The Armenian Genocide

1. The historian Fuat Dundar has just exhumed, from the Archives of the prime minister in Istanbul, ethnographic maps and censuses carried out just before or during the First World War. Previously, we knew of their existence only from accounts by those who had seen them (see especially the report of the German diplomat H. Mordtmann, infra, p. 626, n. 7). These maps and censuses were put to use in the effort to modify the demographic make-up of certain regions and eradicate certain populations in order to replace them with others: Fuat Dundar, “La dimension ingénierie de la Turcisation de l’Anatolie: Les cartes ethnographiques et les recensements,” paper presented at a conference in Salzburg, 14–17 April 2005.

2. Raymond Kévorkian, L’Extermination des déportés arméniens ottomans dans les camps de concentration de Syrie-Mésopotamie (1915–1916), la Deuxième phase du génocide, RHAC II (1998

3. M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, The Young Turks in Opposition, Oxford University Press 1995; M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902–1908, Oxford University Press 2001.

4. Krieger,

[Documentary History of the Massacre of the Armenians of Yozgat], New York 1980.

5. Vahakn Dadrian, Histoire du génocide arménien, Paris 1996; Vahakn Dadrian, “The Naïm-Andonian Documents on the World War One Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians – The Anatomy of a Genocide,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 18:3, pp. 311–60 (1986); Vahakn Dadrian, “The Role of Turkish Physicians in the World War I Genocide of the Armenians,” Holocaust & Genocide Studies, vol. 1:2, pp. 169–92 (1986); Vahakn Dadrian, “The Role of the Special Organization in the Armenian Genocide during the First World War,” in Minorities in Wartime, P. Panayi (éd.), Oxford 1993; Vahakn Dadrian, “Documentation of the Armenian Genocide in German and Austrian Sources,” in The Widening Circle of Genocide, I. Charny (ed.), New Brunswick, NJ, 1994; The Armenian Genocide in Official Turkish Sources. Collected Essays, special issue of Journal of Political and Military Sociology, 1995; Vahakn Dadrian,

[The Armenian Genocide in Parlementary and Historiographical Sources], Watertown 1995.

6. Erik J. Zürcher, The Unionist Factor: The Rôle of the Committee of Union and Progress in the Turkish National Movement, 1905–1926, Leiden 1984; Erik J. Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, London and New York 1999.

7. Cf. Takvim-ı Vakayi, no 2611, 28 July 1916, pp. 1–5, text of the decree modifying the internal Constitution of the millet. The circumstances surrounding this dissolution are explained at length below, pp. 850–851.

8. Public Record Office, FO 371/4174, n° 118377, letter from High Commissioner Calthorpe to Lord Curzon, 1 August 1919. See infra, pp. 801, etc., on the activities of this committee.

10. Ibidem, pp. 301–2 at 304. Not until the session of 17/30 August 1919 did the Political Council decide to put the Bureau under its direct authority.

11. Reports prepared by the Bureau were often published in the French-language daily The Renaissance, which appeared from December 1918 to spring 1920 under the direction of Garabed Nurian and Dikran Chayan, a former member of the Council of State; they were assisted by Dr. Topjian. The patriarch informs us that the Patriarchate financed publication of this newspaper (ibidem, pp. 302–3).

12. Ibidem, p. 304. Faits et documents. épisodes des massacres arméniens de Dyarbékir, Constantinople 1919; Thomas Mgrdichian,

[The Massacres in the Province of Dyarbekir], Cairo 1919; Sebuh Aguni,

[History of the Massacre of One Million Armenians], Constantinople 1920. The author, the former editor of the daily Zhamanag, was the first to publish a global study of the massacres, basing his work “on a large number of documents at the Patriarchate’s disposal.”

13. On the formation of the commission of inquiry, see Taner Akçam, Insan Haklari ve Ermeni Sorunu, Ankara 1999, pp. 445–6.

14. On 5 March 1919, the Council of Ministers nevertheless examined a report by Sâmi Bey that suggested abolishing the provincial courts martial and bringing all the cases involving the massacres and deportations before an exclusively military (rather than a mixed) court-martial based in Constantinople (La Renaissance, no. 82, 7 March 1919).

15. Zaven Der Yéghiayan, Memoirs, op. cit., p. 303. These archives are still there today. They were “rediscovered” by Krieger in the 1960s, microfilmed, and then classified in some fifty boxes.

Part I Young Turks and Armenians Intertwined in the Opposition (1895–1908)

2. Dr. Çerkez Mehmed Reşit Bey (1872–1919), vali of Dyarbekir in 1915. We shall later have occasion to observe his impressive resolve to liquidate the Armenians of his vilayet.

3. Stephan H. Astourian, “Sur la formation de l’identité turque moderne et le génocide arménien: du préjugé au nationalisme moderne,” acte du colloque L’Actualité du génocide des Arméniens, Paris 1999, pp. 35–7.

4. Sêlanikli Nâzım (c. 1870–1926), a physician trained in the Military Medical School in Constantinople, an emblematic figure of the Committee of Union and Progress from 1905 to 1922 and, as we shall see, one of the main organizers of the eradication of the Armenians. On his presence in Paris, see Hanioğlu, The Young Turks in Opposition, op. cit., p. 74.

5. Ahmed Agayev (1869–1939) became one of the ideologues of Turkish nationalism and an eminent member of the CUP’s Central Committee; as such, he was arrested and deported to Malta by the British in 1919. A leader of the Social Democratic Hnchak Party, Stepanos Sapah-Giulian, often met with Agayev during his stay in Paris: see Stepanos Sapah-Giulian,

[The Responsibles], Providence 1916, p. 134.

6. S. Sapah-Giulian (1861, Shahuk [Nakhichevan]–1928, New York) was educated in Tiflis, where he joined the SDHP; banished by the Czarist police, he fled to Paris, where he attended the Institute of Political Science as a student of Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu’s: Sapah-Giulian, The Responsibles, op. cit., p. 151.

7. This plan, which was made public on 11 May, had been prepared by the ambassadors of the powers stationed in Constantinople on the basis of Article 61 of the 1878 Treaty of Berlin, which provided for limited autonomy for the eastern vilayets inhabited by Armenians.

10. Sapah-Giulian, The Responsibles, op. cit., p. 145. Nubar granted the SDHP an annual subsidy of 300 pounds sterling to help finance publication of its newspapers.

The fall 1895 massacres were aimed, first and foremost, at the Armenian population of the six eastern vilayets. They were launched in October, at the very moment that the sultan was signing (on 17 October) the reform plan of “11 May” after several months of resistance to it. The correlation reform-massacre did not go unnoticed by the diplomats stationed in the empire; it constituted a challenge for the Young Turks, who were seeking at the time to create a unified organization against Abdülhamid around the themes of union and order.

13. Ahmed Rıza, “Chrétien, musulman et humanité,” Mechveret, I/11, 15 May 1896, p. 3.

14. Ahmed Rıza, “Atrocités contre les chrétiens,” Mechveret, I/14, 1 July 1896, p. 4.

16. On 1 October 1895, the Hnchaks had organized a demonstration in front of the Sublime Porte before presenting it with a petition bearing on the Sasun massacres the dismal plight of the survivors. Four thousand people participated in this peaceful march, which the organizers had announced to the authorities beforehand. The police, little accustomed to this type of protest – Dadrian points out that it was the first of its kind in the empire – stepped in; it was soon followed by the Muslim population. A general massacre was organized in all the neighborhoods of the capital in which Armenians lived. Istanbul’s 40 Armenian churches were filled with refugees for two weeks, until the Palace issued the order to bring the manhunt for Armenians to a halt: V. Dadrian, Histoire du génocide arménien, Paris 1996, pp. 216–18, provides a general view of these events based on reports by European diplomats stationed in the capital.

17. Ibidem, p. 151. The scholar did sound out the French minister of foreign affairs, Hanoteaux, before agreeing to speak. Notwithstanding the negative response he received from Hanoteaux, who suggested that his participation in the debte might perturb the negotiations then underway, Leroy-Beaulieu decided to throw himself into the battle.

