Talaat’s attitude toward the Armenians was summed up in the proud boast which he made to his friends: “I have accomplished more toward solving the Armenian problem in three months than Abdul Hamid accomplished in thirty years!”
CHAPTER XXVI
ENVER PASHA DISCUSSES THE ARMENIANS
All this time I was bringing pressure upon Enver also. The Minister of War, as I have already indicated, was a different type of man from Talaat. He concealed his real feelings much more successfully; he was usually suave, cold-blooded, and scrupulously polite. And at first he was by no means so callous as Talaat in discussing the Armenians. He dismissed the early stories as wild exaggerations, declared that the troubles at Van were merely ordinary warfare, and attempted to quiet my fears that the wholesale annihilation of the Armenians had been decided on. Yet all the time that Enver was attempting to deceive me he was making open admissions to other people—a fact of which I was aware. In particular, he made no attempt to conceal the real situation from Dr. Lepsius, a representative of German missionary interests. Dr. Lepsius was a high-minded Christian gentleman. He had been all through the Armenian massacres of 1895, and he had raised considerable sums of money to build orphanages for Armenian children who had lost their parents at that time. He came again in 1915 to investigate the Armenian situation on behalf of German missionary interests. He asked for the privilege of inspecting the reports of American Consuls, and I granted it. These documents, supplemented by other information which Dr. Lepsius derived largely from German missionaries in the interior, left no doubt in his mind as to the policy of the Turks. His feelings were aroused chiefly against his own Government. He expressed to me the humiliation which he felt, as a German, that the Turks should deliberately set about to exterminate their Christian subjects while Germany, ostensibly a Christian country, was making no endeavours to prevent it. To him Enver scarcely concealed the official purpose. Dr. Lepsius was simply staggered by his frankness, for Enver told him in so many words that they at last had an opportunity to rid themselves of the Armenians and that they proposed to use it.
By this time Enver had become more frank with me—the circumstantial reports which I possessed made it useless for him to attempt to conceal the true situation further—and we had many long and animated discussions on the subject. One of these I recall with particular vividness. I notified Enver that I intended to take up the matter in detail, and he laid aside enough time to go over the whole situation.
“The Armenians had a fair warning,” Enver began, “of what would happen to them in case they joined our enemies. Three months ago I sent for the Armenian Patriarch and told him that if the Armenians attempted to start a revolution, or to assist the Russians, I would be unable to prevent mischief from happening to them. My warning produced no effect, and the Armenians started a revolution and helped the Russians. You know what happened at Van. They obtained control of the city, used bombs against Government buildings, and killed a large number of Moslems. We knew that they were planning uprisings in other places. You must understand that we are now fighting for our lives at the Dardanelles, and that we are sacrificing thousands of men. While we are engaged in such a struggle as this we cannot permit people in our own country to attack us in the back. We have got to prevent this, no matter what means we have to resort to. It is absolutely true that I am not opposed to the Armenians as a people. I have the greatest admiration for their intelligence and industry, and I should like nothing better than to see them become a real part of our nation. But if they ally themselves with our enemies, as they did in the Van district, they will have to be destroyed. I have taken pains to see that no injustice is done; only recently I gave orders to have three Armenians who had been deported returned to their homes when I found that they were innocent. Russia, France, Great Britain and America are doing the Armenians no kindness by sympathising with and encouraging them. I know what such encouragement means to a people who are inclined to revolution. When our Union and Progress Party attacked Abdul Hamid we received all our moral encouragement from the outside world. This encouragement was of great help to us and had much to do with our success. It might similarly now help the Armenians and their revolutionary programme. I am sure that if these outside countries did not encourage them they would give up their efforts to oppose the present Government and become law-abiding citizens. We now have this country in our absolute control, and we can easily revenge ourselves on any revolutionists.”
“After all,” I said, “suppose what you say is true, why not punish the guilty? Why sacrifice a whole race for the alleged crimes of individuals?”
“Your point is all right during peace times,” replied Enver. “We can then use Platonic means to quiet Armenians and Greeks; but in time of war we cannot investigate and negotiate. We must act promptly and with determination. I also think that the Armenians are making a mistake in depending upon the Russians. The Russians really would rather see them killed than alive. They are as great a danger to the Russians as they are to us. If they should form an independent government in Turkey, the Armenians in Russia would attempt to form an independent government there. The Armenians have also been guilty of massacres. In the entire district around Van only 30,000 Turks escaped; all the rest were murdered by the Armenians and Kurds. I attempted to protect the non-combatants at the Caucasus; I gave orders that they should not be injured, but I found that, the situation was beyond my control. There are about 70,000 Armenians in Constantinople, and they will not be molested, except those who are Dashnaguists and those who are plotting against the Turks. However, I think you can ease your mind on the whole subject, as there will be no more massacres of Armenians.”
I did not take seriously Enver’s concluding statement. At the time that he was speaking massacres and deportations were taking place all over the Armenian provinces, and they went on almost without interruption for several months.
As soon as the reports reached the United States the question of relief became a pressing one. In the latter part of July I heard that there were 5,000 Armenians from Zeitoun and Sultanie who were receiving no food whatever. I spoke about them to Enver, who positively declared that they would receive proper food. He did not receive favourably any suggestion that American representatives should go to that part of the country and assist and care for the exiles.
“For any American to do this,” he said, “would encourage all Armenians and make further trouble. There are about 28,000,000 people in Turkey, and 1,000,000 Armenians, and we do not propose to have 1,000,000 disturb the peace of the rest of the population. The great trouble with the Armenians is that they are separatists. They are determined to have a kingdom of their own, and they have allowed themselves to be fooled by the Russians. Because they have relied upon the friendship of the Russians they have helped them in this war. We are determined that they behave just as Turks do. You must remember that when we started this revolution in Turkey there were only 200 of us. With these few followers we were able to deceive the Sultan and the public, who thought that we were immensely more numerous and powerful than we were. We really prevailed upon him and the public through our sheer audacity, and in this way established the Constitution. It is our own experience at revolution which makes us fear the Armenians. If 200 Turks could overturn the Government, then a few hundred bright, educated Armenians could do the same thing. We have therefore deliberately adopted the plan of scattering them so that they can do us no harm. As I told you once before, I warned the Armenian Patriarch that if the Armenians attacked us while we were engaged in a foreign war we Turks would hit back, and that we should hit back indiscriminately.”