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The Documentation of the World War I Armenian Massacres in the Proceedings of the Turkish Military Tribunal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Vahakn N. Dadrian
Vahakn N. Dadrian
Affiliation:
Conesus, New York
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The deportation of the majority of the Armenian population from the Ottoman Empire during World War I and the massacres that accompanied it are of commanding interest. The paucity of scholarly contributions in this area, however, has impeded the development of interest in the subject, thereby contributing to the nebulous state surrounding the conditions that led to the disappearance of an entire nation from its ancestral territories. Some maintain that this nebulousness is compounded by the intrusion of political calculation.1 At issue is whether or not the disaster was intentionally organized by the Ottoman authorities, and whether or not the scope of Armenian losses bore any relationship to that intention.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , November 1991 , pp. 549 - 576
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

References

NOTES

1 In an essay dealing with this issue, the late Terrence des Pres deplored the subservience of a growing number of academics to the lures and rewards of “power,” at the expense of “the integrity of knowledge.” He wondered whether the deliberate misuse of the maxim that “there are two sides to every issue” has not reduced it to “a gimmick” to undermine and distort, rather than to “foster truth.” He went on to state: “We are told no genocide took place but only a vague unfortunate mishap determined by imponderables like time and change, the hazards of war, uncertain demographics. There is a commonsense sound to the Turkish proposal… [However,] Turkey's denial of the Armenian disaster is backed by something larger than mere doubtḌ” Terrence, des Pres, “On Governing Narratives: The Turkish-Armenian Case,” The Yale Review, 75 (10 1986), 518–19.Google Scholar In a subsequent essay, he scorned the “increasing attempts to suborn the academy… The issue, then, is whether or not we wish to be menials, for at the very least scholars who spend their resources defending the honor of nation-states serve something other than truth.” Idem, “Introduction. Remembering Armenia,” in Richard, G. Hovannisian, ed., The Armenian Genocide in Perspective (New Brunswick, N.J., 1987), p. 15.Google Scholar

2 Talat Paşanin Hatiralari, ed. Bolayir, E. (Istanbul, 1946), pp. 16, 38, 65, 74–76;Google ScholarEsat, Uras, Tarihte Ermeniler ve Ermeni Meselesi (Ankara, 1950), p. 683 (in 2nd ed. [Istanbul, 1976] p. 673);Google Scholaribid., The Armenians in History and the Armenian Question, English trans. (no translator indicated) of revised and expanded original edition (Istanbul, 1988), p. 932;Google ScholarKamuran, Gürün, Ermeni Dosyasi (Ankara,1983), p. 223;Google Scholaribid., The Armenian File. The Myth of Innocence Exposed, English translation of preceding (no translator indicated) (New York, 1985), pp. 214–15;Google ScholarDrMim, Kemal Öke, Ermeni Meselesi 1914–1923 (Istanbul, 1986), pp. 148–49;Google ScholarStanford, J. Shaw and Ezel, Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1976–1977),Google Scholar vol. 2, Reform, Revolution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey 1808–1975, pp. 316, 325;Google ScholarJustin, McCarthy, Muslims and Minorities: The Population of Ottoman Anatolia and the End of the Empire (New York, 1983), pp. 117–19, 121, 133, 136–39.Google Scholar

3 The United States during the war had consuls functioning in such cities of the interior of Turkey as Harput, Trabzon, Aleppo, Mersin (Adana), and at different times consular agents in Urfa, Samsun, and Erzurum. Subsumed under the overall category of Race Problems, denoting the persecution of the Armenians in the 1915–21 period, the reports Sent by these consuls add up to sixty. In addition, the State Department received seventy-eight similar reports from its ambassadors at Constantinople (Istanbul) the Ottoman capital, including Henry Morgenthau, Abram Elkus, and Chargé Hoffman Philip. Beyond these, the State Department sent forty-nine communications, instructions, and orders on the same topic to U.S. diplomats, inside and outside Turkey. Finally, the department has seven pieces of correspondence with foreign embassies, and 132 with private individuals in the United States—all dealing with the wartime anti-Armenian measures of Ottoman authorities. Some experts, sympathetic to the Turkish point of view, ascribe bias to Ambassador Morgenthau who throughout his wartime dispatches, and subsequently in his book, maintained that there was a centrally authorized and executed plan of destruction, disguised as deportation. See his following dispatches. United States National Archives, RG 59, 867.4016/74 (July 10, 1914); ibid., /90 (August 11, 1915); ibid., /117 (Sept. 3, 1915); ibid., /162 (October 9, 1915); ibid., /797.5 (Nov. 4, 1915); ibid., /799.5 (Dec. 1, 1915). See also Henry, Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story Garden City, N.Y., 1918).Google Scholar Notwithstanding, his two wartime successors likewise testified to “the horrors of the anti-Armenian campaign” for which the embassy was “in receipt of ample details.” In a dispatch of October 1, 1916, Chargé Hoffman Philip, responding to an inquiry by Secretary of State Robert Lansing as to what policy the U.S. government should follow, declared “the most efficacious method … from an international standpoint would be to flatly threaten to withdraw our diplomatic representative from a country where such barbarous methods are not only tolerated but actually carried out by order of the existing government” (RG 59, 867.4016/297). The next ambassador, Abram Elkus, in an October 17, 1916, telegram reported as follows to Washington: “…deportations accompanied by studied cruelties continue … forced conversions to Islam [are] perseveringly pushed, children and girls from deported families kidnapped. In order to avoid opprobrium of the civilized world, which the continuation of massacres would arouse, Turkish officials have now adopted and are executing the unchecked policy of extermination through starvation, exhaustion, and brutality of treatment hardly surpassed even in Turkish history” (RG 59, 867.4016/299). A recent publication provides evidence of the scrupulousness with which the American. It contains the detailed report of an American diplomat, U.S. Consul Leslie Davis, who narrates the lethal mechanisms of the American deportations as personally observed and verified by him in the 1915–17 period in Harput province, his consular district. Located in eastern Anatolia, Harput encompassed a population of some 1,00,100 Armenians, clustreed around “150 Armenian agricultural villages,” and an additional 12,000–15,000 quasi-urban Armenians living in the Harput-Mezre twin cities. Consul Davis recounts that he seen alive, “…gaping bayonet wounds on most of the bodies, usually in the abdomen or chest, sometimes in the throat. Few persons had been shot, as bullets were too precious. It was cheaper to kill with bayonets and knives. Another remarkable thing was that nearly all the women lay flat on their backs and showed signs of barbarous mutilation by the bayonets of the gendarmes …my Turk companion points to a valley alongside of the path and said a great Armenians had been killed in that velley within two or three hundred feet of the spot where we were standing… We arrived home about nine o'clock in the evening and I felt that I understood better than ever what the ‘deportation’ of the Armenians really meant. I felt also that I had not been wrong in speaking of Mamouret-ul-Aziz [Harput province] in some of my reports as the ‘Slaughter-house Vilayet’ of Turkey.” Davis wrote this account of 132 typed pages at the request of his superior, Wilbur J. Carr, director of the Consular Bureau of the U.S. Department of State. Leslie, Davis, The Slaughterhouse Province. An American Diplomat's Report on the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1917, ed. Susan, K. Blair (New Rochelle, N.Y., 1989), p. 83.Google Scholar “Few localities could be better suited to the fiendish purposes of the Turks in their plan to exterminate the Armenian population than this peaceful lake in the interior of Asiatic Turkey, with its precipitous banks and pocket-like valleys…. That which took place around beautiful Lake Goeljuk (renamed Hazargölü) in the summer of 1915 is almost inconceivable. Thousands and thousands of Armenians, mostly innocent and helpless women and children, were butchered on its shores and barbarously mutilated” (p. 87).

4 The German consular network in the provinces encompassed the areas of Adana, Alexandretta (Iskenderun), Beirut, Damascus, Erzurum, Mosul, Samsun, Sivas, Smyrna (lzmir) and Trabzon. German Ambassador Wangenheim and his successors Metternich and Kühlmann in the 1915–17 period relayed to Berlin a series of reports. Here are some samples from Wangenheim: “Deportations are not determined exclusively by military considerations… All deportees on their route to Mosul from Diyarbekir were slaughtered”, German Foreign Ministry Archives, Türkei 183/37, A19744, June 17, 1915; “The deportee convoys from Erzurum and Diyarbekir were set upon by brigands [Special Organization details] and even by escorting [gendarmes], ibid., Botschaft Konstantinopel, K169, no. (1876), June 25, 1915; “Turks began deportations from areas now not threatened by invasion. This fact and the manner in which the relocation is being carried out demonstrate that the government is really pursuing the aim of destroying the Armenian race in Turkey”, ibid., 183/37, A21257, July 17, 1915; with reference to Interior Minister Talat's denial of massacres in Turkey, “This denial should lead to the conclusion that massacres did in fact take place”, ibid., 183/39, A303634, Oct. 15, 1915. From Metternich: “The soul of the persecution of the Armenians is Talat”, ibid., 183/40, A36184, Dec. 17, 1915; “I don't think much of a clique which boasts of such slogans as liberty, civil rights for all, and a constitution but allows the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent people”, ibid., 134/35, A36980, Dec. 23, 1915; “The slackening of deportations is not due to a Turkish decision to stop the extermination but to the fact that, except for scant remnants, the expulsion of the Armenians has ended”, ibid., 183/40, A 175, Dec. 27, 1915; “It looks as if Turkey now is proceeding to finish off the Armenian people before peace is restored”, ibid., 183/41, 18373, March 27, 1916; “The Turkish government inexorably carried out her plans namely, the resolution of the Armenian question through the destruction of the Armenian race”, ibid., 183/43, A17310 and A18548, July 10, 1916. From Kühlmann: “The policy of extermination has been largely achieved; the current leaders of Turkey fully subscribe to this policy”. ibid., 183/46, A2615, January 20 1917; “The destruction of the Armenians which was carried out on a large scale, the policy of extermination (Ausrottungs-politik) will for a long time continue to stain the name of Turkey”, ibid., 183/46, A5919, Feb. 16, 1917. From Austrian Ambassador Pallavicini: “The total extermination of the Armenians is at stake”. Austrian Foreign Ministry Archives, P.A. 12, Karton, 209, no. 50, 06 27, 1915;Google Scholar “The manner in which the Armenians are being deported is almost tantamount to a death verdict”, ibid., no. 51, july 1, 1915; “Day before yesterday I directed the Grand Vizier's attention to the fact that there will come a time when Turkey will be held responsible for this policy of extermination”, ibid., no. 66, Aug. 13, 1915; “It is generally believed that now the Armenian question has been resolved”, ibid., no. 71, Aug. 31, 1915; “The treatment of the Armenians will forever remain a stain on the reputation of the Turkish government”, ibid., Karton, 463, no. 21/PB. 03 10, 1916;Google Scholar “The anti-Armenian measures aim at the extermination of the Armenian population”, ibid., no. 6, Jan. 20, 1917. From Trautmansdorff, Interim Ambassador, Chargé: “It appears that the plan to exterminate the Armenian race has largely succeeded. Talat gleefully told me recently that there are no more Armenians in Erzurum, for example. Turkey today is in a maniacal state for having implemented with impunity the extermination of the Armenian race”, ibid., Karton, 209, no. 79, 09 30, 1915.Google Scholar

5 Relying mainly on Turkish-Ottoman sources and data, sixty-nine American and Turkish scholars, representing such wide-ranging and disparate fields as medieval and modern Ottoman history, language, and anthropology, placed a large ad in the New York Times and Washington Post on 05 19, 1985.Google Scholar They offered in it for consideration the standard Turkish argument. Accordingly, “The Armenian suffering” was largely due to “inter-communal warfare”, involving “Muslim and Christian irregular forces”, and that this warfare was “not unlike the tragedy … of Lebanon”. Included among the cosigners were also specialists of Arab affairs, Islamic carpets, and patrons of architecture!

6 Shaws, , History, p. 316.Google Scholar

7 Justin, McCarthy and Carolyn, McCarthy, Turks and Armenians. A Manual on the Armenian Question (Washington, D.C., 1989), p. 54.Google Scholar