19. Ibidem, p. 163. In his memoirs, Sapah-Giulian affirms that he felt at the time that Rıza needed them and was no longer treating them with the scorn he usually reserved for them.

20. Dadrian [1996], pp. 245–65, summarizes the events and provides a good overview of the sources available on both the act and its conseq

25. Hanioğlu, The Young Turks in Opposition, op. cit., pp. 79–81. Murad Bey Mizanci (1853–1912), was a Turkish speaker from the Caucasus, born in Tiflis. The editorial board reacted positively to Murad Bey’s call for union with the Armenian revolutionary committees, launched in the first issue of the Mizan published in Cairo. It appreciated, in particular, his clear condemnation of the largescale massacres organized by the sultan: “

[Open letter to Murad Bey],” Hnchak, no. 4, 29 February 1896, pp. 25–7.

26. Hanioğlu, The Young Turks in Opposition, op. cit., pp. 83–4. In the empire, branches of the CUP were created, notably, in the towns to which the Young Turks had been exiled, such as Angora, Kastamonu and Mamuret ul-Azîz; they were also created in garrison towns, such as Erzerum, where the Local Committee established relations with the Armenian organizations. In March 1897, Setrak Pastermajian was arrested because he had received a sum of money from Europe and distributed it to members of the Erzerum CUP: ibidem., p. 87.

27. Mikayèl Varantian,

[History of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation], II, Cairo 1950, p. 2, points out that in Geneva, where he himself was living in 1896, Tunali Hilmi and his Young Turk friends often visited Droschak’s editorial offices, adding that after the attack on the Banque Ottomane, Ahmed Rıza came to see them in order to suggest that they join his struggle against the sultan, on condition that they renounce both the reforms provided for by Article 61 of the Treaty of Berlin and also revolutionary methods.

29. A branch created in Salonika in 1897 provided the occasion for Talât Bey’s first appearance on the historical stage; Talât was corresponding with Ahmed Rıza in 1902. From 1897 to 1906, the branch failed to function properly: ibidem, p. 88.

31. Ibidem, pp. 100, 110. It was not until 1898 that Rıza again assumed leadership of the committee, with the support, as in the past, of Dr. Nâzım.

32. Ibidem, p. 102. The local opposition movement, which was almost entirely under the control of the ulema led by Hoca Muheddin, was in favor of the revolution because it would make it possible to spread Islam and preach “the word of God”; this movement finally became part of the CUP’s Egyptian branch on the condition that the CUP stop recruiting Christian members and defend a political line based on unifying the Muslim elements of the Ottoman Empire.

34. Ibidem, p. 128. Rıza succeeded in persuading the ulema of al-Azhar to represent all the branches of the CUP: had Rıza convinced the ulemas that he represented the whole movement, a move that testified to his new approach. Dr. Nâzım, his confidant, notes that Rıza was suspicious of non-Turks, whom he considered unreliable (ibidem., p. 136).

35. Diran Kelekian (1862, Kayseri–1915, near Sıvas), initially a Hnchak activist, joined the Young Turk movement after 1896, during his stays in London and Paris; he was part of the group that returned with Mizanci Murad; it was at this point that he drew closer to Ahmed Celâleddin, the chief of the intelligence service (Droschak, supplement of 40 pp. of 15 April, 15 July, 15 November to15 December 1899, p. 35; Droschak, no. 9/89, 30 September 1898, “Lettre de Constantinople, 1/13 octobre 1898”; editor-in-chief of the famous daily Sapah (1897–1899 and 1909–1915). During his exile in Cairo, he headed the political section of Journal du Caire (1904–1909). Close to certain Ottoman court circles, he helped Bahaeddin Şakir organize the CUP in 1905–1906. He was deported in April 1915 (A. Alboyadjian,

[History of Armenian Caesaria], II, Cairo 1937, pp. 2071–4).

37. “

[Young Turkey],” in Droschak, Organe de la Fédération Révolutionnaire Arménienne, no. 4/84, 30 April 1898, pp. 42–3.

38. “

( [First Step],” in Droschak, no. 6/86, 30 June 1898, pp. 59–60, points out that Mechveret, “which, only a few months ago, was quite unreservedly attacking the Armenians and Bulgarians,” had itself called for solidarity among all those opposed to the Hamidian regime.

39. “

. [Political Tragedy or Farce?],” in Droschak, no. 4/95, 30 April 1899, pp. 50–1. In the section containing general information, p. 56, the editors point out that the local Armenian communities organized many meetings just before the conference, notably in Bulgaria, in order to vote on a memorandum to be sent to the president of the conference; they note that, at these meetings, Minas Tchéraz was chosen to represent them at the conference and charged with presenting their demands; “Declaration addressed by the ARF and the Macedonian High Committee to the public opinion of the civilized world on the occasion of the Peace Conference,” in Droschak, no. 5/96, May 1899, pp. 1–2, distributed to the delegations on 3/15 June 1899.

40. Ibidem, p. 59. Another emissary, Vaghinag Ajemian, renewed the sultan’s offer on 4 February 1897 (p. 60); a third emissary, Drtad Dadian, a cousin of the first, met with the Droschak leadership in Geneva on 26 October 1897.

42. Hamit Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée dans l’Empire ottoman, 1908–1918, doctoral thesis, Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, 1992, vol. II, p. 34, note 313, points out that Tunalı Hilmi was then one of the rare Young Turk militants to advocate armed insurrection (Ş. Mardin, Jön Türklerin Siyasi Fikirleri, 1895–1908, Ankara 1964, p. 96). Thus, it is quite possible that Tunalı Hilmi was the anonymous author of the letter discussed below.

43. “Jeune Turquie,” in Droschak, no. 1/102, January 1900, p. 5, the letter of “a jeune Turk” also indicates that the Young Turk Committee had, the year before, sent a delegation to meet with Ottoman diplomats stationed abroad in order to suggest that they join the committee.

45. “

[Unity with the Turks],” in Droschak, no. 8/109, October 1900, pp. 113–16.

46. S. Sapah-Giulian, “

[Jeune Turquie],” Hnchak, no. 7, 15 December 1900, pp. 71–5; the rest of the study was published in instalments in the issues of January (pp. 2–7), February (10–13) and March (18–22) 1901.

47. S. Sapah-Giulian, “

[Jeune Turquie],” Hnchak, no. 2, 10 February 1901, p. 11.

[Documents concerning the History of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation], II, Beirut 1985, pp. 379–80, a circular distributed by the ARF’s Western Bureau, Geneva, 3/16 October 1900, announces the publication of Pro Armenia in French at the party’s expense, and asks the local committees to send in information about the situation in the provinces.

Prince Sabaheddin explained, in the call convening this congress:

Given that it is all the Ottomans whose civil rights will continue to be denied if the current situation persists, it is imperative that all the elements of the Ottoman world succeed, on behalf of the communities they represent, in forging a general union of their forces.

The call is reprinted in Y. H. Bayur, Türk Ënkilabı Tarihi, IV, Ankara 1966, p. 294, cited in Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit. I, note 871, p. 223.

52. Sapah-Giulian, The Responsibles, op. cit., p. 182. The SDHP kept its distance from the Young Turk movement until 1906.

53. Report by the Armenian delegation: “

[The Congress of the Ottoman Liberals],” Droschak, no. 2/12, February 1902, pp. 23–6; Mikayel Varantian,

[History of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation], II, Cairo 1950, p. 2.

54. Minas Tchéraz (1852, Constantinople-1929, Paris), member of the Armenian delegation that sought to participate in the Congress of Berlin in 1878; exiled in London in 1889, he published the newspaper Arménie in French; after settling in Paris in 1898, he published the same periodical there until 1906. He returned to Istanbul in 1908: Haykakan Hanragitaran, IX, Yerevan 1983, p. 11.

