“1.5 million Armenians who were massacred or marched to their death” (1) is a very frequently heard sentence in the US. In Europe the figure may go down to 1 million but, the concept is the same being, Anatolian Armenians were doomed to extinction intentionally and therefore there was a genocide. This assertion could never be proved, but what is the need since as Bryan Ardouny, a leader of the Armenian Assembly of America (AAA), cynically stated in 2005, to the authors of the documentary movie "The Armenian Revolt": "We don't need to prove the genocide historically, because it has already been accepted politically." (2) There is no exaggeration in this statement. And this situation has so badly blurred the facts that the misperception that a genocide took place has become widely common in some countries.
Apart from massacres, the reasons of deaths were famine and epidemics. Someone who doesn’t know the details of the tragic events may think that there was food, but the Armenians were deprived off it and therefore they starved and died. Was that the case? Did Turks have food for themselves?
I think it is reasonable to argue that if the Turks had food, but not shared it with Armenians and other Christians, it could certainly be considered that there was bad intention.
However, if they also suffered the same conditions, then would such an allegation be valid? What was the reality then? Archive documents and research papers are certainly the main sources to find out. However, I personally also pay attention to memoirs and historical documentary novels of the period as they shed light on the situation in those days beyond dry descriptions of scholars. They help us to perceive humane aspects of what was experienced in those days.
However, if they also suffered the same conditions, then would such an allegation be valid? What was the reality then? Archive documents and research papers are certainly the main sources to find out. However, I personally also pay attention to memoirs and historical documentary novels of the period as they shed light on the situation in those days beyond dry descriptions of scholars. They help us to perceive humane aspects of what was experienced in those days.
In almost all the memoirs and novels of the period I have read, scarcity of food had been mentioned. I have recently finished a documentary historical novel titled Sarıkamış: Beyaz Hüzün [White Misery] by İsmail Bilgin (3) which narrates the conditions and experiences of Ottoman soldiers who had gone to the Caucasus Frontier in the early days of WWI.
The team traveled by ship to Trebizond and from there on walking towards Erzurum crossing mountains in harsh winter conditions without sufficient clothing and food. While Turks expected German General Souchon to keep his promise to make the Black Sea a Turkish lake; three Ottoman ships, named Bezm-i Alem, Bahr-i Ahmer and Mithad Pasha, full of clothing, food, arm and artillery were sunk when shelled by the Russians on November 6, 1914.
At a point when the team ran out of food; they ate horses’ barley, although it was banned by the officers. The episode (p. 241-242) reads as follows:
Hasan from Ashkale who was behind, approached hands in pockets, looked around, then came to Sergeant Faik and said:
- Sergeant open your hand.
- Why is that?
- I tell you to open, be quick. No one should see this.
Sergeant Faik opened his hand curiously. Hasan put a handful barley in his hand hastily, and said:
- Manage with these.
- From where did you get this barley? Don’t tell me you got it from the nosebags of horses like some others.
- No sergeant, I paid money to a soldier at the back and got a pocketful. He looks after the horses. He told me not to tell anyone. Because this is the end of the barley for animals too.
- Oh My God! What days we are in, dear Hasan. We even steal animal feed and eat it.
- What can we do sergeant? We must eat to survive. You know, that soldier said “You’re lucky. You eat barley that has not been through the animal’s rumen, not those which have been through.”
- What do you mean? I don’t understand.
- This is not hard to understand sergeant. The soldiers collect barley in the feces of the horses, clean them in the snow, share and eat.
- So we’re lucky!
- Yes, we’re lucky!
As he said “we’re lucky”, grief got deeper in his eyes, and he wondered what kind of luck that was… (p. 241).