8 Congressional Record-Senate, 02 20, 1990, S. 1216.Google Scholar

9 Here are some samples of their statements. Grand, Vizier Said Halim: “I heard about this tragedy [the massacres] when it was all over, just like about everything else. You can't interpret the order to ‘deport’ as an order for ‘killing’.” Harb Kabinelerinin Isticvabi. A special supplement of Vakit, no. 2 (Istanbul, 1933), pp. 290–91, 295, 325–26.Google Scholar Justice Minister Ibrahim: “The excesses [the massacres] were committed without the knowledge of the government…”, ibid., p. 519. Public Works Minister General Çürüksulu Mahmud: “There are no transcripts on this because no records were being kept [in the Cabinet Council]”, ibid., p. 203. Education Minister Ahmed şükrü: “Depending on the degree of importance of a given matter, decisions were either kept off the record or were recorded”, ibid., p. 347. Special Organization Chief Eşref Kuşcubaşi: “It is a fact that the Special Organization performed services which the forces at the disposal of the government and the law-and-order outfits absolutely couldn't and which were directed against non-Muslim races and nationalities for being suspect in terms of their bonds and loyalty to the central authorities. These services were kept so very ‘secret’ that even Cabinet ministers were unaware of them… When I think about it today I too find this plan ‘exceedingly courageous’ (aştri cesaretli)… I had assumed duties [relative to] the covert aspects of [the Armenian deportations] (Ermeni tehciriyle alâkadar… hadiselerin iç yüzünde vazife almuş bir insan olarak).” Cemal, Kutay, Birinci Dunya Harbinde Teşkilati Mahsusa (Istanbul, 1962), pp. 18, 36.Google Scholar He expressed indignation at the news of the assassination in Rome by an Armenian ‘avenger” of Grand Vizier Said Halim, declaring the latter totally innocent. The real nature of the scheme of anti-Armenian measures was known only to two or three ministers, according to Kuşcubaşl, who stated: “It is a singular crime and injustice to make a martyr out of him on charges of complicity in crimes associated with the Armenian deportations. As a man deeply involved in this matter I firmly reject this false accusation”, ibid., p. 78.

10 Yusuf, Hikmet Bayur, Turk Inkilâbi Tarihi, 10 vols. (Ankara, 1964–1983), 3, 1, p. 484.Google Scholar Another confirmation comes from American educated (Ph.D., Columbia) publicist Ahmed, Emin Yalman who wrote, Ittihad “ruled wartime Turkey, largely in secret for not even the party knew many of its Council's decisions”. Turkey in My Time (Norman, 1956), pp. 34–35.Google Scholar For more details on this aspect of secrecy see note 37. As to the deliberations of the highly secretive Central Committee of Ittihad, Ziya Gökalp in his testimony at the fifth sitting (May 12, 1919) of the court-martial stated that “no records in any detail or order were kept but that sometimes signatures were required” (Takvimi Vekayi, no. 3553, p. 80).Google Scholar

11 Resmi Gazete, no. 20163, 05 12, 1989; Cabinet Council's No. 89/14028 decision, pp. 1–6. The three stipulations are contained in article 10, subsections a and b.Google Scholar

12 The December announcement warning of the Interior Ministry's intention to study and release the figure on Armenian losses was made by then Interior Minister Mustafa, Arif (Deymer), Nor Giank, 12 13, 1918.Google ScholarCemal's, announcement some three months later was published in many newspapers, appearing during the armistice in Istanbul, Le Monireur Oriental, March 13; Alemdar, Ikdam, Vakit, 03 15, 1919.Google Scholar In an editorial entitled “The Courage of Owning Up to Mistakes” (Hatadan Dönmek Cesareti), the latter newspaper praised the minister for his forthrightness. Cemal himself stated: “Don't deny the nation the right to call [the perpetrators] to account… The government is bent on cleaning up the bloody past” (kanlt maziyi temizliyecekrir). Quoted with misgivings by Gökbilgin, M. Tayyib, Milli Mücadele Başlarken, 2 vols. (Ankara, 1959), vol. 1, p. 55.Google Scholar

13 Hadisat, 03 17, 1919.Google ScholarCemal's, figures on Armenian victims, as compiled by the Interior Ministry, is recorded in Takvimi Vekayi, no. 3909, published 07 21, 1920, pp. 3–4.Google Scholar

14 T.B.M.M. Gizli Celse Zabitlari, 4 vols. (Ankara, 1985), vol. 4, pp. 439–40.Google Scholar

15 Yusuf, Hikmet Bayur, Atatürk, Hayati ve Eseri (Ankara, 1963), p. 268.Google Scholar

16 Celal, Bayar, Ben de Yazdim: Milli Mücadeleye Giriş, 8 vols. (Istanbul, 1969), vol. 7, p. 2114.Google Scholar

17 Bayur, , Türk Inkitâbi, 10 vols. (Ankara, 1983), vol. 3,4, p. 787, n. 99.Google Scholar

18 “Rauf Orbayin Hatiralari” Yakin Tarihimiz 3, 32 (10 4, 1962), 179.Google Scholar

19 Atatürkün Söylev ve Demeçleri 1919–1938. (Istanbul, 1945), p. 49.Google Scholar In a May 6, 1920, communication, marked “personal and urgent”, Mustafa Kemal in Ankara advises Kâzim Karabekir in Erzurum to refrain from attacking Armenia lest “the entire Christian world and especially America, turn against us” as any such action would be tantamount to “a new Armenian massacre” (yeniden bir Ermeni kitali demek olan bu hareket …) Kâzim, Karabekir, Istiklal Harbimiz (Istanbul, 1969), p. 663.Google Scholar Six years later Mustafa Kemal is described as reiterating his decrial of the Armenian massacres when castigating the Ittihadists who “should have been made to account for the lives of millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse from their homes and massacred”. Emile, Hildebrand, “Kemal Promises More Hangings of Political Antagonists on Turkey” Los Angeles Examiner, Sunday edition, section VI, 08 1, 1926.Google Scholar

20 Maurice, Prax, “Constantinople”, Lectures pour tous (03 1920), 829.Google Scholar Prax was the correspondent of the French newspaper Petit Parisien. For the English translation of portions of the interview, see Current History 12 (05 1920), 334–36.Google Scholar

21 Vahakn, N. Dadrian, “Genocide as a Problem of National and International Law: The World War I Armenian Case and Its Contemporary Legal Ramifications”, Yale Journal of International Law 14, 2 (Summer 1989), 291–315.Google Scholar

22 Joseph, Kunz, “The United Nations Convention of Genocide”, The American Journal of International Law, 43 (1949), 745;Google ScholarRaphael, Lemkin, “Genocide as a Crime under International Law”, American Journal of International Law, 41 (01 1947), 150.Google Scholar

23 Turkish sources indicate that the escape was organized and facilitated by General Bronsart von Schellendorf, the 1914–17 chief of the Ottoman General Staff. Cemal, Kutay, Talat Paşanzn Gurbet Hatiralari, 3 vols. (Istanbul, 1983), vol. 3, p. 1103;Google ScholarFethi, Okyar, üç Devirde Bir Adam (Istanbul, 1980), p. 251.Google Scholar The details of the escape are provided by Galib, Vardar, Ittihad ve Terakki Içinde Dönenler, ed. Tansu, S. N. (Istanbul, 1960), pp. 386–88.Google Scholar The most accurate description is provided by a young officer of the German Naval War Staff who volunteered to organize and execute the mission. The German destroyer R1 was the vehicle of escape to Sevastopol, Russia. Kapitänleutnant, Baltzer, “Das romantishe Ende der drei grossen Türken der Kriegszeit, Talaat, Enver and Dschemal Pascha. Eine Erinnerung an den 1. November 1918”, Orient-Rundschau 11 (11 10, 1933), pp. 120–21.Google Scholar