55. Garabed Basmajian (1864, Constantinople–1942, Paris), physician, pharmacist and philologist who published the newspaper Panaser in Paris from 1899 to 1907: Haykakan Hanragitaran, II, Yerevan, 1976, pp. 304–5.

56. Arshag Chobanian (1872, Constantinople–1954, Paris), writer and publisher exiled to Paris in 1895 (Haykakan Hanragitaran, IX, Yerevan, 1983, pp. 59–60). Since he was close to Hnchaks who left the party in September 1896 to found the Verakazmial Hnchak Party, it may be assumed that he represented this party at the congress.

59. İsmail Hakkı (1889–1948): E. Zürcher, The Unionist Factor, Leyde 1984, p. 78.

60. Editor of Muvazene (Geneva), Pan-Turk propagandist who was in Afghanistan in 1908: Zürcher, op. cit., p. 74.

63. Ibidem, pp. 193–4, and the joint report of the ARF and Verakazmial Hnchak, “

[The Congress of Ottoman Liberals],” Droschak, no. 2/122, February 1902, p. 25.

64. Ibidem, p. 155: at a meeting held in the wings of the Congress, Hüseyin Tosun, Ismaïl Hakkı, Hoca Kadri, Şeyh Şevki Celâleddin, Çerkez Kemal, Dr Lütfi, Mustafa Hamdi, Dr Nâzım, Yusuf Akçura, Ali Fehmi, Halil Ganim, Ahmed Rıza, Ali Fahri, Mahir Said, Babanzâde Hikmet, Celâleddin Rıza, Zeki, Yaşar Sadık Erebera, Derviş Hima, decided, in Mechveret’s editorial offices, to publish a four-point program reaffirming the legitimacy of the Imperial Ottoman family, to remain faithful to it, and the need to exalt Islam, Muslim civilization and the Muslim tradition of protecting other religions.

65. Ibidem, p. 195; Mikayel Varantian,

[History of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation], II, Le Caire 1950, p. 2, confirms that the agreement did not come about, although the Armenian representatives accepted the principle of the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire, noting that Rıza denied the existence of an Armenian Question and would not even discuss foreign intervention.

66. Hanioğlu, The Young Turks in Opposition, op. cit., pp. 195–6: Sabaheddin, İsmail Kemal, Ali Haydar Midhat, İsmail Hakkı, Hüseyin Siyret, Musurus Ghikis and Georges Fardis were elected. A compromise was worked out later, and an Armenian member was chosen to replace Siyret Bey.

67. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902–1908, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 13.

68. Ibidem, p. 14, 28. For example, Dr. Mehmed Nâzım, an eminent member of the minority, sharply criticized the replacement, under pressure from the great powers, of the valis of Aleppo and, thereafter, of Dyarbekir, “for persecuting the Christians and committing atrocities against them.”

69. Ibidem, chap. 2, note 90; Droschak, no. 3/123, March 1902, pp. 37–8, announces, somewhat emotionally, the death, in San Remo, of Dr. İshak Sükutî, a Kurd born in Dyarbekir who founded the original nucleus of the CUP; Droschak, no. 5/136, May 1903, p. 75, comments with interest on articles published in the newspaper Fédération Ottomane, which was published in Geneva under the aegis of the majority.

70.

“

[The Antagonism between Young Turkey and Young Armenia],” Hnchak, no. 2, 1 May 1902, pp. 11–14.

72. Hnchak, no. 2, 1 May 1902, pp. 1–3, announces an accord that led to the reunification of the Hnchak party and Verakazmial Hnchaks in May 1902, after a rupture lasting six years.

73. Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, op. cit., p. 33. Two non-Turks in the minority, Khalil Ghanim and Albert Fuad, were excluded from it.

74. N° 1, April 1902, pp. 1–2, cited in Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, op. cit., p. 34.

75. Ibidem, p. 39. Şûra-yı Ümmet valorized nationalism and made increasingly frequent use of the term “Turk,” which now came to replace “Ottoman” (p. 40).

78. The subject is vast. It has been discussed by, notaby, Akaby Nasibian, Britain and the Armenian Question, 1915–1923, London 1984, and Edmond Khayadjian, Archag Tchobanian et le mouvement arménophile en France, Marseille 1986.

79. Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, op. cit., p. 46;

[Documents concerning the History of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation], IV, Beirut 1985, p. 95, Dr. Jean Loris-Melikov, elected a member of the ARF’s Western Bureau at the party’s Third Congress, responsible for propaganda in Europe, ARF representative at the London Conference, also reports this incident and notes that the French, Italian, and British delegates were shocked by the tenor of the Young Turk leader’s remarks.

80. Ibidem, p. 47. The author points out, p. 48, that until 1906, the Young Turks in the coalition struggled to enlist European public opinion in their cause; thereafter, they abandoned the effort.

81. Ali Kemal (1867–1922), a teacher and journalist, joined the opposition to the Unionist regime after the 1908 revolution. Accused of collaborating with the enemy after the Mudros armistice, he was lynched by the Kemalists: Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit. II, p. 133.

84. Ibidem, p. 67. According to the author, the manifesto sought to propagate his nationalism among Turks living outside the Ottoman Empire; he himself was descended of a Turkish family from abroad. It is also noteworthy that he employs the term “ırk” in the in Türk to designate all ethnic Turks as a whole, irrespective of their religion.

87. Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, op. cit., pp. 67–8, notes that one of the editors of Türk, Ahmed Ferid, confessed that “the term ‘Ottoman’ is an expression which has recently been given a new connotation to camouflage Turkish domination,” and that Social Darwinism was quite influential among the Tatarsde Russie.

89. H. Bozarslan, “Autour de la ‘thèse turque de l’Histoire’ ,” L’Intranquille, I (1992), pp. 121–50.

96. P. Fesch (Sabaheddin’s secretary), Constantinople aux derniers jours d’Abdulhamid, Paris 1907, p. 50; Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit., II, p. 61.

101. Ibidem, pp. 88–9 and n. 50: late in 1905, Bahaeddin Şakir approached Prince Sabaheddin, but confessed that his only objective was to obtain financial support from the prince so that he could carry out the reorganization of the CUP.

102. Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit., I, p. 219; cites the records of the Committee’s correspondence, maintained, as a rule, by Şakir and Nâzım; lengthy extracts from them are reprinted in Bayur, op. cit., p. 425; Ë. H. Danişmend, Izahlı Osmanlı Tarihi Kronolojisi, Istanbul, Türkiye Yayınları, vol. 4, 1969, p. 358: Prince Sabaheddin’s mother was a Georgian (Nâzım and Şakir cites by A. B. Kuran, Osmanlı İmperatorluğu’nda İnkilâp Hareketleri ve Millî Mücadele, Istanbul 1956, p. 40.

103. Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, op. cit., pp. 90–91, article of Bahaeddin Şakir, in Şûra-yı Ümmet, no. 114, 1 June 1907, pp. 4–6.

105. Ibidem, pp. 94–6. Despite their explicit criticisms of the Armenian Committees, the coalition and Bahaeddin Şakir sought a tactical alliance with them, in part to drive a wedge between them and Prince Sabaheddin.

106. Ibidem, p. 97; see also infra, p. 817, n. 58. A graduate of the Military Academy of Istanbul, Tosun would later become an important leader of the CUP’s Turkist faction.

107. Ibidem, p. 97, 115–17; Hüseyin Tosun traveled to the Caucasus under the pseudonym Şeikh Ali. The ARF provided him with a Russian passport, and he entered Turkey thanks to the fedayis. Abdullah Cevdet has left an account of Tosun’s role in the Erzerum revolt. He notes that Sabaheddin’s emissary initially posed as a grocer; with the help of Armenian friends, he then found employment as a deliveryman for the Russian consulate in Erzerum, a post that made it easier to distribute illegal literature. According to official sources, those responsible for the revolt came from Alevi circles; this, however, is anything but certain (see p. 115); Vahan Papazian,

[Memoirs], I, Boston 1950, pp. 280–1, confirms both that he was present in Erzerum and that the local ARF played an important role, helping him to escape, among other things.

108. Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, op. cit., pp. 104–6. The movement brought together 2,000 “Muslim and non-Muslim” demonstrators from the city and surrounding villages; taking up a position in front of the subprefect’s house, they exclaimed that his corrupt practices were responsible for their plight. The following day, the members of local guilds occupied the post office while waiting for a positive response to the telegram that they had sent the vali of Kastamonu. The leaders of the movement – notably, the head of the butchers’ guild – were exiled to various provinces.

109. Ibidem, pp. 106–7. In November 1907, new complaints at last convinced the Cabinet to banish İbrahim Pasha to Aleppo. It should be noted that Ziya Gökalp and Pirinçizâde Ârif Bey, future leaders of the CUP, took an active part in this last demonstration.

111. Ibidem, pp. 282–5; Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, op. cit., pp. 97–9.

112. Papazian, Memoirs, op. cit., I, p. 285; containing mostly articles translated from the Armenian by David Papazian.

113. Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, op. cit., pp. 99–100. Joint actions of the same sort took place in Pasinler, Khnus/Hınıs (April 1906) and Çemişgezek/Tchmechgadzak or Seghert/Siirt (see ibidem, pp. 120–1).

116. Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, op. cit., especially pp. 130–2. The author has the personal archives of Bahaeddin Şakir and Ahmed Rıza at his disposal.

117. Born in Istanbul in 1879, executed in Berlin in 1922. A member of the CUP’s Central Committee practically without interruption from 1907 to 1918, he led the Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa during the First World War. His decisive role in the eradication of the Ottoman Armenians is discussed at length below.

120. See infra, p. 816 n. 35. Even as he collaborated with the Young Turks, Kelekian maintained ties with his Hnchak friends. When, in the fall of 1904, he set out to publish an oppositional newspaper in Cairo, where he spent his second period in exile, he appealed to Yervant Odian for help (

[Correspondence]), ed. Ofelia Karapetian, Yerevan 1999, letter from Bombay, 29 October 1904, to Mikayel Giurjian, p. 196.

123. Ibidem, p. 133. Ahmed Saib was to found the Ottoman Constitutional League a few months later.

124. Ibidem, Private Papers of B. Şakir, letter from Bedri [D. Kelekian] to B. Şakir, Cairo, 9, 16, 17, 19 December 1905.

126. Ibidem, Private Papers of B. Şakir, letter from Bedri [D. Kelekian] to B. Şakir, Cairo, 9 April 1906.

127. Ibidem, p. 136, Private Papers of B. Şakir, undated memorandum, April 1906.

128. Ibidem, p. 136, n. 46. In a 12 September letter to Kelekian, Bahaeddin mentions discussions with a committee, without naming the party in question.

129. Cf. Sapah-Giulian, The Responsibles, op. cit., pp. 182–95. It should be recalled that the SDHP moved its headquarters and official organ, Hnchak, from London to Paris in June 1904 and that Sapah-Giulian took over the task of editing the newspaper: cf. Hnchak, nos 9–10–11, September– October–November 1904, p. 1.

130. Murad (pseudonym of Hampartsum Boyajian), 1867, Hajın–1915; one of the founders of the Hnchak party; the leader of the 1894 Sasun rebellion; condemned to life in prison; Hnchak, 5, May 1906, announced that he had been set free after twelve years in prison and had settled in Paris, where he was put in charge of revolutionary operations; from 1908 to 1915, deputy in the Ottoman parliament; hanged in Kayseri in June 1915: Raymond Kévorkian, IBN, Index biobibliographicus notorum hominum, Sectio Armeniaca, III, Osnabrück 1986, p. 135.

131. Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, op. cit., p. 40: during the fall 1905 events in the Caucasus, Şûra-yı Ümmet and Mechveret supplement français took a pro-Tatar, anti-Armenian position.

133. Ibidem, p. 187; from this point on, the meetings took place in a room in a café in the Paris suburb Les Lilas.

136. A renowned German geographer, author of many detailed maps of the Middle East.

140. S. Sapah-Giulian, “

[We and our critics],” Hnchak, no. 9–10, September-October 1906, pp. 91–5.

144. Ibidem, pp. 197–8. Murad’s proposal was not officially transmitted to the ARF until 16 March 1907. The ARF waited until 15 June 1907 to respond to it; it considered the proposal “premature.” It was also on Murad’s initiative that the SDHP signed, on 27 November 1907, a reunification agreement with its dissidents, who had founded the Verakazmial Hnchak party; S. Sapah-Giulian, “

[The urgent problem],” Hnchak, no. 11, novembre 1906, pp. 104–8.

145. S. Sapah-Giulian, “

[The old grievance],” Hnchak, no. 12, December 1906, pp. 114–18.

146. S. Sapah-Giulian, “

[On the Midhat Constitution],” Hnchak, nos 3–4, March–April 1907, pp. 26–36.

147.

[Documents concerning the History of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation], III, Beirut 1985, p. 198. This volume of archival documents is wholly devoted to the Fourth Congress of the ARF, held from 22 February to 4 May 1907 in Vienna, in a building belonging to the Austrian socialist party. The volume includes detailed reports delivered to congress by the leaders of the attempt to assassinate the sultan (see pp. 194–223).

148. Ibidem, pp. 194–5. The commando comprised Ellen (Kristapor Mikayelian), Safo (Martiros Margarian), Torkom, Hovnan Tavtian, Ashod Bagratuni (Ashot Yeghikian): see here.

149. A total of 18 to 20 people, counting those who provided only occasional help.

150. Ibidem, pp. 196–7. Their materiel was twice confiscated; those who carried out the trials in Bulgaria were arrested and the addresses of the members who had been slipped into Istanbul were found in their possession. During the dry runs, one of the three founders of the ARF, the head of the commando, Kristapor Mikayelian, was killed as the result of an error in the handling of the explosives.

153. K. Karabekir, İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti, 1896–1909, Neden Kuruldu? Nasıl Kuruldu? Nasıl İdare Olundu? (ed. F. and E. Özerergin), Istanbul 1982, pp. 73–4.

154. See the letter of Dr. B. Server (=Bahaeddin Şakir), 25 March 1906, in A. B. Kuran, İnkilâp Tarihimiz ve İttihat ve Terakki, Istanbul 1946, p. 197.

156. Ibidem, pp. 138–139. The grandson of the founder of modern Egypt, Mehmed Said Halim Pasha, who had also been exiled by Abdülhamid in 1905, accepted a position as inspector of the Central Committee, joining his brother Mehmed Ali Halim. The prestige of the two princes living in Cairo rapidly restored the CUP’s credibility, without disturbing the physicians settled in Paris. The creation of a real office also allowed Şakir to take control of the CUP’s correspondence, which had until then passed through the hands of Ahmed Rıza. Certain well-informed (mainly German) sources even present Mehmed Said Halim as the leader of the CUP during the First World War (ibidem., p. 140, n. 73).

157. Ibidem, p. 146. Although the CUP was not implanted in the east, Şakir tried to make potential members of the committee believe that it had powerful branches in Anatolia, “especially in Erzerum, Bitlis, Van and Trebizond” (letter from B. Şakir to Mesud Remzi, Paris, 27 November 1907 (ibidem., p. 115, n. 365). It was not until June 1907 that the official organ Şûra-yı Ümmet was brought back to Paris (ibidem., p. 183).

158. Erik J. Zürcher, The Unionist Factor: the Role of the Committee of Union and Progress in the Turkish National Movement, 1905–1926, Leiden 1984, p. 22.

159. Mehmed Talât (1874–1921), member of the first CUP in Edirne around 1895, founding member, founder of the SOL in Salonika in 1906, parliamentary deputy from Edirne, minister of the interior, grand vizier, one of the main organizers of the Armenian genocide (ibidem., p. 37 and infra, p. 815, n. 29).

