Eger, 25 April 1921
I have received the book by Aram Andonian on the Armenian massacres that was kindly sent to me and while reading it I vividly felt myself to be back in Aleppo. In the following review I will first state some reservations and then go into the value of Naim Bey’s report and the documents.
In my opinion, the author is not capable of being objective; instead, he lets himself be carried away by passion and, in addition, he writes with a certain tendency that, as we are unfortunately familiar with, goes against Germany. In the most diverse places in the book he writes about Germany in the most hateful manner; on the other hand, he generally suppresses news on German protests in favour of the Armenians. If he has no choice but to recognise Germany’s intervention, he attempts to weaken the effect by making additional remarks. If the telegram from Enver Pasha on p. 158 is genuine, the German influence he speaks of was of the greatest importance and a sweeping success. The author puts it down to Liebknecht and Ledebur! If he recognises the intervention of the Anatolian and Baghdad Railways, he mentions only the Swiss. Only on page 51 does he speak generally about “the engineers”, but immediately limits the impression by a remark in which he gives praise to a Swiss. Not a word about the work of Sister Beatrice, Sister Paula Schäfer, about Urfa and Marash! He attempts to put the fact that large numbers of Armenians were driven to Der-el-Zor down to German inducement (page 56) and claims that the drafting of the Yildirim Army was the cause of this. He forgets that the deportation to Der-el-Zor took place in the years 1915 and 1916, but that the Yildirim Army was only drafted in the summer of 1917. The author may be confusing this with military wishes that might have been mentioned by the Germans in the years 1915 and 1916 and that were aimed at preventing a contamination of the railway by the deportees who were ill, an attempt that, as is known, was only partially successful. Such wishes, however, were uttered with the greatest consideration for the Armenians and actually used directly in an attempt to assist the Armenians and keep them at a distance of 10 to 20 kilometres from the railway, such as in Bab, to enable them to receive food from the railway.
Errors occasionally occur in the dates of the published documents that would make the entire document impossible, but these are obviously mistakes. The document on page 132 of the book only makes sense if it is dated from 15 January 1916 and not from 15 January 1915. The same applies for the document on page 133, no. 853, which must be dated 23 January 1916 and not 23 January 1915. Similarly, the error on page 148, document no. 762 is obvious. On that page, a telegram is given as being dated 17 December 1915 in answer to a telegram dated 2 December 1916. On page 72, it says 20 January 1917 in the text, while in the telegram it says 20 January 1916.
The author does not always clearly grasp the connections. Especially in Chapter III (The Massacres in Der-el-Zor), the depiction constantly jumps back and forth and in many places it seems to be dictated merely by the attempt to weave all of the available documents into the depiction (e.g., the telegram on page 70 does not fit into the connection).
Apart from these issues I must say that the contents of the book in its individual features make a credible impression and that, compared with the course of things, the documents certainly have an inner plausibility. Many of the individual features of which I am aware are described very accurately, others of which I had previously been unaware explain phenomena that I have observed and which I could never explain to myself. This applies, for example, to the fact that for a while a number of Armenians returned to Aleppo from Meskené. The author’s explanation is now given credibly on page 13 of the book, namely, that neither Naim Bey nor the Mudir from Meskené, Hussein Bey, carried out the cruel orders they were given. I believe I myself remember Hussein Bey, but at any rate there was a moment in which, by means of a letter of recommendation to Meskené, I was able to achieve that six Armenian women who had been deported from an American college were given permission to return to Aleppo.