24 Midhat, şükrü Bleda, Imparatorluğun çöküşü (Istanbul, 1979), p. 124.Google Scholar In a subsequent exchange with Hüeyin Cahit Yalçin, Bleda concurred with the view that such an escape would mean an admission of guilt. Hüseyin, Cahit Yalçin, Siyasal Anular (Istanbul, 1976), pp. 258–59.Google Scholar

25 Of Albanian extraction, Mazhar had a long career of civil service in Macedonia. After the Ittihadist revolution he became police chief in Smyrna (Izmir), and until April 1914, he was governor of Bitlis province when Ittihad replaced him with Talat's brother-in-law, Mustafa Abdulhalik (Renda). In 1916, Talat appointed Mazhar to one of the four inquiry commissions which went to the provinces ostensibly to investigate atrocities against the Armenians. But these commissions in the main confined themselves to investigating economic abuses involving the embezzlement by officials of large amounts of money and other spoils taken from the Armenian victims; their offense was that, instead of handing over the riches to the state, they appropriated them for themselves.

26 Contrary to a general belief that Istanbul Armenians, like most of the Armenians of Smyma (Izmir), were spared deportation, a host of secret documents reveal the cautious but systematic decimation of this part of the Armenian population, involving mainly the leaders of Istanbul Armenians, and “the provincials”, who had families in the interior. On November 12, 1915, Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath, the German Chargé at Istanbul, informed his Chancellor in Berlin that according to “a reliable source” the Turkish government has, despite promises to the contrary, decided to deport the Armenian population of Istanbul against which decision he warned Foreign Affairs Minister Halil; German Foreign Office Archives, Bonn, Türkei 183/40, A33705. German Ambassador Wolff-Metternich on December 7, 1915, confirmed this confidentially obtained information, at the same time disclosing that 30,000 Istanbul Armenians already have been deported, 4,000 of them only recently; his source was the chief of police. In urging his chancellor to keep this information secret, he pleaded with him not to put up any more with Turkish atrocities and to try to deter them. Türkei 183/140, A36184.

27 British Foreign Office Archives, Public Records Office, Kew, F0371/4141/49194. The Committee of Union and Progress. Part II, p. 4, G.H.Q. Intelligence Report.

28 For the 1909 text of the martial law, see Biliotti, A. and Ahmed, Sedad, Législation ottoman depuis le rétablissement de la constitution, 2 vols. (Paris, 1912), vol. 1, pp. 194–97; for the 09 1, 1910 (08 19, old style) addendum, dealing with the laws to combat brigands, see pp. 482–97.Google Scholar

29 “The Ottoman Constitution, Promulgated the 7th Zilbridje [sic], 1293 (11/23 December 1876)”, The American Journal of International Law, 2 (1908), 386.Google Scholar

30 Takvimi Vekayi, no. 3540.

31 Takvimi Vekayi. The 12 16, 1918, rescript is in no. 3424, the 12 25, 1918, one in no. 3430.Google Scholar

32 Takvimi Vekayi, no. 3445.

33 The Allies on May 24, 1915, issued ajoint declaration pointing to “the connivance and often assistance of Ottoman authorities” in the mass murder of the Armenians. They further declared: “In view of these new crimes of Turkey against humanity and civilization, the Allied governments announce publicly … that they will hold personally responsible … all members of the Ottoman government and those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres”, Archives du Ministère des Affairs Érrangères (Paris), Guerre 1914–1918,Google Scholar Turquie, 887, I. Arménie, , 04 26, 1915;Google ScholarForeign Office Archives, Public Records Office, Class 371, vol. 2488, Registry no. 501010, or briefly, F0371/2488/501010, April 28, 1915; Foreign Relations of the United States, 1915 Supplement, p. 981, File no. 867, 4016/67.Google Scholar

34 Bilal, şimşir, Malta Sürgünleri (Istanbul, 1976), pp. 113, 114.Google Scholar

35 The first citation is in F0371/4173/84878, folio 487; the second is in F0371/4174, folio 149.

36 Ibnülemin, M. K. Inal, Son Sadrazamlar, 4 vols. (Istanbul, 1982), vol. 4, p. 1983.Google Scholar See also F0371/4141/49194; p. 4; Cruickshank, A. A., “The Young Turk Challenge in Postwar Turkey,” Middle East Journal 22, 1 (Winter 1968), 17;Google ScholarPaul, C. Helmreich, From Paris to Sèvres (Columbus, Oh., 1974), p. 107.Google Scholar According to the Adjudant of Sultan Vahdettin, the Ministry of War at one time in the Armistice was filled with Ittihadist advisers and aides-de-camp. Tarik, Mümtaz Göztepe, Osmanoğullarinin Son Padişah, Sultan Vahdeddin Mütareke Gayyasinda (Istanbul, 1969), p. 89.Google Scholar

37 Ahmed, Emin Yalman, Yakin Tarihte Gördüklerim ve Işitriklerim, (1888-–1918), 4 vols. (Istanbul, 1970), vol. 1, pp. 339–41.Google Scholar Speaking of the distribution of power among the top Ittihadist leaders, the author maintains that their power in some respects exceeded the authority of the ministers, especially in conditions of “urgent business”. He singles Out Drs. Nazim and şakir, and Ziya Gökalp, as the most powerful members of the Central Committee (ibid., p. 265).

38 Djagadamard, 08 29, 1919, carrying the comments of former Deputy Procuror-General Feridun.Google Scholar

39 Hüsameddin, Ertürk, Iki Devrin Perde Arkasi, ed. Tansu, S. (Istanbul, 1957), pp. 213, 326–27.Google Scholar

40 Nor Giank, 11 13, 1918.Google Scholar

41 Takvimi Vekayi, no. 3540.

42 Alemdar, 05 10, 1919.Google Scholar

43 Vahakn, N. Dadrian, “The Naim-Andonian Documents on the World War I Destruction of Ottoman Armenians: The Anatomy of a Genocide”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 18, 3 (08 1986), 311–60.Google Scholar

44 Takvimi Vekayi, no. 3604.

45 The specifics of the indictment detailed here are excerpted from the supplementary issue (ilâve) of Takvimi Vekayi, no. 3540 which, along with other supplementary issues, served as a quasi-judicial journal irregularly covering the court-martial proceedings involved. Pages 4–8 of that issue (in which April 27 is a misprint for April 28, the opening day of the trial) comprise the text of the indictment, and page 9, the supplementary comments mentioned above. Jerusalem Armenian Patriarchate Archive and Bibliothèque Nubar in Paris have the original issues; Zoryan Institute, Cambridge, Mass., has the copies of these supplements. For a comprehensive analysis through the method of breakdown and reconstruction of the entire text of the key indictment in which columns of English translations of segments of the indictment are placed alongside those containing original but Latin-script Ottoman segments of the indictment, see Vahakn, N. Dadrian, “A Textual Analysis of the Key Indictment of the Turkish Military Tribunal Investigating the World War I Armenian Massacres”, Armenian Review, 44, 1 (Spring 1991).Google Scholar

46 At the 11th sitting of Trabzon trials (April 14, 1919), Special Organization leader, Major Yusuf Riza, admitted to having initiated military incursions into the Russian Caucasus before the start of the Russo–Turkish war. The key verdict singled out this fact when referring to Ittihad's aggressive designs; Takvimi Vekayi, no. 3604, p. 219.Google Scholar

47 This critical point of linkage between Ittihad's secret motives for entering into the war precipitately and the scheme of solving the Armenian question was touched on and articulated by the Austrian Military Plenipotentiary at the Ottoman General Headquarters. Alluding to his decade-long experience in Turkey involving his exposure to “the spontaneous utterances of many intelligent Turks”, the Vice- Field Marshal expresses his general belief that the Turks attributed the decadence and decline of the Ottoman Empire” exclusively …to the overabundant humanity of the earlier Sultans who either ought to have the conquered people forcibly embrace Islam, or ought to have exterminated them”. Pursuing this line of thought the author goes on to say: “In this sense there is no doubt that the Young Turk government already before the war had decided to utilize the next suitable opportunity for rectifying at least in part this mistake … It is also very probable that this consideration, i.e., intent, had a very important influence upon the decisions of the Ottoman government relative to joining the Central Powers, and upon the determination of the exact time of their intervening in the war”, Joseph, Pomiankowski, Der Zusammenbruch des Ottomanischen Reiches (Graz, Austria, 1969), p. 162.Google Scholar

48 In the Bayburt verdict the atrocities are traced to the Central Committee which “first of all” (evvel emirde) “determined upon” (tasmim) the execution of the crimes, Tercimani Hakikat, 08 5, 1920; Sabah, 07 29, 1920.Google Scholar Third Army Commander Vehib Paşa categorically declared that “the crimes were committed pursuant to a fixed state program and with definite premeditation” (…cinayeti devletin tahti iman ve himayesinde…mukarrer bir program ve mutlak bir kasd…) (deposition, cited in Takvimi Vekayi, no. 3540, p. 7,Google Scholar and read in its entirety at the 2nd sitting of Trabzon trials, [March 29, 1919]). At the first sitting of responsible secretary's trial the court referred to “the decision taken by the Central Committee” (…ittihaz eylediği karara taben…). They created an invisible arm of the government (bir kuvvei hafiye ihdas) and subverted (tagayyür) the form of that government. All this was done by the formation in the Cemiyet of a special leadership” (erkânt mahsuse), ibid., no. 3586, p. 162. In the responsible secretary's verdict it is stated that the secretaries “participated in the criminal decision taken by the Central Committee” (… ittihaz eylediği mukarrerati cinayerkaranelerine iştirak). ibid., no. 3772, p. 4. In the Harput verdict the headquarters of that Central Committee is specified as “the locus of the decision for massacres”.

49 In a proclamation issued on June 14, 1915, by the authorities of Trabzon province the Armenians were explicitly forbidden to sell any of their property while preparing themselves for deportation within five days, with the assurance that they were going to be temporarily settled and lodged (temekkü ve ikamet) in localities in the interior prepared for them; they were expected, so said the proclamation, to return to their homes after the end of the war. Trabizonda Meşveret, 06 14, 1915, p. 4.Google Scholar

50 A Turkish intelligence officer, attached to Department II at Ottoman General Headquarters, in his memoirs states that “utterly innocent” Armenian populations from such far away cities as Bursa, Ankara, Eskişehir, and Konya, which were in no war zone, “succumbed to the effects of the deportation tragedy”, Ahmed, Refik Altinay, Iki Komite Iki Kital (Istanbul, 1919), p. 23.Google Scholar American intelligence experts in their report in 1946 on the status of the Armenian Question that was at the time undergoing some revival in the field of international relations, declared that: “a mere pretext invoked to justify the extermination of over a million Armenians, uprooted mostly from regions remote from the war fronts” (italics added). That pretext involved the mere fear of Armenian seditiousness. “The argument is compatible to Nazi accusations of Jewish subversive activities, and is equally invalid… [at issue is] the systematic, organized, and prolonged massacres of a whole minority by the Ottoman government”. Department of State, Office of Research and Intelligence, “Notes on Armenian National Aspirations… March 12, 1946, no. 3523.2, pp. 18–19. Quoted in Ronald, Grigor Suny, “Return to Ararat: Armenia in the Cold War” Armenian Review 42, 3 (Autumn 1989), 13.Google Scholar