160. Midhat Şukrü [Bleda] (1874–1956): then director of Salonika’s municipal hospital, thereafter parliamentary deputy from Serez (1908), Drama (1912) and Burdur (1916), member of the CUP’s Central Committee, close associate of Talât, secretary general of the CUP. After the armistice, Şukrü was given the task of destroying the CUP’s archives (Zürcher, The Unionist, op. cit., p. 38).

161. Mustafa Rahmi [Evranos], parliamentary deputy from Salonika (1908 and 1912), governor of Smyrna from 1915 to 1918 (ibidem., p. 38).

162. İsmail Canbolat (1880–1926), parliamentary deputy from Smyrna (1912), chief of police (1914), governor of Istanbul (1915) and then vali (1916), minister of the interior (1918), deported to Malta in 1919, hanged in 1926 (ibidem, p. 38).

163. Bursalı Mehmed Tahir (1861–1926), appointed director of the Military Academy of Salonika in May 1906 (ibidem, p. 38).

164. Ömer Naci (1880–1916), officer educated in Harbiye, CUP propagandist, twice elected a member of parliament, member of the Central Committee from 1910 to 1912, one of the leaders of the Special Organization in 1915–16 (ibidem, p. 35).

165. İsmail Hakkı (1889-–948), member of the CUP, undersecretary of state in the War Ministry, one of the leaders of the Special Organization (ibidem, p. 78).

167. Hüsrev Sâmi [Kızıldoğan] (1884–1942), artillery office, friend of Ömer Naci’s, renowned CUP fedayi (Zürcher, The Unionist, op. cit., p. 35).

168. Ibidem, p. 41; Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, op. cit., p. 214. Nâzım first arrived in Greece in mid-June 1907 disguised as a dervish, then went on to Macedonia disguised as a sailor.

170. Ibidem, pp. 216–17. In 1906, Talât defended the necessity of organizing the committee in the form of a Masonic lodge; “otherwise, Europe will crush the Ottomans” (cited in Karabekir, İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti, op. cit., p. 175.

171. Ibidem, p. 218. The main CUP fedayis were Abdülkadır († 1926), Ali [Çetinkaya], Atif [Kamçıl], Sarı Efe Edip, Kuşçubaşızâde Eşref [Sencer], Sapanclı Hakkı, Halil [Kut], Filibeli Hilmi, Ismitli Mümtaz, Hüsrev Sâmi [Kızıldoğan], Nuri [Conker], Kâzım [Özalp], Süleyman Askeri, Yenibahçeli Sükrü and Nail, Yakup Cemil († 1916), one of the best-known fedayis of the party (Zürcher, The Unionist, op. cit., p. 50).

173. The Potorig (“storm”) commando created in 1903 by the ARF’s Third Congress was given the mission of collecting the revolutionary tax, by threat if necessary. A few Armenians who refused to contribute were executed.

174. Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, op. cit., p. 226. Eyüb Sabri [Akgöl] (1876–-1950), one of the officers who rebelled in summer 1908, member of the CUP’s Central Committee without interruption down to 1918 (Zürcher, The Unionist, op. cit., p. 43).

175. In 1906, Mustafa Kemal founded, together with three other officers who had graduated from Harbiye, a Young Turk branch of the Vatan ve Hürriyet in Salonika: Hakkı Baha [Pars], Hüsrev Sâmi [Kızıldoğan] and İsmail Mahir (1869–1916), who joined the SOL soon after. Kemal nevertheless remained on the periphery of the party to the end of the First World War (ibidem, p. 35).

176. Ahmed Cemal (1872–1922), member of the CUP’s Central Committee, vali of Uskudar (1909), Adana (1909) and Baghdad (1911), prefect of Istanbul (1913), minister of the navy, commander of the Fourth Army (Syria-Palestine). Cemal is said to have engineered the famine that carried off thirty percent of the Lebanese population in the courses of the First World War (ibidem, p. 43).

177. Halil [Kut] (1881–1957), Enver’s uncle, organizer of the squadrons of çetes of the Special Organization, responsible for massacres in the regions of Van and Bitlis in 1915 (ibidem, p. 43).

182. Ibidem, p. 169. Kâzım Karabekir (1882–1946), Turkish army general who played an important part in the activities of the Young Turk officers in the Balkans, architect of the Turkish victory in the War of Independence, pushed to the sidelines by Mustafa Kemal after the proclamation of the Republic (Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit. II, p. 130).

185.

[Documents concerning the History of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation], III, Beirut 1985.

186. Ibidem, III, pp. 4–5. Aknuni was the representative of the Western Bureau, based in Geneva; Rostom that of the Eastern Bureau, based in Tiflis; Hovhannes/Ivan Zavriev represented the Committee of Yerevan, Arshag Vramian, the Committee of the United States. The Committee of the Lernabar (= Rshtunik-Moks) was represented by Ishkhan, Sham (= Van) by Aram Manukian, Mush-Sasun by Antranig (Ozanian) and Murad (Sepastatsi).

187. Ibidem, IV, p. 90. In his report on the work accomplished by the party since the previous congress, Dr. Jean Loris-Melikov (physician and scientist at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, nephew of the prince and general Loris-Melikov), who had been a member of the Western Bureau responsible for “managing” the newspaper Pro Armenia, criticized this “oligarchy” quite sharply.

Loris-Melikov also gave an account of his activities as a member of the delegation, created on the initiative of the catholicos, sent to petition the powers after the Sasun affair. He reviewed his discussions with the president of the Council of Ministers in Paris, facilitated by V. Berard, E. Lavisse and Destournel; with the archbishop of Canterbury and the British prime minister, facilitated by Lord Bryce; and with Roosevelt, facilitated by James Reynolds. He then turned to his participation, on the advice of Clemenceau, Jaurès and Pressense, in the Boston Peace Conference as “the elected representative of Armenia.” (ibidem, IV, pp. 96, 125).

188. Droschak, no. 5, mai 1907, Report on the decisions of the ARF’s Fourth General Congress, Geneva, 4 May, pp. 66–8, cited on p. 72.

189. Documents concerning the History of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, op. cit., III, pp. 17–20, proceedings of the eighth session, held on 26 February 1907. Ishkhan, whose real name was Nigol Mikayelian (1883–1915), born in Shushi, head of the ARF in the Lernabar district (Rshtounik/ Moks) south of Lake Van from 1902 to 1908, and in the city of Van from 1908 to 1915. Murdered in April 1915.

191. Ibidem, III, pp. 30–1, Antranig spoke at the thirteenth session of the Congress, held on 1 March 1907.

193. Ibidem, III, pp. 33–6. Described at the fifteenth session, held on 2 March 1907. The incumbent Western Bureau comprised Avetis Aharonian, Rostom (Zorian), Aknuni, Mikayel Varantian (Hovhannesian), and Jean Loris-Melikov.

194. Sarkis Minasian († 1915), born in Constantinople, journalist and teacher.

196. Ibidem, III, p. 239. Aram Manukian (1879–1919), born near Ghapan, in the Zangezur district, officer in Iran and Van, where he led the self-defense effort in April 1915, interior minister of the Republic of Armenia in 1918.

198. Aharonian was of course alluding to the First Congress of the Ottoman Opposition, in which he took part as a representative of the ARF (see supra, p. 19).

199. Documents concerning the History of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, op. cit., III, pp. 245–6.

200. Rostom (1867–1919), born in Tseghna, agronomist, founded the ARF in 1890.

203. Murad (1874–1918), born in Godvun (Sıvas), officer in the Lernabar district (1904), one of the defenders of Baku in 1918.

207. Arshag Vramian (1871–1915), born in Constantinople, member of the Western Bureau in 1899, representative of the ARF in the United States until 1907, thereafter official of the party in Van (1909), executive director of the Western Bureau in Istanbul, parliamentary deputy from Van (1913), murdered in April 1915 of the orders of the vali of Van, Cevdet Bey.

