The Turks and Europe

by Gaston Gaillard

Tahsin Pasha, Governor of Van, was replaced by Jevdet Bey, Enver’s brother-in-law, and Khalil Pasha, another relation of Enver, had command of the Turkish troops in the Urmia area. Talaat sent Mustafa Khalil, his brother-in-law, to Bitlis.

The revolutionary manœuvres of the Armenians and the repressive measures of the Turks, with their mutual repercussions, could not but quicken the old feuds; so the outcome was a wretched one for both parties.

One cannot wonder that under such conditions continuous conflicts arose between the two elements of the population, that reprisals followed reprisals on either side, first after the Turco-Russian war, again after the events of 1895-96, then in the course of the Adana conflict, during the Balkan war, and finally during the late war. But it is impossible to trust the information according to which the number of the Armenians slaughtered by the Turks rose to over 800,000 and in which no mention is made of any Turks massacred by the Armenians. These figures are obviously exaggerated,[37] since the Armenian population, which only numbered about 2,300,000 souls before the war throughout the Turkish Empire, did not exceed 1,300,000 in the eastern provinces, and the Armenians now declare they are still numerous enough to make up a State. According to Armenian estimates there were about 4,160,000 Armenians in all in 1914—viz., 2,380,000 in the Ottoman Empire, 1,500,000 in Russia, 64,000 in the provinces of the Persian Shah and in foreign colonies, and about 8,000 in Cyprus, the isles of the Archipelago, Greece, Italy, and Western Europe.

The best answer to the eager and ever-recurring complaints made by the Armenians or at their instigation is to refer the reader to a report entitled “Statistics of the Bitlis and Van Provinces” drawn up by General Mayewsky, who was Russian consul first at Erzerum for six years and later on at Van, and in this capacity represented a Power that had always showed much hostility to Turkey. It was said in it:

“All the statements of the publicists, which represent the Kurds as doing their best to exterminate the Armenians, must be altogether rejected. If they were reliable, no individual belonging to an alien race could have ever lived in the midst of the Kurds, and the various peoples living among them would have been obliged to emigrate bodily for want of bread, or to become their slaves. Now nothing of the kind has occurred. On the contrary, all those who know the eastern provinces state that in those countries the Christian villages are at any rate more prosperous than those of the Kurds. If the Kurds were only murderers and thieves, as is often said in Europe, the prosperous state of the Armenians till 1895 would have been utterly impossible. So the distress of the Armenians in Turkey till 1895 is a mere legend. The condition of the Turkish Armenians was no worse than that of the Armenians living in other countries.

“The complaints according to which the condition of the Armenians in Turkey is represented as unbearable do not refer to the inhabitants of the towns, for the latter have always been free and enjoyed privileges in every respect. As to the peasants, owing to their perfect knowledge of farmwork and irrigation, their condition was far superior to that of the peasants in Central Russia.

“As to the Armenian clergy, they make no attempt to teach religion; but they have striven hard to spread national ideas. Within the precincts of mysterious convents, the teaching of hatred of the Turk has replaced devotional observances. The schools and seminaries eagerly second the religious leaders.”

After the collapse of Russia, the Armenians, Georgians, and Tatars formed a Transcaucasian Republic which was to be short-lived, and we have dealt in another book with the attempt made by these three States together to safeguard their independence.[38]

The Soviet Government issued a decree on January 13, 1918, stipulating in Article 1 “the evacuation of Armenia by the Russian troops, and the immediate organisation of an Armenian militia in order to safeguard the personal and material security of the inhabitants of Turkish Armenia,” and in Article 4, “the establishment of a provisional Armenian Government in Turkish Armenia consisting of delegates of the Armenian people elected according to democratic principles,” which obviously could not satisfy the Armenians.