51 In the Harput verdict, Responsible Secretary Resneli Nazim was a principal defendant and was convicted, Takvimi Vekayi, no. 3771, p. 2. In the Bayburt verdict, Erzurum's delegate Hilmi was cited as having actively participated in the direction of the massacres; Tercimani Hakikat 08 5, 1920.Google Scholar But the key role of these party commissars in the provinces is exposed in the responsible-secretaries trial verdict. To appreciate the paramountcy of this role the following description by a Turkish author remarkably familiar with many of the secrets of Ittihad and the Special Organization may be relevant: “The title ‘responsible secretary’ was created to avoid the appearance of overshadowing the state authority while investing the holder with such powers as may be required for the direction of the course of events. In fact, in all matters of consequence, the last decision [italics in the original] belonged to them. These men … in line with this practice made final decisions. They were selected by the Central Committee, the shadow Cabinet, on the basis of experience, age, brains and familiarity” (Cemal, Kutay, Celal Bayartn Yazmadiğt ve Yazmayacaği üç Devirden Hakikatler [Istanbul, 1982], p. 12).Google Scholar After highlighting the general role of these supreme power wielders, the same verdict, involving the responsible secretaries, specifies the criminal offenses of several of them. That general role is described as involving, “Specially the massacre and destruction of the Armenians and the plunder and looting of their goods and belongings” (…bilhassa Ermenilerin taktil ve imhasi ve emval ve eşyalarinin nehb u yağmasi hususunda …kâtib ve murahhasi mesullarin…). They had a free hand in their criminal activities”. Focusing in particular on three defendants, the court criticized them as follows: Bursa and Bolu secretary Dr. Midhat “went out of his way to include in the deportations the sick Armenians”. Kastamonu province's Hasan Fehmi “was more powerful than the vali, and was an influential factor in the organization and direction of the deportations (tehcirin tertip ve idaresinde amili müessir); he acted in a manner indicative of his power in the exercise of which he acted as if he were above the law. He finally succeeded in relieving Governor Reşit Paşa who derisively was called ‘the vali of the Armenians' and who kept refusing to order the massacre of the Armenians of his province with the words, ‘I cannot soil my hands in blood’.” Referring to a similar act of dismissal the court mentioned Ankara's secretary Necati who succeeded in getting rid of Yozgat's likewise recalcitrant mutasarrif Cemal. Edirne's inspector Abdül Gani “whose power matched that of the vali” personally toured the sites of the atrocities at the head of boorish çetes armed to the teeth (kaba kuşakli musallah çeteler). He affected the deportations in such a manner that “many Armenians were ruined and annihilated” (bir hayli Ermeninin mahv ve telefleri ile neticelenen tehcirde amili müessir…). In addition, Hasan, Fehmi, Abdül, Gani, and DrMidhat, “engaged in practices [involving] corruption while directing the deportations” (tehcir dolayisiile… irtikâb…), Takvimi Vekayi, no. 3772, pp. 3–6.Google Scholar A signal feature of this verdict, in which the court emphasized that it had reached that verdict by examining the evidence “from head to toe” (serapa), was the preponderance of testimony from military and civilian officials as well as one notable and several Muslim citizens. To stress the importance of this fact, these witnesses are hereby listed: (1) retired Major Ismail Hakki; (2) the late Marshal Asaf Paşazade Cemal; (3) 9th Regiment Commander Colonel Hurşit; (4) Silifke Gendarmery Commander Major Mustafa şerif (quoting Gendarmery Colonel Izzet); (5) Kastamonu Administrative Council (Meclisi Idare) Secretary Besim; (6) Kaymakam Celal; (7) Bolu deputy mutesarrif Ali Ilmi (dismissed for objecting to deportations); (8) War Office Memo regarding Abdül Gani's offenses. Included among the Muslim citizens who also testified were: (1) Vahid; (2) Cevdet; (3) Salim; (4) Kastamonu notable Tevfik; (5) Medrese hoca Mehmet; (6) Attorney Izzet.

52 At the 4th sitting of the Cabinet ministers' trials the presiding judge, addressing defendant Yusuf, Riza, stated, “We heard from the Defense Ministry that there were two kinds of Special Organization; one was run by the War Office, the other by Ittihad” (Teşkilati Mahsusiyenin iki şek1i olduğu, biri Harbiye Nazaretinin, diğeri Ittihad ve Terakki firkasinin meshuf bulunduğunu…), Takvimi Vekayi, no. 3549, pp. 59–60.Google Scholar At the 5th sitting, Yusuf Riza finally conceded that indeed there were two types of Special Organization, with the second having been engaged in direction of the affairs of deportation in the provinces (Ikinci bir Teşkilatt Mahsusu mevcut ki bunlar bazi vilayetlerde sancaklarm, kazalarin bu tehcir işini idare etmek için…), ibid., no. 3553 (3554), p. 88. At the same sitting, another Special Organization leader Atif conceded the help received in this respect from provincial responsible secretaries, after he was confronted with a set of ciphers anc communications in the possession of the court, ibid., pp. 87–88. Informed of Yusuf Riza's admission, Küçük Talat, at the same sitting, declared, “The Special Organization was created to help execute the deportations”, ibid., p. 90. At the next (6th) sithng, Atif, again confronting two ciphers produced by the court, went one step further from his earlier answer and admitted, “I sought Midhat Sükrü's help for the enlistment of Ittihad's provincial cells in the work of the Special Organization”, ibid., no. 3557, p. 112.

53 Tarihi Muhakeme (Istanbul, 1919), p. 9.Google Scholar At the 6th sitting of the trial of the Special Organization leaders (May 14, 1919) an Interior Ministry cipher telegram was introduced in which the provincial authorities of Bursa were ordered to assemble within a week two hundred men who are not subject to military service but who may include “convicts and ordinary scums” (mahkümin ve sefaletle meluf olanlarin), Tavimi Vekayi, no. 3557, p. 98. At the 16th sitting of Trabzon trials (May 5, 1919), Ordu merchant Hüseyin testified that Trabzon Prison Director Süleyman formed gangs of çetes from the ranks of convicts for the purpose of massacring the Armenians. In his testimony before the Fifth Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, wartime Justice Minister Ibrahim Pirizade Saib declared that, as he tried to resist such an order, he was prevailed upon by the War Ministry to release from prisons convicts “whose number added up to a sizeable total” (mühim bir yeküna balig), with the argument that such a resource ought not be neglected, Harp Kabinelerinin, p. 537. An intelligence officer attached to Ottoman General Headquarters admitted to the carrying out of a general scheme to eradicate the Armenian question by eradicating the Armenians themselves—through the Special Organization çete units who, “after being released from prisons and undergoing a week's training at the War Ministry's grounds in Istanbul, were sent off to the east to carry out their mission”, Altinay, , li Komite, pp. 23–28, 36–38; lkdam, 12 23–28, 1918 series of articles.Google Scholar