208. Documents concerning the History of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, op. cit., III, pp. 247–8.

209. Ibidem, III, p. 248. The congress elected the following people to the Eastern Bureau: Hamo Ohanjanian, Simon Zavarian, Garo (Karekin Pastermajian), Yeghishe Topchian and Arshag Vramian; to the Western Bureau: Mikayel Varantian (Hovhannisian), Aknuni (Khachadur Malumian), Hovnan Tavtian and Aram-Ashod (Sarkis Minasian) (ibidem., III, pp. 286–7).

At the Fourth Congress, the ARF decided, in view of the way the situation had evolved in the empire and of the evolution of the Young Turks, to take the initiative of convoking a General Congress of the Ottoman Opposition (Mikayel Varantian, [History of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation], II, Cairo 1950, p. 43).

2 The December 1907 Second Congress of the Anti-Hamidian Opposition: Final “Preparations for a Revolution”

7. Documents concerning the History of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, op. cit., III, pp. 94–5: about the Armenian-Turkish clashes in the Caucasus and the provocations organized by the Russian government.

9. Ibidem, p. 160, letter of 23 November 1906, sent from Paris to the Turkish-speaking correspondents of the Caucasus.

15. Sapah-Giulian referred to this formula during his exchange with his former classmate Aknuni, cites above. M. Varantian, History of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, op. cit., p. 9, confirms that the ARF had ceased to advocate the reform and agreed to suspend the publication of Pro Armenia.

16. Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, op. cit., p. 197. Hanioğlu insists above all here on the CUP’s fears of the ARF; he deals more cursorily with the Dashnaks’ approach.

18. Ibidem, p. 203, notes that the sessions of the Congress were chaired by Prince Sabaheddin, Aknuni and Ahmed Rıza by turns and that Pierre Anmeghian served as the secretary of the Congress; Varantian, History of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, op. cit., II, p. 5, confirms this. The ARF delegation also included Hrach (Haïg Tiriakian [1871–1915], an agronomist born in Trebizond), Vahram (Harutiun Kalfayan), Aram-Ashod (Sarkis Minasian [c. 1875–1915], a member of the ARF’s Western Bureau in 1907), H. Sarafian and Rupen Zartarian (known as Aslan [1874–1915], a journalist born in Severek, the founder of Azadamard [1909], a member of the Western Bureau in 1911).

S. Sapah-Giulian, “ [The Turkish tyranny and the Young Turks],” Hnchak, no. 1, January 1908, pp. 2–10, affirms, on the basis of the invitation recieved by his party, that Droschak, the CUP and the League for Private Initiative and Decentralization convened the Congress.

20. Ibidem, p. 205; Droschak, no. 1, January 1908, “The Congress of the parties [of opposition], 27–29 December 1907,” pp. 1–5, published the texts of the decisions of the Congress.

22. Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit. I, p. 197, of a total of 56,000 Ottoman officers.

23. Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, op. cit., p. 229. This branch, founded by Major Enver and Captain Kâzım [Karabekir], had more members and was more active than the Central Committee of Salonika.

25. M. Talât, Talât Paşa’nın Anıları, (ed.) par M. Kasım, Istanbul 1986, p. 58, cited in Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit. II, p. 32.

35. Ibidem, pp. 220–4. The prince concluded his remarks with the words: “The country is on the road to its destruction, its dismemberment.” The same day, the Hnchak leaders sent their Kurdish colleague Bedr Bey Bedrkhan to Salonika to gather information on the Ittihad’s congress bring it back to them in Constantinople.

1 Istanbul in the First Days of the Revolution: “Our Common Religion is Freedom”

1. “

[Constitutional Turkey and the Armenian Question],” Hnchak, no. 6–7, June–July 1908, éditorial, pp. 49–50.

9. Droschak, no. 8/196, August 1908, p. 121; Mikayel Varandian,

[The Renascent Fatherland and Our Role], Geneva, 1910, p. 69, writes, the “victory of July 1908 is that of the Young Turks and also of the Dashnaktsakans, who together showed the Muslim world for the first time, in 1907, that solidarity is something real.”

10. Ibidem, p. 101; Gaïdz F. Minassian, “Les relations entre le Comité Union et Progrès et la Fédération révolutionnaire arménienne à la veille de la Première Guerre mondiale d’après les sources arméniennes,” Revue d’histoire arménienne contemporaine I (1995), pp. 45–99.

11. Roupèn Ter Minassian, Mémoires d’un partisan arménien, trad. W. Ter-Minassian, Marseille 1990, p. 26; Roupèn Ter Minassian, Mémoires d’un cadre révolutionnaire arménien, trad. Souren L. Chanth, Athènes 1994, p. 607.

12. Hratch Dasnabédian, évolution de la structure de la FRA, Beyrouth 1985, p. 59.

14. Sapah-Giulian, The Responsibles, op. cit., p. 238. This exchange took place in French.

15. A. S. Sharurian,

[Chronology of The life and work of Krikor Zohrab], Echmiadzin 1996, pp. 160–1. Krikor Zohrab (1861–1915), lawyer, writer, deputy in both the Ottoman parliament and the Armenian Chamber who, as we shall soon see, played an important role in Ottoman public life, defended Armenian, Young Turk, Bulgarian, and Macedonian political prisoners, notably Apig Unjian, accused of “aiding and abetting a Revolutionary committee” in September–October 1896, as well as Garabed Basmajian, charged with the same crimes in October (p. 80). In 1902, the Sublime Porte initiated a procedure to exclude him from the Constantinople bar (p. 117).

17. Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, op. cit., p. 279. According to the CUP statutes, the precise functions of each party official were to remain a secret.

18. Descended of the Kurdish Bedırhan family from Bohtan, a former principality governed by the Bedırhan dynasty.

22. Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit. I, p. 151, cites A. B. Kuran, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda İnkilâp Hareketleri ve Milli Mücadele, Istanbul 1956, p. 411. “The Sultan’s rights constituted one of the thorny issues confronting the Young Turk Congress of 1907. The Armenians replied to the Turkish delegates at the time that ‘a revolution that wishes to protect the Padişa’s rights is not a revolution.’ ”

23. Erik J. Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, London and New York 1998, p. 99.

24. Said pasha (from 22 July to 5 August 1908), Kâmil pasha (from 5 August 1908 to 13 February 1909), Hilmi pasha (from 14 February to 13 April 1909), Tevfik pasha (from 14 April to 5 May 1909), Hilmi pasha (from 5 May to 28 December 1909), Hakkı pasha (from 12 January 1910 to 30 September 1911), Said pasha (from 30 September 1911 to 17 July 1912), Ğazi Ahmed Muhtar Pasha (from 21 July to 29 October 1912), Kâmil pasha (from 29 October 1912 to 23 January 1913), Mahmud Şevket pasha (from 23 January to 11 June 1913), and after the imposition of the dictatorship of CUP, Said Halim pasha (from 11 June 1913 to 4 February 1917) and Mehmed Talât pasha (from 4 February 1917 to October 1918): Feroz Ahmad, The Young Turks, Oxford 1969.

25. Vahan Papazian,

[Memoirs], I, Boston 1950, pp. 591–8, II, Beirut 1952, pp. 32–3; Ter Minassian, Mémoires, op. cit., trad. W. Ter-Minassian, p. 255; Ter-Minassian, Mémoires, op. cit., trad. S. L. Chanth, p. 590.

26. Centre des Archives diplomatiques de Nantes (CADN), Ambassade de Constantinople, E 130, report from the French vice-consul in Uskub, G. Rajevof, to M. Boppe, chargé d’affaire in Constantinople, 28 June 1909, no. 65, Histoire du mouvement révolutionnaire du mois de juillet 1908, p. 15.

28. Sharurian, Chronology of the Life and Work of Krikor Zohrab, op. cit., pp. 155–6, according to both Zohrab’s correspondence and the Istanbul press of 14 August.

30. A. Asdvadzadurian, “

[The Relations between the ARF and the CUP],” Hairenik December 1964, p. 176. The ARF’s main offices in Istanbul were located at 51 Sakız Ağac Street in Pera (Papazian, Memoirs, op. cit., II, p. 48).

