,000 dead out of an army of 90,000. The Armenian volunteers in the Russian army knew the countryside and they could count on the support of the local Armenians. …. By the spring of 1915 it was expected that there would be between 20,000 and 25,000 Armenians in the field.[2]

Thus although Armenians were under the rule of Ottoman Empire on paper, they were fighting against the Ottoman Empire with Russians.  With their knowledge of the region and families behind the line they were a very great threat. Can one imagine a country which would not take measures under such circumstances? That is how and why the relocation decision was taken. No matter it was CUP (Ittihadists) or another government, whoever was on power would be obliged to take measures. Deportation started in March and stopped in November because of harsh winter.

What else happened in the same year? Dardanelles Campaign (Gallipoli Battle) which lasted 10 months had started on 19 February, Sasoon Armenian Uprising calculatedly matched with the most important battle of this campaign on 18 March as Britain wished.

In 1916 several cities, towns and villages were under siege of Russian Army with its Armenian troops. All kinds of atrocities, killings and plundering turned the region to hell. Forced emigration uprooted many Muslim families from their homes in Eastern Anatolia. This situation continued until Soviet Russia decided to withdraw in April 1917 after the Revolution.

1918 was the year of end of WWI, but the war was not over for Turks who were doomed to live under the yoke of great powers. In 1919 the country was occupied and resistance started. Turkish War of Independence began in May 1919 and ended by the signing of Lausanne Treaty on  July 24, 1923.

Treaty of Alexandropol with the Democratic Republic of Armenia was signed on 2 December 1920. What was the relationship there on then? Armenians continued their partnership with Allied Powers and fought against Turks during the Turkish War of Independence. The countries which formed the Allied Powers at the time are in friendly peaceful relations with Turkey today. Turkish War of Independence was admired by the world and has been an exemplary for peoples striving to gain their sovereignty thereafter. How come Armenian diasporas can claim that we were exerting genocide on them while we were fighting for our liberation?

Although Armenia was not a party, during negotiations in Lausanne, Boghos Nubar lobbied, first reminding how Armenians fought  together with Allied Powers with the hope they would get something out of it. However, when he realized that the treaty would not meet their expectations he changed his tactics and started to play the victim. Over 97 years Armenians have not forgotten what Sevres Treaty which was to partition the remainder of the defeated Ottoman Empire-- if it could be put into practice-- would offer to them in line with Wilson Plan : all Eastern Anataolia from Trabzon to Van just because the region was then called Armenia but it was forgotten that this was HISTORIC. Their share in the population of Trabzon was less than 4 percent, in Erzurum 17, in Van 16[3]. They dreamed to rule Turks.  They regret that Turks were able to gain their independence again. Lausanne Treaty was signed in 1923 and the world has recognized that it was Turks’ right to be sovereign within the borders defined by the Treaty of Lausanne on the lands where they hold the majority. Armenians lost their hope of founding a country on the lands of historic Armenia in the year of 1923 with Lausanne Treaty which gave birth to a new country, that is Turkey and that is why they say “1915-1923”. It has nothing to do with a genocide it is to do with their defeat in war.

Hovhannes Katchaznouni[4], the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Armenia (1918-1920) said the following in his  Manifesto which is forbidden in Armenia and has been removed from most library shelves in the West by Dashnaks but is available in Russian State Library (former Lenin State Library until 1992):

We had no doubt that the war would end with the complete victory of the Allies; Turkey would be defeated and dismembered, and its Armenian population would at last be liberated. … We had embraced Russia whole-heartedly … We had created a dense atmosphere of illusion in our minds. We had implanted our own desires into the minds of others; we had lost our sense of reality and were carried away with our dreams.  …  We overestimated the ability of the Armenian people, its political and military power, and overestimated the extent and importance of the services our people rendered to the Russians. And by overestimating our very modest worth and merit we were naturally exaggerating our hopes and expectations.

Is there any third party advocate who supports the view that Turks did not deserve Turkey, and 80 percent Muslim population should have been left to the mercy of less than twenty percent minority that killed all of 125.000 Muslims who were living within the borders of the Democratic Republic of Armenia founded in 1918 at once.

If claimant Armenians have any pride, since they started as belligerents they should hold their line and stop playing the victim.  

Turks are not denying a fact; they are denying an allegation which has no ground, they are refusing to be accused of genocide. If this calumniation is stopped, Turkey and Armenia can take steps for a better relationship.

NB. I do not mean to demonize Armenians, but they should not do this to us either! I must note that I have no problem with individual Armenians who do not get involved in this political game.

"Deportation" in para.5 changed to  "relocation". 07.04.2013

Photo at the top shows the First Armenian Voluntary Unit which joined the Russian Army against Ottoman Empire

Photo on the right is a portrait of Hovhannes Katchaznouni, First Prime Minister of Democratic Republic of Armenia (1918-20)

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1  Güçlü, Yücel. “Allied Landing Schemes on Cilicia and Armenian Subversion,” in Armenians and the Allies in Cilicia, 1914-1923. University of Utah Press, 2010. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=399217&site=ehost-live&ebv=1&ppid=pp_51  (Accessed: April 23, 2012).

[2] Guclu, p.52

[3] Mutlu, Servet. “Late Ottoman Population And Its Ethnic Distribution,” Nüfusbilim Dergisi \ Turkish Journal of Population Studies, 2003, 25, 3-38 3. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hips.hacettepe.edu.tr%2Fnbd_cilt25%2Fmutlu.pdf&ei=5b6dT_bFF4ndsgbPmIB_&usg=AFQjCNFwrqqsX5dtTuk8TVVyzm_9G6qW3Q&sig2=z-tcSnxRvGgWR1eAdhQTUQ (Accessed: 22.04.2012)

[4] Dashnagtzoutiun Has Nothing To Do Anymore -Hovhannes Katchaznouni Manifesto : The Manifesto of, First Prime Minister of the Independent Armenian Republic. Translation from Turkish by Lale Akalın. 2006.  http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2006/05/679-dashnagtzoutiun-has-nothing-to-do.html (Accessed: 20.04.2012)


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