54 This cipher is itemized and indexed as “series” (tertip) 9 among the documents lodged with the bill of charges.

55 Extermination by mass drownings took place in all the rivers within the confines of Asiatic Turkey, particularly the rivers Euphrates and Tigris and their tributaries, running as they did through the numerous regions containing heavy concentrations of Armenians. But nowhere was the extent and pace of extermination as massive as in the high seas of the Black Sea skirting the littoral of the Trabzon province and beyond, involving the port cities Samsun, Trabzon, and the smaller coastal towns Giresun, ünye, and Tirebolu. Cemal Azmi, the governor of Trabzon, is reported to have declared with relish at a social gathering in Berlin, where he had taken refuge after the war, that he contributed to the rich harvest of fresh anchovy by these drownings (bu sene hamsi çoğalstn). Trabzon is famous for its breed of anchovy, which also then constituted the staple food of the poor in the area. Arshavir, Shiragian, Gudagn er Nahadagneru (In Execution of the Testament of the Martyrs) (Beirut, 1965), pp. 262–64.Google Scholar In the abbreviated English version of these memoirs this quotation is supplanted by a general description of the gloom Huratch Papazian endured by listening to such accounts in the circle of Turkish families. He had penetrated this circle in the disguise of a Turkish student and as a close friend of the governor's son for purposes of tracking down the organizers of the Armenian massacres. Fluent in dialect Turkish, and masquerading as the wealthy son of a rich provincial Turk, he even had undergone circumcision to enhance the credibility of his pretended identity; The Legacy (Boston, 1976), pp. 156–57. In this series of trials, a host of military and civilian officials personally testified to the systematic acts of drowning, involving escort bands who were used for the end of killing the victims while on the high seas, and professional boatmen who were paid special fees for subsequently dumping the victims into the sea. But the testimony of three military officers stands out in terms of exposing the employment of code language in the orders issued for drowning operations. At the 9th sitting, Colonel Muhtar, chief of staff of Trabzon and Lazistan Forces, testified to having received strange coded telegrams ordering him to carry out the deportation to inland destinations of certain convoys “via the sea route” (April 10, 1919). At the 10th (April 12), a Lieutenant Ahmet declared that a particular convoy of Armenians was to be “transported to Sebastopol” for which the order specified that “two hours” should be enough to do the job. When he balked at this impossible order, considering the enormous distance and the location of the city in enemy territory, he was told bluntly that the euphemism meant that the victims were to be “towed to the high seas and drowned there”. At the 14th sitting (April 26, 1919), Colonel Arif, military commander at Giresun, testified to receiving an order involving the deportation of the victims “to Mosul in the Arabian desert via the Black Sea”. Trabzon's American consul Oscar S. Heizer in two long reports confirms these operations of drowning in high seas. In a July 26, 1915, report he writes, “a number of such caiques have left Trebizond loaded with men and usually the caiques return empty after a few hours”. In his April II, 1919, report he speaks of the fate of “nearly 3000 children… many of [them] were loaded into boats and taken out to sea and thrown overboard. I myself saw where 16 bodies were washed ashore and buried by a Greek woman near the Italian Monastery”; U.S. National Archives, R.G. 59, 867.4016/411.Google Scholar

56 Apart from murder and plunder, the type of associated crime most common and widespread was rape. Whenever opportune, no female, young or old, with a modicum of attractiveness, was spared by the criminally inclined. In the Trabzon series in particular several witnesses as well as defendants testified to the recurrence of this kind of assault. At the 9th sitting (April 10, 1919), for example, the city's police chief Nuri admitted to having sent “5 or 6 young Armenian girls to the members of Ittihad's Central Committee as a gift from governor Azmi”. At the 16th (May 5, 1919), Customs Inspector Besim, after confirming the role of ex-convicts in the massacres, declared on the witness stand, “The Red Crescent building was not a hospital or a health center but a pleasure-dome for indulging in lasciviousness where the governor had been satisfying his lust and sexual appetites”. At the 10th (April 12, 1919), merchant Mehmet Ali described the regular rape of young girls in the Red Crescent Hospital, adding that the governor had kept there for his personal use 15 Armenian girls. In several reports Trabzon's American consul Oscar Heizer describes the patterns of sexual assaults and forcible prostitution. In his August 13, 1915, report he refers to a deportee convoy from which group “the women were first outraged by the officers of the gendarmerie and then turned over to the gendarmes to be disposed of…. The best looking of the older girls [from a group of children] are kept in the houses for the pleasure of members of the gang which seems to rule affairs here. I heard on good authority that a member of the Committee of Union and Progress here has ten of the handsomest girls in a house in the central part of the city for the use of himself and friends”; R.G. 59, 867.4016/210.

57 George, Young, Corps de droit ottoman, 7 vols. (Oxford, 1905–1906), vol. 7, p. 273 (in chapter 5, sectiOn 2).Google Scholar

58 F0/371/4174/118392, folio 267, July 7, 1919 communication. With the exception of Dr. Nazim, all of the condemned men cited in the text who had fled to Germany and Russia were tracked down and were assassinated one by one by Armenian “avengers”. Talat was assassinated in Berlin on March 15, 1921, Dr. şakir likewise in Berlin on April 17, 1922. Cemal was gunned down in Tbilisi (Tiflis) on July 21, 1922. Enver was tracked down by Agabekof, an Armenian operative of the Communist Secret Service in Emirate Bukhara, and was killed on August 4, 1922, during the ensuing fight.

59 (1) Ali Kemal, kaymakam of Boğazliyan, and during the massacres interim mutasarrif of Yozgat. He was condemned to death on April 8 and hanged on April 10. (2) Abdullah Avni, nicknamed Hayran Baba, was in charge of the Erzincan gendarmery. He was the brother of Abdul Gani, a prominent Ittihadist and the responsible secretary of Sivas and Edirne. Avni was condemned to death at the end of the Erzincan trial series and was hanged on July 22, 1919. (3) Behramzade Nusret, Bayburt kaymakam, later murasarrif of Ergani, and subsequently of Urfa. He was condemned to death on July 20, 1920 (Takvimi Vekayi, no. 3924), and was executed on the gallows on August 5, 1920. However, the military Appeals Court, after the debacle of the Damad Ferit regime and the ascendancy of Kemalism, overturned Nusret's July 20, 1920, verdict on January 7, 1921. Both Kemal and Nusret were then declared “national martyrs” (milli şehid). On December 25, 1920, the Ankara regime by law no. 80 allocated a pension for Nusret's family. After the execution of Kemal, on the other hand, 20,000 Turkish pounds were raised through public subscription initiated by the Turkish daily Tasviri Efkâr and were given to his family. In commenting on the spectacularly demonstrative procession of Kemal's funeral, British High Commissioner Admiral Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe wrote the following to London, “The perpetrator of crimes, the nature of which would send a shudder through any civilized community, was treated as a hero and martyr amongst Moslems; but then, his victims were Christians”; F0371/4173/72536, April 21, 1919, report. W. S. Edmonds, undersecretary in the Eastern Department of the British Foreign Office offered, when reacting to the same funeral, the following comment in the appended minutes, “Not one Turk in a thousand will think that any other Turk deserves to be hanged for massacring Christians”; F0371/4173/61185, April 22, 1919.

