The Armenians are essentially an Oriental people, preserving like the Jews whom they resemble in their exclusiveness and widespread dispersion, a remarkable tenacity of race and faculty of adaptation to circumstances. They are frugal, sober, industrious and intelligent, and their sturdiness of character has enabled them to preserve their nationality and religion under the sorest trials. They are strongly attached to old manners and customs, but have also a real desire for progress which is full of promise. On the other hand they are greedy of gain, quarrelsome in small matters, self-seeking and wanting in stability, and they are gifted with a tendency to exaggeration and a love of intrigue, which has had an unfortunate influence on their history.
They are deeply separated by religious differences, and their mutual jealousies, their inordinate vanity, their versatility and their cosmopolitan character must always be an obstacle to the realization of the dreams of the nationalists.
Lord Salisbury, in a letter to Sir Henry Layard, British Ambassador at Constantinople, dated May 30th, 1878, gives expression to the following opinion:
Asiatic Turkey contains a population of many different races and creeds, possessing no capacity for self-government and no aspiration for independence, but owing their tranquillity and whatever prospect of political well-being they possess entirely to the rule of the Sultan.
This letter confirms the contention that at that time there was no real demand for independence.
Mr. Grattan Geary, in “Through Asiatic Turkey,” says:
A few of the more educated Armenians hope to secure in some way the autonomy of the country in which they by no means form the majority of the population. Whether they could keep the Mussulman majority of the population in order we need not inquire; granting that a flock of doves could, if well organized and assured of diplomatic support from distant eagles, keep a much larger number of hawks in subjection, the fact remains that even the Armenians, by far the most capable and the most numerous of the Christian races in Asiatic Turkey, have no aspiration for anything further than a provisional autonomy. They do not regard themselves as the heirs of the Empire, and never in their wildest flights think of superseding the Osmanlis, and themselves welding the Empire together for the common good. The only race among them all which has any real desire to govern, is the Turkish. The others either desire, like the Kurds and the Arabs, to be simply freed from the shackles of government altogether, so that they may pillage in peace; or, like the Christians, to be protected from without, or at most to acquire a local predominance. If we want to find an Oriental equivalent for patriotism or love of country, in Asiatic Turkey, we need look for it in the Turkish section of the population alone ...
The autonomy of the Asiatic provinces is out of the question. How could Mesopotamia or Kurdistan become autonomous? The Arabs and the Kurds are too “autonomous” already, and the first thing to be done with them is to place them under a regime of well-armed police. Asia Minor is Turkish and does not ask for Autonomy. The elements of self-government do not exist in Armenia. The Armenian Christians are the minority of the population and are deficient in the military virtues; they could not hold their own against the warlike Kurds.
These words of Mr. Geary are the more interesting as they so closely resemble the opinion expressed by Lord Salisbury in his letter quoted above.
‘Odysseus,’ in his “Turkey in Europe,” says: