And let it be born in mind that not the least difficulty which the Sublime Porte had to overcome in achieving its task was the opposition of the Christians themselves who were adverse to a change in their condition which would deprive them of a pretext for claiming the protection and intervention of Foreign Powers. This is how Mr. Engelhardt refers to the subject in his abovementioned book (page 127): “This experiment (the assimilation of the non-moslems with the moslems in the matter of military service) carried with it an unexpected teaching. It proved that the Reform in the measure as it passed from theory to practice would be combated by those very people who were destined to enjoy its first benefits, a difficulty which complicated in a singular fashion the particular problem of which the solution was a matter of such importance to the foreign Powers.”
At the same time the non-moslems were allowed to retain their organization into separate religious communities enjoying very extensive privileges of self-administration - an organization dating from the morrow of the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and of which Mr. Philip Marshall Brown, Assistant Professor of international Law in Princeton University says in his book “Foreigners in Turkey and their juridical status” (1914): “Whatever may have been the reasons and motives guiding the Ottoman Turks in their policy towards their non-moslem subjects it is sufficient simply to note ....... that, without the aid of powerful armies or battleships the Christians other subjects of the Sultan received extensive immunities of jurisdiction resembling in certain respects those subsequently granted to foreigners.” Dealing with the same question Mr. Brown’s book contains this other significant passage: “It was (this policy), in fact, in entire harmony with the Moslem system of jurisprudence and eloquently refutes the universal reputation for intolerance so unjustly attributed to the Turks.”
Under this organization the non-moslems enjoyed facilities for development on national lines which furnish an instance of unsurpassed liberalism in the treatment of conquered peoples. Is it Russia, is it France, is it even England with her constant assumption of superiority over other nations - is it any of these three Powers who vie with one another in unjustly denouncing Turkey for political intolerance, which has the same record of generosity to show? The answer to this question is writ large in the stringently restrictive legislation applied by these imperialist nations to Ireland and India, to Algeria and Indo-China, to Poland, Khiva and Boukhara. And going back to the subject of equality of civil rights and religious toleration in regard to which they have succeeded so well in blackening the name of Turkey by abusing the disposition of the Christian public to believe without examination or comparison anything of a Musulman Power: who stands higher in the scale of nations, the “unspeakable” Turk, who can quote the names of hundreds of Creeks and Armenians employed by him as Ministers of state, Ambassadors and Envoys entrusted with special missions and within whose dominions religious freedom has been absolute for five centuries or they in whose midst the conferment of such appointments on Musulmans is unthinkable and one of whom, Russia, is the cruel oppressor of all that is not orthodox and another, England, pursues a distinctly anti-Catholic policy in Ireland? Enough of these mean calumnies dictated by political unscrupulousness! Enough of this hypocrisy! Enough of this immoral readiness on the part of Christianity to condemn on partial or false evidence provided by interested parties a whole nation of Musulmans simply because they are Musulmans.
Whatever may have been the hardships suffered by the non-moslems in Turkey resulted from certain vices inherent in despotic forms of Government all over the world, which were shared in an equal degree by the Moslems. Indeed the Christians had as much or more to complain in this respect of the administration of their spiritual leaders. To quote Mr. Engelhardt again: “From this period onwards (18th century) – the fall [?] is patent - the provinces joined to the Patriarchate of Constantinople (which at that time had the Christians of all denominations under its jurisdiction) had not less to suffer from the oppression of their ecclesiastical authorities than from the exactions of the Pashas and as they were more directly in contact with the former it was the yoke of their own masters which weighed on them more heavily.”
The Armenians in particular, so far from having any reason for special complaint against the Imperial Government, enjoyed social favors which, by making them the confidants and helpers of the ruling element in its private as well as administrative affairs, allowed them to attain a material prosperity unknown to the other elements.
Such was the condition of this people when war having broken out between Turkey and Russia the fortune of arms brought the army of the Grand Duke Nicholas to San Stefano. Forgetful of what they owed to the Imperial Government and the Turkish people and unwilling to make any allowances for the great difficulties which hampered the former in its efforts to remedy certain defects of its provincial administration the Armenians, contrary to all laws of political decency, took advantage of the presence of the arch enemy at the gates of Constantinople to enter into overt communication with the Grand Duke from whom they asked and only too readily obtained the insertion in the Treaty of San Stefano of special clause in their favor.
