Germany, Turkey, and Armenia / A Selection of Documentary Evidence Relating to the Armenian Atrocities from German and other Sources

GERMANY, TURKEY AND ARMENIA
GERMANY TURKEY and ARMENIA
A selection of documentary evidence relating to the Armenian Atrocities from German and other sources
London. J. J. KELIHER & CO., Ltd. 1917.




A perusal of the documents included in this collection must convince the reader of three things: (1) that the Germans in Armenia are as full of indignation, and as anxious to see a stop put to the methods of extermination applied by the Turkish Government, as the most ardent friends of the Armenian cause in this country; (2) that, owing to the wilful or reckless perversion of the facts in the German press and the German pamphlet-literature, and owing also to the indifference and credulity of the general German public, the true state of things is unknown or ignored by the majority; (3) that the German Government could have stopped the outrages if they had desired to do so and that their non-interference was not in any way due to ignorance of the true facts.
One very interesting document which has come to the Editor’s notice is of too confidential a nature to be reproduced in this place. It is a Memorandum written by a distinguished German scholar, whose name for obvious reasons has to be suppressed, but whose good faith and whose critical acumen would be acknowledged by every one of his countrymen whose powers of judgment have not been perverted by the passion of war. This Memorandum contains ample evidence of the fact referred to above, that in consequence of the misstatements or suppressions of fact of which German writers on the subject have been guilty, public opinion in Germany has entirely failed to realise the horrors of the Armenian situation, and that some influential persons even approve of the action of the Turkish authorities. The old legend about the unscrupulousness of the Armenian traders and their exploitation of Turkish innocence and trustfulness—of which the groundlessness is convincingly demonstrated by the author of the Memorandum—seems to be firmly believed throughout Germany, and is made use of by those German politicians and journalists who approve cruelty, provided only it serves the cause of German world-dominion. Thus Count Reventlow in a passage quoted in the Memorandum refers to these matters in the following terms: “The Turk is unsuspicious and good-natured; everywhere he furnishes a convenient object for exploitation—up to a certain point and to a certain degree; then despair seizes him and he rises against his tormentors. Regrettable as such unlawful self-defence may be from the point of view of civilisation, it is obvious that the Armenians ... least of all deserve the pity and the compassionate emotions of the civilized world.”