WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OTTOMAN ARMENIANS? (I)

Professor Nursen MAZICI
ISTANBUL - TDN Guest Writer

One of the basic aims of the social sciences is to try to solve the contradictory issues and problems between people, groups, communities and societies, and their political and social systems. The problems must be fixed objectively and according to cause and effect. The other necessity during scientific research is to avoid making propaganda and invoking the wrath of one group against another. In addition, researchers should not attempt to persuade others relating to their political beliefs. While studying the political history of the world, which has consisted of many wars that have caused the loss of uncountable human lives, the documents one must depend on are primary resources rather than secondary ones. Another important step in scientific research is to use the terms, notions and concepts related to the topic in the correct form.
In this context, since 1965 there has been an unfounded allegation that genocide was carried out against 1,500,000 Armenians by the Ottoman government in 1915 during World War I. First of all, it should be remembered what kind of position the Ottoman Armenians had before and during the war.
In addition, although nearly 25 million people, including Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Britons, French, Germans and Russians, died during World War I, what distinguished the Armenians' deaths, which have been discussed for nearly 41 years, is the subject of this paper.

Ottoman Armenians organizations before the war:
After living together in peace with Turks for more than 850 years, the Ottoman Armenians were encouraged to rebel against the Ottoman state by imperialist England, France and Russia, which aimed to divide and share the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th century.
Professor Langer, a diplomatic historian from Harvard University, explained how the Ottoman Armenians organized at Istanbul, Trabzon, Van, Harput, Izmir and Aleppo against the Ottoman Empire to work toward its collapse and create an independent Armenian state. Thus the Hunchak Armenian bands and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) secretly arranged revolutionary bands that could fight the government and “terrorize government officials, traitors and usurers and all kinds of exploiters” during the 1890s. [1] One of the revolutionary Armenians told Dr. Hamlin, [2] who was the founder of Robert College in Istanbul, that the Hunchak Armenian bands would:
… watch their opportunity to kill Turks and Kurds, set fire to their villages and then make their escape into the mountains. The enraged Muslims will then rise, and fall upon the defenseless Armenians and slaughter them with such barbarity that Russia will enter in the name of humanity and Christian civilization and take possession. [3]
Dr. Hamlin was shocked. He told the revolutionary that the scheme was atrocious and infernal beyond anything ever known, and he got this reply:
It appears so to you, no doubt; but we Armenians have determined to be free. Europe listened to Bulgarian horrors and made Bulgaria free. She will listen to our cry when it goes up in the shrieks and blood of millions of women and children … We are desperate. We will do it. [4]
Therefore, the Hunchak Armenians decided that social organization in the Ottoman Empire could be shifted by violence against Turks. They explained how to terrify the Ottoman government. To achieve it, their methods included “propaganda, agitation, terror organization and peasant and worker activities” led by guerrilla bands. [5] For example, the Hunchak Armenians arranged a demonstration of Bab-i Ali (the Sublime Porte), which caused much bloodshed on Sep. 18-30, 1895 in Istanbul. [6] Similarly, on Aug. 26, 1896, members of the ARF bombed the Imperial Ottoman Bank in Istanbul in an event similar to the Sept. 11, 2001 Al Qaeda ????? attack against the United States. The event at the Imperial Ottoman Bank caused an uprising by Muslims in which more than 900 Armenians and 700 Muslims died in Istanbul. Hayik Tiryakian, who was one of the people who bombed the bank, spoke about the attack:
…6 people were sufficient to begin the operation. We set out, with sack[s] full of bombs on our shoulders and guns in our hands. … The bombs were giving incredible results; they did not kill [the staff of the bank and the people around the bank] instantly, but tore their flesh apart, and made them writhe with pain and agony. We went with Garo to the president's office and wrote down our conditions. We demanded that the Powers [referring to England, France and Russia] fulfill our requests, that those who took part in this confrontation be freed; if not, we would blow up the bank along with ourselves … 3 had died, 6 of our friends were wounded. Our enemies' casualties [implying Turks] were also heavy. [7]

Footnotes:
[1] William L. Langer, “The Diplomacy of Imperialism 1890-1902” Volume 1, New York & London Alfred. A. Knopf 1935, p.155
[2] Dr. Cyrus Hamlin was one of American missionaries in the late term of the Ottoman Empire. So he had good friendship with Armenians as well as Turks.
[3] Langer, op.cit., p.157
[4] ibid, p.158
[5] Louise Nalbandian, The Armenian Revolutionary Movement, University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967 pp.110-111
[6] ibid, p.122
[7] Kamuran Gürün, “The Armenian File The Myth of Innocence Exposed,” K.Rustem& Bro.and Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd. London. Nicosia. Istanbul 1985, p.158 quoted from Vartanian's book “History of Dasnaksutyun” pp.160-163