They also approached the British Government as complainants of the Turkish rule in quest of protectors abroad. The result was the insertion in the Treaty of Cyprus of clauses in their favor similar to those of the Treaty of San Stefano. Not content with these unpatriotic demonstrations they brought their grievances before the Congress of Berlin which also yielded to their clamour, the suit being really one of Christian versus Musulman, and reproduced in the treaty signed in the German Capital the provisions concerning this people of agitations which the political calculations of Russia and England had lodged in the pacts they had separately concluded with defeated Turkey. Thus the Armenians took up openly the attitude of traitors to the Ottoman cause. From this time onwards succumbing only too readily to the selfish instigations of the Powers forming to day the Triple Entente they engaged unremittingly in a revolutionary movement through such secret Commitees as the Trochakists, Hintchakists and Dashnaksoutzioun their ultimate object being the foundation of an independent Armenia at the expense of an Empire where, let it be noted, they live in an essentially sporadic form. The means they practiced systematically for the attainment of this preposterous end were murder, incendiarism and pillage at the expense of their Musulman compatriots their idea being to provoke reprisals on the part of the latter and thus bring about a European intervention which was to lead in turn to the realization of their political ambitions. The response to these provocations came from Abdul Hamid in the shape of the Armenian tragedy of 1895. The Armenians had succeeded only too well and perhaps beyond their own expectations in the first part of the object so strenuously pursued by them. That the sanguinarily disposed tyrant of Turkey alone had conceived and carried out through his private agents the terrible repression of which the Armenians became the victims they had so strenuously striven to be and the Turkish people were not a party to it either in spirit or in action is manifest from the fact that the revolution of 1908 saw the Armenians fraternizing with the Turks throughout the Empire in a common outburst of joy at the fall of the cruel omnipotence of Yildiz.
That, on the other hand, the true object cherished by the Armenians was not the introduction of reforms in the Empire, but their separation from it is also manifest from the fact that they resumed heir revolutionary activity almost on the morrow of the reestablishment of the Constitution notwithstanding the very real guarantees it offered for the equal development under a liberal form of Government of all the races forming the Ottoman Nation. This activity took an overt form in their successful endeavours to resist the perfectly legitimate desire of the Imperial Government to create in the Empire an Ottoman spirit common to all the races living in it. To quote again Mr. Marshal Brown: “The question of compulsory military service and other questions concerning the right to vote and the alleged right of national representation in the Turkish Parliament raised after the Revolution of the Young Turks in 1908 have all served to reveal the extraordinary pretensions of the Greek and Armenian Patriarchates, as well as the heads of the other communities to represent their “nations” in a political capacity before the Sublime Porte. One of the chief embarrassments of the new constitutional regime in Turkey was the unwillingness of the various communities, particularly that of the Greeks, to subordinate their sentiments to the broader and superior claims of Ottoman Nationality”. In a footnote Mr. Brown adds: “The Young Turks perhaps committed an irretrievable blunder in treating with the respective religious communities as distinct nations and in determining representation in Parliament on the basis of nationalities rather than on a strictly Ottoman basis. Correspondence and diplomatic negotiations with the Greek Patriarch on the subjects of recruitment, electoral rights etc., were carried on by the Grand Vizir as if with the Ambassador of an independent nation. These concessions and such others as the permission granted to the revolutionary Armenian societies formed under the tyrannic rule of Abdul Hamid to survive in the shape of political parties and even to extend their organization remaining all the wile in relationship with their centres abroad, did not and could not, in the nature of things disarm the Armenians since, as explained above, they were fundamentally hostile to Turkey and their one object was to achieve independence.
Attributing to weakness what was purely a broad – too broad - sprit of liberalism on the part of the Imperial Government the Armenians continued to entertain secret relations with Russia, France and England allied in a common policy of hostility to Turkey. The first occasion after the revolution of 1908 on which they revealed themselves as blindly hostile to Turkey as of yore was the reactionary movement which broke out on April 13th 1909 when, taking advantage of the absence of all Government in Turkey they started an insurrection at Adana.