60 The proceedings were covered in varying degrees by Constantinople (Istanbul) newspapers in Turkish, Armenian, and French. Notable for their relatively detailed coverage of these proceedings were Ikdam, Sabah, Hadisat, Vakit, Peyam, and Alemdar (Turkish); Nor Giank, Ihamanag, Ihogovourt, and Djagadamard (Armenian); Renaissance, Le Courrier de Turquie, and Moniteur Oriental (French).

61 şükrü, , Imparatorluğun, p. 62.Google Scholar

62 Okyar, , üç Devirde, p. 280.Google Scholar

63 The first pledge was made on March 10, 1921, by Ankara's foreign affairs minister Bekir Sami; F0371/6499/E3110, folio 190; the second was made on behalf of the Ankara government by Safa, the foreign affairs minister of the Sultan's government in Istanbul, F0371/6504/E9112, folio 47, p. 2; the third was made by Rafet Paşa, Ankara's Interior Minister on September 14, 1921, F0371/6504/E10411, folio 130. Moreover, the secret 4th article of the Second Amasya Protocol, signed on October 22, 1919, between the Ankara government and Salih Paşa, the representative of the Sultan's government (whose cabinet, however, later refused to ratify it), provided for the trial in Turkey of the Ittihadists held in custody by the British in Malta on charges of wartime crimes, including massacres; Atatürk, , Speech Delivered by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (Istanbul, 1963), p. 208.Google Scholar Yalman, who was one of the Malta detainees, states that “Ankara government offered to put on trial in Turkey those responsible for Armenian deportations”. Turkey in My Time, p. 106.Google Scholar

64 Especially worth mentioning are the following: Atif Kamçil (Çanakkale), Pirincizade Feyzi (Diyarbekir), Ilyas Sami (Bitlis), Ali Cenani (Gazianteb), Ahmed şükrü (Izmit), Ali Feyyaz (Yozgat), and Erzincanli Sabit (Harput and Sivas). In addition, Mustafa Reşad from the Political Section (Kismi Siyasi) of Istanbul's police department was appointed president of the Council of State (Devlet şurasi Başkani), and Tevfik Hadi, head of the security section of the same police department (Emniyeti Umumiye) was appointed governor (vali) of Mardin. For the role of former Ittihadists in the development of the Kemalist movement in Anatolia, see şimşir, , Malta, pp. 215–16.Google Scholar

65 Foremost among these are Mustafa Abdulhalik (Renda), Minister of Defense, Finance, Education and also president of the Grand National Assembly (following the death of Atatürk on November 10, 1938, for one day he also became President of Turkey); şükrü Kaya (Interior); Pirincizade Feyzi (Public Works), Ali Cenani (Commerce). As the British were insisting on exempting from the projected exchange of prisoners those Ittihadists believed to be seriously implicated in the organization of massacres against the Armenians, sixteen of these broke parole and escaped from Malta. Included in this group were army commanders Ali Ihsan and Mahmud Kâmil; governors Muammer, Memduh, Tahsin and Sabit; kaymakam Faik (Merzifun); Responsible Secretary Abdul Gani (Sivas), military Governor Nevzad (Mosul); and Director of Deportations şükrü (Kaya). See şimşir, , Malta, p. 439;Google ScholarYalman, , Gördüklerim, vol. 2, pp. 199–200; F0371/6509, folio 47, p. 2.Google Scholar

66 As in other similar cases, the oath against Ittihad was an expedient move to mollify the internal and external critics of the Kemalist movement that these were identifying with Ittihad; see Gökbilgin, , Milli Mücadele, vol. 2, p. 8.Google Scholar

67 See Dadrian, , “Genocide as a Problem of National and International Law”, Yale Journal of International Law, 14, 2 (Summer 1989) 267–70.Google Scholar

68 Tarik, Zafer Tunaya, Türkiyede Siyasi Partiler, 3 vols. (Istanbul, 1984–1989), vol. 3, Ittihad ve Terakki, pp. 285–86.Google Scholar During the 2nd sitting of the trial series of the top Ittihadists (May 4, 1919), Colonel Cevad's defense counsel introduced a document signed by the same Colonel Behiç. Dated Novermber 25, 1914, and addressed to the directorate of the Special Organization, it let it be known that henceforth the valis in the eastern provinces will be able to participate in the work of the Special Organization since a law is being passed which authorizes the engagement of convicts. It appears that some eastern governors, anxious about the risks of their complicity, were hedging and were demanding some legal protection. The document ends with a request to return it after taking cognizance of its contents (Takvimi Vekayi, no. 3543, p. 28). In his testimony at the 6th sitting of the same tribunal (May 14, 1919), Colonel Atif admitted that eastern valis were involved in the work of the Special Organization. Tarihi Muhakeme, p. 31.

69 Meclisi Ayan Zabit Ceridesi, Devre 3, Seneyi Intihabiye 5, 2ci and 3cü Içtima(338 [1918]).Google Scholar

70 In its key indictment and key verdict the military tribunal repeatedly referred to “the crime of massacres” (taktil cinayeti) when describing the atrocities against the Armenians. Taking into account the aggregate nature of these massacres, Tunaya, the late dean of Turkish political scientists, in the discussion of the criminal proceedings against the Ittihadist leaders—which is contained in his 3rd volume on the Turkish political parties—saw fit to translate that Ottoman word “taktil” into the modern Turkish equivalent of “genocide” (soykurim); Tunaya, , Türkiyede, p. 281.Google Scholar Another prominent Turkish author, a close friend and a confidant of the principal founder of the Turkish Republic, Atatürk, went even further when he characterized these massacres against the Armenians as “genocide”, using in his text exactly this composite Greek–Latin term. In one of his weekly editorial reminiscences Atay had indeed ventured to tackle this topic while involving the memory of Atatürk, reflecting on the fate of the Armenians, and philosophically raising the question as to “why incur the risk of dishonor (lekelenmek) when there was an alternative remedy (başka çare)” after blaming the Armenian revolutionaries for incidental acts of sabotage and uprising. In the same vein Atay volunteered the information that “Mustafa Kemal too was against the genocide (katliam aleyhinde idi)”. Dünya, “Düşünce Yorum:Pazar Konuşmasi” December 17, 1967. Atay himself was a Ittihadist in his youth, was a reserve officer during the war, and served as private secretary to both Talat (1912), and Cemal Paşa (1914); Roger W. Smith, “Denial of the Armenian Genocide”, in ibid., pp. 63–86; idem., “The Armenian Genocide: Memory, Politics, and the Future”, in Richard, G. Hovannisian, ed., The Armenian Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics (London, New York, 1991), pp. 1–20;Google Scholar Vahakn N. Dadrian, “Ottoman Archives and the Armenian Genocide”, in ibid., pp. 280–310.