Halil Değertekin’s documentary novel Muhacirler [Immigrants] is based on his mother Rasime’s narrative (2). As Russian army approaches, the policeman Ziya took his nephew Kemal and niece Rasime and left Varto, a town in the province of Van, on January 1, 1916 joining a convoy (p. 37). Child Rasime’s observations are sharp and very sad concerning white death and starvation. When cold pervades, a very alluring desire to sleep slips in. Those who are weakened by hunger and cannot resist and fall asleep, do not open their eyes again (p. 61). Neither marching soldiers, nor Muslims who fled home, and nor Armenians who were to be relocated in the South were exempt. The convoys proceeded with the hope of coming across a village from where they can buy food. But the villages were deserted, ruined, and leave alone food, there was even no hay for animals. People were crying out “We’re hungry, we’re dying!”, “A slice of bread for God’s sake!”, “My child is dying, a bite of bread, a drop of water!”. Many people plunged at tree barks and wild plants they came across along the way. They would swallow them if they could, otherwise suck the juice and throw the pulp out. Rasime would witness fights for food suddenly bursting out. Once she covered her face with her hands when she saw some people who took feces of horses by handfuls, pick barley in it and eat, as she could not stand the sight of it (p. 62-63).
Bitlis and Mush were emancipated by Mustafa Kemal Pasha on August 8, 1916. In a short period of occupation such as five months the level of devastation in these cities were beyond one could imagine. Mazhar Müfit Kansu who was assigned as Governor reported the situation as follows:
“I have found Bitlis much worst devastated than I expected. Bitlis, which was one of the cities that had had the chance of utilizing the opportunities offered by the Ottoman Empire, and was a well built-up, prosperous city, had turned into a ruin. The Russian invasion had knocked down the city. The massacres perpetrated by Armenian chetes and forced migration had almost left no people in the city center. One should not be astonished if I say only about 200 people were left around the city center and ruins. They were suffering because of lack of food, and they were exhausted. We joined their misery. We were bound to eat a kind of bread called kılkıl (gılgıl), made of millet and a wild plant called kenger (Gundelia) for 3-4 months” (4).
A friend from a powerful Kurdish tribe once told me that according to his grandmother, they were one of the tribes which had undertaken to accompany Armenians to the South safely. Attacks of bandits who were after money and jewelery, and those who believed that they would go to heaven if they killed three Armenians posed a great challenge. And one of the other major problems was lack of food. Even barley in the feces of horses had become so precious that those accompanied the convoys of Armenians would have them for themselves and not share with Armenians.
Cutting pieces of leather from boots or belts to chew has also been mentioned by several authors.
These short extracts from memoirs can perhaps be helpful to create an understanding why we Turks call 1915 tragedy a “common pain” and expect allegations to come to an end. Journalist Abbas Güçlü (6), who reviewed Değertekin’s historical documentary novel Muhacirler, has commented that “nothing has changed over hundred years. There is no difference between the tribulations of refugees from the Balkans, the Caucasus or our ancestors who were drifted from one end of Anatolia to the other, and the Syrian refugees of today. The World today is the same as it was yesterday.” It is not just Syrians, but Yezidis and Turkmens also suffered because of forced migration. It is a great pity that the sufferings of past wars has not been a lesson to the humankind and wars never end.
1) Aslan, S. (2013. 1.5 million: The Puzzle in Remembrance Day Statements. Accessed at https://armenianholocaustmystory.blogspot.com.tr/2013/05/15-million-puzzle-in-remembrance-day.html on 9.10.2016
2) Değertekin, Halil. (2015). 1. Dünya Savaşı / Doğu Cephesinde Muhacirler. Ankara: Kanguru.
3) Gauin, Maxime. (2016). Pope Francis and the Ghost of Benedict XV. Accessed on 20.10.2016 at https://www.academia.edu/28905532/Pope_Francis_and_the_Ghost_of_Benedict_XV
4) Bilgin, İsmail. (2012). Sarıkamış: Beyaz Hüzün [Sarikamish: White Misery]. İstanbul: Timaş Yayınları.
5) Öğün, Tuncay. (2004). Vilayat-ı Şarkiyye Mülteciler (1915-1923): Unutulmuş bir Göç Trajedisi. Ankara: Babil. p. 56
6) Güçlü, Abbas. (11 April 2015). Ermeni tehcirinde yaşananlardan çok daha fazlasını muhacirler de yaşamış! Accessed on 25.10.2016 at http://www.milliyet.com.tr/ermeni-tehcirinde-yasananlardan/gundem/ydetay/2224357/default.htm
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Turkmen children (Mosul & Kirkuk are Turkmen cities) Turkmens are now being pressed by ISIL on one side and YPG on the other, and PKK is allowed to go into Mosul. No to ethnic cleansing of Turkmens! |
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