Simon Zavarian (1866–1913), a native of Lori, one of the founders of the party, studied agronomy in Moscow and served as a member of, first, the Eastern Bureau (1892–1902), and then the Western Bureau (Geneva, 1902–08). From November 1909 to July 1911, he was the inspector of the Armenian schools in the Daron district and, thereafter, an editor of Azadamard in Istanbul, a post he held until his death.

36. Sharurian, Chronology of the Life and Work of Krikor Zohrab, op. cit., p. 162.

41. Sapah-Giulian, The Responsibles, op. cit., pp. 246–7. According to Sapah-Giulian, their main offices and all the meetings they organized were closely watched, probably on CUP orders.

45. Ibidem, pp. 254–5. He even became justice minister, but held the post only briefly since he died suddenly two months later under circumstances that some consider suspect.

46. Ibidem, p. 261. These developments led to the creation of the Ottoman Democratic Party on 6 February 1909. Among its leaders were two of the founders of the CUP, İbrahim Temo and Abdullah Cevdet.

47. Ibidem, p. 263. We mention the smear campaign supra, p. 57. He refused the presidency of the only oppositional party of the day, the Osmanlı Ahrar Fırkası (Ottoman Freedom Party).

48. A. B. Kuran, İnkilâp Hareketleri ve Millî Mücadele, Istanbul 1956, p. 483, in Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit. I, p. 207.

50. Ibidem, pp. 280–2. The Post and Telegraph Ministry even received an order to give priority to exchanges between party branches, as it already did to intragovernmental exchanges.

52. Ibidem, pp. 284–5. The same leading officers took it upon themselves to execute members of the opposition, especially the journalists who criticized the “Holy Committee.” For Enver, the deputies were “people of average intellectual abilities” (p. 311).

55. H. A. Yücel, Geçtiğim Günlerden, Istanbul 1990, p. 149, in Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit. I, p. 208.

60. Papazian, Memoirs, op. cit., II, p. 27. Vahan Papazian (1876–1973), better known by his pseudonym, Goms, born in Tabriz to a family from Van, physician, party cadre in Van (1903–1905), deputy from Van in the Ottoman parliament from 1908 on, he managed to cross the Turkish lines and regain the Caucasus in summer 1915. He died in Beirut.

63. Ibidem, p. 597. Among the notables of Mush, Hoca Iliaz, a Kurdish tribal chief, seemed the most hostile to the Armenians and only reluctantly took part in staging an enthusiastic welcome for the fedayis. According to Ruben, Iliaz’s mother was Armenian and he spoke the Armenian dialect of Mush, but he was a “fanatic.” In 1915, this parliamentary deputy was to be the main organizer of the extirpation of the Armenian population from the plain of Mush; he killed his half-brother Sulukhi Stepan with his own hands (p. 604).

64. Supra, pp. 38, 52, on Dr. Nâzım’s activities in Smyrna in this period.

65. For further details on the local ARF, see Hovhannes Boyajian, “

[The ARF in Smyrna],” Hairenik October 1958, pp. 88–9.

67. Hovhannes Yeretsian, “

[The ARF in Dikranagerd],” Hairenik, April 1956, p. 49.

68. Marzbed, the pseudonym of Ghazaros Ghazarosian (1878–1918), born in Tomarza (sancak of Kaiseri), a teacher trained at the University of Leipzig; ARF cadre in Persia, Van and Bitlis; deported in 1915, he managed to escape and work under an assumed name on construction of the Baghdad Railway in Cilicia.

73. Pseudonym of Dajad Melkonian (c. 1870–1916), doctor of theology, defrocked in 1906, ARF delegate first in Iranian Azerbaijan and then in the Mush-Sasun area (1908–1911); executed in Urfa.

75. Simon Zavarian,

[Simon Zavarian: On the Occasion of the Seventieth Anniversary of His Death], edited by Hrach Dasnabedian, III, Beirut 1997, pp. 31–3, letter from Constantinople, 6 January 1909

76. Mahmud Kâmil, a classmate of Enver’s at the Military Academy of Istanbul became, in 1915, commander-in-chief of the Third Army, based north of Erzerum, in Tortum, after the failure of the offensive on the Caucasus launched in December 1914.

77. Ruben Ter Minassian,

[Memoirs of an Armenian Revolutionary], vol. V, Los Angeles 1951, p. 184–96.

80. Ibidem, V, pp. 226–7. Rupen ignored the official ceremonies, preferring to visit Van’s police chief, Mehmed Effendi, an old acquaintance. Mehmed Effendi reminded him that Turkish officials governed the region and were perfectly familiar with the mentality of the local populations, as well as the fact that people from Van were interested only in their own region. He confirmed that police officials had produced all the propaganda aimed at glorifying Aram and Ishkhan and that its sole purpose was to allay the Armenians’ suspicions. Ruben concludes his account of this conversation by revealing that the police chief in question was an Armenian who had converted to Islam after the 1895 massacres and regularly informed the fedayi leaders of the government’s plans (ibidem, pp. 250–9).

81. Ibidem, pp. 244–5. Present were, notably, Dr. Hovsep Ter Davtian, Arshag Vramian, Vahan Papazian, and Vartan Shahbaz.

82. Ibidem, pp. 118–19, letter from S. Zavarian to the Balkans Central Committee, Constantinople, 10 October 1912.

84. Simon Zavarian: on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of his death, op. cit., pp. 315–429, see the series of letters that Simon Zavarian wrote from Mush between 25 November 1909 and 6 July 1911.

85. Infra, p. 817 n. 53; Papazian, Memoirs, op. cit., II, p. 37, for his action in Van.

89. CADN, Ambassade de Constantinople, E 130, report from the French vice-consul in Uskub, G. Rajevof, to M. Boppe, chargé d’affaires in Constantinople, 28 June 1909, no. 65, “Histoire du mouvement révolutionnaire du mois de juillet 1908,” pp. 70–2.

91. Bedros Halajian (1852–1920), deputy in the Ottoman parliament, minister of public works, member of the Young Turk party.

92. Sharurian, Chronology of the life and work of Krikor Zohrab, op. cit., p. 163. It should be added that initially, the patriarch interfered in the political process by taking a hand in creating the rules for choosing the Armenian candidates (at an informal meeting to which, notably, Zohrab, Rupen Zartarian, and Murad [Hampartsum Boyajian] had been invited) (ibidem).

93. Vartkes (1871–1915), born in Erzerum, head of the party in Van (1901–1903), arrested and condemned to death (a sentence commuted to life in prison), deputy in the Ottoman parliament from 1908 to 1915, deported toward Urfa and then murdered.

94. Armen Garo (1872–1923), born in Erzerum, doctor in chemistry (educated in Geneva), responsible for the occupation of the Banque Ottomane (1896), member of the Western and Eastern bureaus (1898–1901 and 1907, respectively) and deputy in the Ottoman parliament from 1908 to February 1914.

95. Kegham (1865–1918), born in Khebian (Mush), leader of the ARF in his native region, deputy in the Ottoman parliament from 1908 to 1918 (ill with tuberculosis, he was not depo

97. Hagop Babikian (1856–1909), born in Edirne, lawyer in Constantinople, member of the CUP, deputy in the Ottoman parliament (1908), a leader, together with Yusuf Kemal, of the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the massacres of Cilicia.

99. Nazareth Daghavarian († 1915), born in Sıvas, writer, agronomical engineer, and Paris-trained physician, founder and secretary general of the A.G.B.U. (1906), deputy from Sıvas in the Ottoman parliament (1908–1915), deported on 24 April 1915 and murdered.

101. Minassian, “Les relations entre le CUP,” art. cit., p. 60. The Armenian deputies of course refused the invitation.

102. CADN, Ambassade de Constantinople, série E/126, letter from the French vice-consul in Erzerum to Constans, French ambassador in Constantinople, 21 November 1908. The mufti elected in Erzincan was described as “very fanatical.”