In his preface, the author mentions the Office of Deportation (Sousdirection générale des déportés sise à Alep) as being the main organisation for deportation. He is no doubt correct. When the Commissioner of Deportation arrived from Constantinople and I believed at first that this was an attempt to organise food for the deportees or even just to care for them a little bit, and I approached the Commissioner of Deportation with a request to release some Armenians who were employed by Germans, he refused this in the most brusque manner and said to me in an incredibly arrogant tone of voice which I will never forget, “You do not understand what we want. We want an Armenia without Armenians.” With this, he described his task, which is now clear from Andonian’s book. I have, however, forgotten the Commissioner’s name, but it must have been Abdul Ahad Nuri Bey, unless it was his superior, Shukri Bey [Vahakn N. Dadrian considers (in ”The Naim-Andonian Documents on the World War I Destruction of Ottoman Armenians: The Anatomy of a Genocide”, see footnote 55 there) Shukri to be the author, because Abdulahad Nuri did not speak French well enough while Shukri mastered this language. Therefore, both Abdulahad Nuri as well as Shukri are listed in the index as the authors of this remark.], who was previously in Aleppo for a while. Nor do I remember Naim Bey’s name, but that is of no surprise, because I had to keep a low profile towards the deportation officers and could only intervene through intermediaries. On the other hand, I remember Eyub Bey very well, who was responsible for deportations before the commissioner arrived from Constantinople, and he was later assigned to him. I consider the description of him in the book to be very accurate.
It is, of course, very difficult to determine if the telegrams from Constantinople containing the orders of the Ministry of the Interior are genuine, because they only show the handwriting of the telegraph official or the writer who deciphered the message. On the other hand, I believe I remember the signature of the Vali, Mustafa Abdul Chalik Bey. At any rate, this signature can be checked in Aleppo, and in this way there would be indirect proof that the telegrams from the Ministry of the Interior are genuine. The author divides the documents (page 16) into those kept by Naim Bey and those that he wrote down from memory (transcrite au fur et à mesure de ses souvenirs). It is certainly possible that Naim Bey kept official documents in his private possession instead of placing them in the files. As far as I know, the Turks never organized their files. Although some offices had quite a well-ordered records office, it is very doubtful whether such a temporary office, as was that of the Office of Deportation, would have placed any value on keeping records, especially considering the nature of its work. Therefore, those documents described as being originals may very well have been genuine. Concerning those written down from memory, one would have to have knowledge of Naim Bey’s personality in order to judge the degree of reliability here. I have not come across one among those documents written from memory, the contents of which seem to be improbable. On the contrary, the facts of which I am aware are well explained by the documents. Their composure speaks more for their being genuine, rather than the opposite.
I cannot say whether or not the extremely important letter sent by the Young Turk Committee to its representative in Adana, Djemal Bey, and dated 18 February 1915 (page 96 of the book) before any deportations took place is genuine or fake, nor concerning the other letters from the Young Turk Committee, nor do I know of any means for proving whether they are genuine.
I respectfully leave it to your discretion to ask Sister Beatrice Rohner for her comments as well. She often negotiated directly with the deportation commissioners. She knows Eyub Bey personally. I cannot say whether or not she also knows Naim Bey or Abdul Ahad Nuri Bey. At any rate, her comments will be valuable. Consul Hoffmann, presently in the passport office of the German Foreign Office, Behrenstrasse 21, might possibly be able to give a justified judgement.
A few more details on the author’s attacks on Germany. The photograph behind page 56, “God punish England”, shows the crew of the cruiser “Emden” at a garden party given in its honour by the Germans in Aleppo, covered with Arabian headscarves such as they were forced to wear as protection against the heat in Arabia after losing their own sailor’s clothes. The Vali of Aleppo had also presented both the officers and the crew with new headscarves and some of them with coats as well, which they are wearing here. In the end, it is understandable that members of the German Navy, that suffered so much at the hands of the British, chose a slate with the words, “God punish England” under which to have their picture taken. The author puts the photograph in a context that is completely wrong. Mücke already passed through Aleppo in May 1915. This had nothing to do with propaganda among the Arabs to drive them to fight against the British. The crew of the “Emden” did not even speak well of the Arabs. You can read up in Mücke’s “Ayescha” how they had had to fence against the Arabs and lost three men. I am not well informed about the propaganda of which the author accuses Mrs. Koch. An Arabian brochure demanding a holy war, a page of which has been photographed on page 60 of Andonian’s book, never passed through my hands. But it could be that this was an individual case of German clumsiness; and it could also be that a brochure meant only for North Africa lost its way to Aleppo.
I would like to thank you very much for your information on the status of publication of the files. This lays the foundation. But in order to achieve the success we so bitterly require, to convince the world of the untruth of the foundations of the Peace of Versailles, work would have to be done with untiring attention to detail to assist the truth in winning the world’s opinion.
With deep respect, as always,