For this they also paid very dearly, the local Musulmans, which like the rest of the Musulman population had at last lost patience with the Armenians having drowned it in blood. Those westerners who have marked out Turkey for special reprobation on account of the excesses committed in this connexion should ask themselves how the mob would have acted in one of their own towns in similar circumstances: the fatherland in an upheaval threatening its very existence and just at that moment a local element hostile to the State rising in that town and giving it a stab in the back. In any case they should not forget the horrors of the Inquisition perpetrated in cold blood nor the unparalleled tragedies of the French revolution, nor the Commune nor what is nearer to our own times the outrages of the international expedition against China nor the pogroms practiced systematically in Russia against a section of the population whose sole guilt is to belong to a particular denomination. The spirit of self-preservation, exasperated as it has been in Turkey, by a long and systematic series of attempts against her existence will not fail, whichever the race concerned, to break out excesses. When so many nations have acted like demons in such contingencies and sometimes under no provocation whatever it is supremely unjust to expect of the Turks to act like angels.
The Balkan war served to emphasize the unyielding hostility of the Armenians, when Rodosto fell into the hands of the Bulgarians. The Armenians settled in that locality indulged personally into the worst excesses against their Musulman compatriots and by their intrigues and false accusation brought upon them the extreme rigors of the invador.
But anxious above all to introduce peace and stability in the Empire the Sublime Porte prevented the knowledge of these Armenian excesses from spreading among the Musulmans and on the contrary gave great publicity to the comparatively good behavior during the war of a certain number of Armenian officers and soldiers whom it went so far as to represent as heros of the Ottoman cause. It thus hoped to pave the way for a reconciliation between the Turkish and Armenian elements which was to facilitate the application of a programme of serious reforms already drawn up for the benefit of the eastern provinces of Anatolia (abusively called Armenian no one Vilayet containing a majority of Armenians). A further step it took in this direction and one which proved the sincerity of its intentions was to apply to England for the loan of inspectors general, Gendarmerie officers and police commissioners who were to be entrusted with the task of carrying out these reforms.
No honestly mined foreigner in contact at that time with the official and private circles of the Turkish capital will deny that they were pervaded with the deep desire to forget the past as regards the Armenians and lay the foundation of a stable union in the Empire by meeting their legitimate aspirations in the most generous spirit. Unfortunately the Armenians showed themselves as unreconciliable as ever. Through their Catolicos (supreme head of the Armenian church residing at Etchimyazine in Russia, they applied to the Government of the Tzar and through Nubar Pasha, a wealthy Armenian settled in Paris, they engaged in a vehement journalistic propaganda in view of bringing about an intervention of the Powers in their favor. At the instigation of Russia whose hand maid England had become in all international questions of general import, and under the influence of the attitude adopted by the suborned press of England and France the British Government backed out of its promise to provide Turkey with the officials the latter had asked for. Instead she adhered to the Russian proposal to present the Sublime Porte with a very onerous set of conditions for the administration of the so called Armenian Vilayets, and always in concert with the Government of the Tzar induced the other Powers to join in this measure. Weekend by the Balkan war Turkey had no means of escaping this intervention and after seven months of negotiations saw herself obliged to submit to the project of the Powers in all its essentials. The inspectors general were to be chosen from a list drawn up by them. What was to be a voluntary action on her part conceived by herself in a spirit of perfect good will was transformed into an international obligation reducing still furthers her independence. For this as well as for the forcible creation by Russia of a second Macedonia in Eastern Anatolia offering the Government of the Tzar new opportunities for undermining the integrity of Turkey the latter had to thank her Armenian subjects. Secret circulars issued by the Armenian central Committees to their branches and of which copies are in the hands of the Imperial authorities as well as private letters from Armenians connected with these societies are there to prove how closely the Armenians were in league with England, France and Russia in conceiving and carrying out this plan. One of these circulars dated 5th March 1913 explained that the three aforementioned Powers were unanimous in their resolve to take up the Armenian question upon the definite conclusion of peace (in the Balkans) in view of establishing an autonomous administration in Eastern Anatolia and that their respective Ambassadors in Constantinople had been instructed to urge the Armenians to display a little more patience. This paper goes on to say “The British–Armenian Committee in London which numbers in its ranks one of the most influential members of the Balkan Committee is in full are full activity. It has addressed a very impressive memorandum to the six great Powers of Europe of which a copy has also been sent to President Taft. We have authentic information to the effect that the English, French and Russian Representatives are to bring to the front of international discussion the Armenian question. Very endeavor is being made to obtain from the other Governments their participation in the discussion and, failing this, their abstention from opposition”.
Thus, disregarding the advances of the Imperial Government the Armenians only saw in the terrible shock caused to Turkey by her defeat in the Balkan war another opportunity for hastening the downfall of an illustrious Empire which the valor and blood of twenty-five generations of Musulmans had served to bring together and to cement and to raise on the ruins of the colossus a pigmy Armenian State – an idea of which the guiltiness is increased by its utopian character.
What could the effect of this implacable and unreasoning hostility be but to add fuel to the hatred and desire for revenge accumulating for some time past in the breasts of the Musulmans against their traitorous and ungrateful compatriots? A new tragedy was in course of preparation for the latter again as a result of their own machinations. The present war was to bring it about.
No sooner had it broken out than the wishes of success of the Armenians went openly to the Triple Entente of which all the partners were the sworn enemies of Turkey. Non content with this they made active preparation in view of the possible participation of the latter in the fray. Entertaining no doubt as to the triumph of the Russian Armies in their struggle with the Turkish forces the Armenian committees laid plans the execution of which was to multiply the effects of the Russian victories.
Thus they were to raise disturbances all over the country and carry the torch of the incendiary into every town and village and with bands formed with Armenian deserters cut off the retreat of the Imperial troops and spread terror throughout the land.
That his treasonable project did exist and was formed by them in collaboration with the Triple Entente is proved beyond all question by a mass of documents and facts of which it will be sufficient to quote the following: (a) Among the papers seized at the Russian Consulate in Bitlis figures a report of the incumbent of that post to Mr. Tzarikoff, the then Representative of the Tzar in the Ottoman Capital, a passage of which reads as follows: “The activity of the Dashnaksoutooyoon is having a great effect in preparing Armenian public opinion in favor of Russia. This society is working persistently to bring about collisions between Armenians and Musulmans to the end of creating a situation calling for Russian Intervention and an occupation of the country by Russian troops. The other means employed by the Dashnaksoutooyoon to attain this object is to spread agitation and terror. The town as well as the village Armenians acting in community with their spiritual leaders never fail to show their inclinations towards Russia. The attitude of the members of the Dashnaktoutooyoon and their relations to Russia depend on instructions of their central Committee in Constantinople.” This official paper bearing No. 63 and dated 24 December 1912 though not in immediate connexion with the treasonable practices of the Armenians relating to the present war is quoted here in a preliminary way as giving an authentic instance of the system of provocation deliberately adopted by them towards their Musulman compatriots in collusion with Russia while trying and succeeding only too well in representing themselves abroad as victims of the latter and ot the Imperial authorities. (b) About a month before of outbreak of hostilities between Turkey and Russia the Tzar issued a proclamation to the Armenian people in which addressing separately the Ottoman Armenians he said: ”Armenians! For you who for five centuries of an existence of slaves caught in the meshes of despotism have been subjected to the vilest outrages the hour of deliverance has struck at last. Armenians! Join your congeners under my sceptre so that you also may enjoy the blessings of justice and liberty.” This from the stubborn maintainer one of the cruellest despotism extant whose pogroms against the innocent Jews and Siberian atrocities are in the mind of every man and whose policy towards the Armenians themselves was one of savage persecution at home and collusion with Abdul Hamid abroad until it suited its purposes to use them as agents of it designs against the Ottoman Empire. The response to this call was not slow to come. An Ottoman Armenian of the name of Aram Turabian writing to the Tribune de Genève of November 22, 1914 indulges in the following bombastic and confused declaration: ”The benevolent words of the Tzar of all the Russias and the King of Armenia (sic) have been spoken to the Armenians with all the satisfaction derived by His Majesty from the spectacle of 200000 Armenian bayonets, that is of a veritable army conscious of its duty. The Armenians do not forget that France has ever favored their cause. I am sure that France will not see in us the pitiable victims of yesterday’s massacres but a veritable people ready to fight and die in the name of civilisation. Having succumbed to the yoke of the barbarians after five centuries of continuous struggle Armenia today responds to the appeal of the Tzar in a glow of bravery and as a champion of liberty clothed in the pride which is characteristic of the race.”
(c) A public statement made by Mr. Sazanoff and reproduced in the “Independence Roumaine” of 12th March 1915 gives expression to the sentiment that the Russo-Turkish convention (?) Constitutes a historical document implicitly recognizing on the part of Turkey the special position of Russia in all questions relating to Armenia and adds that the intention of the Government of the Tzar is to avail itself of this position at the end of the war. In a speech delivered at the reopening of the Duma the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs declared that the Armenians were fighting on the side of Russia against Turkey.
(d) In a debate in the house of Lords the Earl of Cromer stated that "one of the objects with which the war was being waged was to deliver Armenia from the Turkish yoke” and the Earl of Crew representing the Government assented to this proposition.
(e) Arshak Tchobanian, an Armenian notable (Ottoman) residing in Paris answered in the following words the Armenian Reformed Hintchakist Society’s appeal for instructions: "You ask me what line of conduct you are to follow. I thank you for this. The greatest question of the day is the holy war now being waged. One and all we must see in it our one and only concern. Outside of this question every affair must be left to future consideration. The Armenians disseminated throughout the world must work with all their strength for the Triple Entente. Germany and her Allies are sentenced to dissolution. A period of renovation is at hand. You must take advantage of this situation. The Armenians settled in Paris are providing France with great numbers of volunteers and continue to join the ranks of her army. You must exert yourselves to come to the help of France and England in the same way. You will witness the fruits of this sacrifice.”
(f) The Armenian paper “Bahak” appearing in providence U.S.A. contains, in it’s issue dated 24th December 1914, an article with the following announcement: “In various localities of the Vilayet of Van insurrections have broken out. Wherever the Russian troops approach the Armenians take to arms and come to their help in every possible way.”
It is superfluous to continue this enumeration. Sufficient has been explained and quoted in the proceeding pages to convince the most prejudiced mind that the Armenians, exaggerating beyond reason their original grievances resulting from certain defects of the Imperial administration of which the Musulmans suffered in the same degree and for the reformation of which the Sublime Porte was making strenuous efforts, entered into treasonable relations with the Powers most hostile to Turkey and pursuing their separated policy in an ever increasing spirit of violence and aggression ,of which murder, incendiarism and rapine were the outward manifestations became a danger of the first magnitude to the Ottoman State.
At this point Turkey having entered the great war it was more imperative than ever that she should enjoy tranquility within her dominions and yet the Sublime Porte could not but foresee that the Armenians would seek to take advantage of the new terrible burden placed on the shoulders of the State to increase their subversive activity. However the Minister of War Enver Pasha addressed to them a most solemn warning through their Patriarch whom he informed that any attempt on the part of his community to raise the standard of rebellion would be put down with the utmost vigor. This warning was repeated by the President of the Chamber of Deputies Halil Bey to the Armenian Representatives in touch with secret Societies. Thus the Imperial Government saved its responsibility as regards the fearful consequences which an Armenian revolution breaking out at such a critical moment for the Ottoman Empire was bound to produce. Heedless of these expostulations the latter launched upon the course of action they had marked out for themselves at the outbreak of the general war. Arming themselves with weapons, bombs and dynamite they had secretly stored in their churches, cemeteries all over the country - it is interesting to note the selection of their hiding places - they rose in a number of localities principally in the districts bordering on Russia or exposed to Russian attack. Thus taking possession towards the end of 1914, of the road between Van and Bitlis they cut the telegraph wires connecting these two military centres. By March and June of the present year the insurrection had spread to the districts of Timar, Guvach and Tchatak and finally to the town of Van itself which they captured and where they massacred a considerable number of the Musulman population but from which they were expelled sometime afterwards. Having joined the Russian forces and fought side by side with them in the battle of Sari Camish, they succeeded in capturing Van a second time with the military help of their allies.
The “TIMES” of October 8th gave an account of these Armenian exploits. When the Russian fleet first bombarded Zongooldak on the Black Sea the Armenians of the neighbouring districts, Broussa and Ada Bazary, who were only waiting for the opportunity, turned spies in the service of the enemy and rushing at the same time to arms started devastating the country and attacking the Musulmans. At Moosh, Haizan and Zeitoon similar outbreaks took place accompanied by the usual attack on Musulman life and property, these instances showing to what extent disloyalty in the blackest and most active form had gangrened the Armenian people could be multiplied ad infinitum. Up to this moment the Imperial Government had refrained from repressive measures. But the time had come when its duty to the State, threatened in its life centres by these internal enemies acting in conjunction with the external, could no longer admit of inaction on its part. It decided to strike and to strike hard. The Armenian Societies were dissolved and their clubs closed. Besides this the Armenian population of the frontier provinces and those were a Russian disembarkation was possible was forcibly removed to regions where they could not join hands with the enemy. No doubt a certain amount of brutality was displayed by the soldiery or gendarmerie in the course of these operations. No doubt deplorable excesses were committed by the Musulman population during the passage of uprooted Armenians from one locality to another. But, on the other hand, many instances may be quoted of gendarmes and Musulman civilians sacrifying their lives in defence of the immigrants. Again the Imperial Government which was materially prevented by the imperative calls of the war upon its resources to attend to the safety of the transported Armenians in the full measure and with the rapidity required hastened to do what was possible by enacting a law for the protection of their property and dispatching two carefully composed commissions to the spot, one for the applications of this law, the other for judging the accused Musulmans and handing over the Guilty to the military courts for prompt punishment. In any case, when dealing with these tragedy westerners should think of the circumstances in which it occurred. They should remember the very natural exasperation caused to the dominant element in Turkey by the long series of assaults committed by the Armenians on the peace and integrity of the State and culminating in a savage insurrection at a time when the Empire was engaged in a life and death struggle with its enemies abroad. Imagine the Poles playing the part of the Armenians in Russia, or to transfer the scene to a country claiming the first place in civilisation, the Hindus in the British Empire? Does anybody seriously mean to say, with the history of the past treatment of such situation by these two countries staring them in the face, that Poles and Hindus would have paid less heavily for the selection of this supremely critical moment to carry out subversive plans? But what right do Westerners accuse Turkey of savagery when their inner conscience must whisper to them that their own nations, given the same provocations, would act even more violently? That the Turks are as high souled as any people and will not allow the primitive brutality which slumbers in the heart of Westerners and Easterners alike to get the better of their poise except as the result of unendurable provocation and in self defence is eloquently proved by the clean and gentlemanly manner in which they are fighting their enemies. Indeed their chivalrousness in the Dardanelles for instance has been such that it has compelled the loud admiration and appreciation of their British opponents.
To conclude: the translocation of the Armenians from their native regions to other parts of the country was a military and political measure imperatively dictated to the Imperial Government by the armed collaboration of this element, long engaged in subversive enterprises against the Ottoman State with the Entente Powers and particularly with Russia, with all of whom Turkey is at war. All responsibility for the tragedies of which the innocent may have been the victim in the course of this and other measures adopted by Turkey in pure self-defence falls directly on the Armenian revolutionary committees and their Allies England, Russia and France. These three countries are absolutely debarred from attacking Turkey in this connexion. What decency commands to them to do is it to avoid mentioning the subject and to say in the silence of their consciences: Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
As a last point it should be stated here in the most categorical manner that those who attribute to foreign instigation the measures adopted by Turkey in the course of the present war in view of protecting herself against her Armenian subjects are guilty of an absolute lie. The Imperial Government is particularly concerned to secure the respect of its independence. It will brook interference in its internal affairs from no quarter whether friendly or unfriendly.