103. CADN, Ambassade de Constantinople, série E/126, letter from the French vice-consul in Erzerum to Constans, French ambassador in Constantinople, 20 November 1908.

104. CADN, Ambassade de Constantinople, série E/126, letter from the French consul in Salonika to Constans, French ambassador in Constantinople, 23 September 1908.

Mehmed Cavid (1875–1926), graduated from Mülkiye at the same time as Hüseyin Cahid, member of the OOL in 1906, deputy first from Salonika (1908 and 1912) and then from Çanakkale (1914), minister of finance in June 1909 and again in 1913–1915 and 1917– 1918; took part in the plot against Kemal and was executed in 1926 (Zürcher, The Unionist, op. cit., p. 49).

105. The consul describes Harutiun/Artin Boshghazarian as an “intelligent man, a good speaker and a patriot. It is said that he owes his success to the vali’s support.”: CADN, Ambassade de Constantinople, série E/126, letter from the French consul in Aleppo to Bompard, ambassador in Constantinople, 25 November 1909.

107. The Armenian Chamber had 140 members: the parish councils of Constantinople designated 80 deputies, the clergymen of the capital designated 20 more and the provincial dioceses designated another forty. The chamber elected the Political Council, a kind of national government with executive powers. The 20 people on the Political Council oversaw the naming and the work of four committees while also maintaining regular relations with the Ottoman government. The Political Council was sometimes combined with the Religious Council, made up of 14 clergymen, to form a Mixed Council.

The four committees were the School Committee, which administered 2,000 schools; the Administrative Committee, charged with managing and maintaining national property and revenue (collecting rents and taxes), buying and selling real estate, keeping a strict watch over the national legacy, monitoring receipts and expenditures, and administering the hospitals; the Judiciary Committee, comprising eight members – four clergymen and four lay jurists required to have a doctorate in law – was charged with settling family disputes and dealing with the litigation involving Armenians that the Sublime Porte referred to it; and the Committee on Monasteries, charged with supervising the management of the hundreds of Armenian monasteries in the empire.

The internal organization of the Armenian community in the provinces – the 45 dioceses – was modeled after the organization in the capital. The metropolitan of each diocese presided over the diocesan council, a majority of whose members were lay dignitaries, and had executive power: Raymond Kévorkian and P. B. Paboudjian, Les Arméniens dans l’Empire ottoman à la veille du génocide, Paris 1992, pp. 7–9.

108. Adenakrutiun Azkayin Zhoghovo [Minutes of the National Chamber], 1887–1896, Constantinople 1896.

110. Kévorkian-Paboudjian, Les Arméniens dans l’Empire ottoman, op. cit., pp. 15–19.

112. Adenakrutiun Azkayin Zhoghovo [Minutes of the National Chamber], Constantinople, July 1906, pp. 1–4.

113. Ormanian, Azkabadoum, op. cit., coll. 5380–5388. This prelate (1841–1918), a convert from the Catholic Church educated in Rome, reformed the seminary in Armash where he trained the future leaders of the Armenian Church along modernized lines; he served as Archbishop of Erzerum, founding Erzerum’s Sanasarian School, an elite establishment with a curriculum based on German models. Ormanian is the author of standard works on the history of the Armenian Church. After being forced to resign, he spent several years in exile at the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, then returned and settled in the capital, where he lived modestly in a one-room apartment in Pera.

114. Stepan Karayan (1855–1933), jurist, law professor, judge on the court of appeals, president of the Political Council almost without interruption from 1908 to 1914.

115. H. Shahrikian, known as Nitra (1860–1915), born in Şabin-Karahisar, Istanbul-educated jurist, member of the Eastern Bureau (1898–1905), murdered in 1915.

116. Adenakrutiun Azkayin Zhoghovo, Verapatsoum 1908–1909 Nstachrtchani [Minutes of the inaugural session of the National Chamber 1908–1909], Constantinople 1909, pp. 39, 49–54.

117. Hrant Asadur (1862–1928), born in Constantinople, Paris-educated jurist, member of the Ottoman Constitutional Council, editor of the newspaper Masis, literary critic.

118. V. Torkomian (1858–1942), born in Constantinople, Paris-trained physician, Prince Abdül Mecid’s private physician, president of the Imperial Medical Academy founder of the Armenian Red Cross, deported in 1915, exiled to France (1923), author of many scholarly works.

120. Report, 20 November 1908: Bibliothèque Nubar, CCG 5/4, file 1, 16 pp., in Kévorkian-Paboudjian, Les Arméniens dans l’Empire ottoman, op. cit., pp. 26–7.

121. The first veritable crisis facing the CUP broke out in early October 1908, when, in short order, Bulgaria declared its independence (5 October), the Austro-Hungarian Empire proclaimed that it had annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Crete proclaimed itself a part of Greece (6 October).

122. Founded on 14 September 1908 by Nureddin Ferruh, Ahmed Fazıl, Celâleddin Arif: Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit. II, p. 123; Erik J. Zürcher, Turkey, a Modern History, London and New York, ed. 1998, p. 100.

123. Papazian, Memoirs, op. cit., II, p. 101. We have observed that the Armenian delegation had opted for direct negotiations with the government or even the Young Turk Central Committee in order to circumvent the tensions that reigned in the parliament to which many conservatives, especially from the provinces, had been elected on the CUP’s lists.

125. His candidacy was initally blocked by the CUP (Piuzantion, no. 3700, 8 December 1908, p. 1). However, in the face of the Patriarchal Political Council’s insistence, and after a 6 December meeting that the Council’s president, Stepan Karayan, held with “an important figure” at the CUP’s Istanbul headquarters, the Young Turks agreed not to veto his election (Piuzantion, no. 3701, 9 December 1908, p. 1). In its 9 December issue, the CUP’s organ, Şûra-yı Ümmet, announced that there were two Armenian candidates on the committee’s list of candidates for the capital.

126. Under the feather of the editor-in-chief, Puzant Kechian, de Piuzantion, no. 3706, 15 December 1908, p. 1.

127. A Laz born in Şoppa, a judge who served in Damascus, Salonika, and Skopie (Uskub) as president of the penal court; after 1908, member of the CUP, court inspector in Salonika and interim vali of Kosovo; traveled frequently to Lazistan as a CUP propagandist; director of the Department of Criminal Affairs in the Ministry of Justice; member of the commission for the nomination of magistrates; charged with investigating the “abuses” committed during the First World War at the expense of the Armenians; presiding judge of the criminal and the appeals court: APC/PAJ, PCI Bureau,

25–26–27–28–29–30–31–32–33–34, Second Report on Turks Responsible for the Armenian Atrocities.

128. Hüseyin Cahit bey [Yalçın] (1874–1957), parliamentary deputy from the capital, vice-president (1914–1916), and, later, president of parliament, member of the Young Turk Central Committee, one of the main CUP propagandists, editor of Tanin. Interned in Malta in 1919.

135. Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit. II, p. 123; Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, op. cit., p. 292.

136. Naim Turfan, Rise of the Young Turks: Politics, the Military and Ottoman Collapse, London and New York 2000, p. 232, n. 63.

137. Hüseyin Rauf (1881–1964), agent in Persia during the First World War, signatary of the 31 October 1918 Mudros Armistice, one of the founders of the Karakol and the resistance in Anatolia (1919): Zürcher, The Unionist, op. cit., p. 45.

138. Monastırlı Nuri (1882–1937), born in Salonika, Unionist fedayi, parliamentary deputy, first director of the Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa, Enver’s secret service secret after 1914: ibidem.

139. Kuşçubaşızade Eşref [Sencer] (1873–after 1963), important director of a section of the Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa: ibidem.

140. Yenibahçeli Şükrü [Oğuz], Unionist fedayi and CUP inspector, member of the Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa, and, later, of Karakol: ibidem.

141. Kara Vasıf (1872–1931), colonel, member of the CUP prior to 1908, member of the court-martial that judged the fiasco of the Balkan War, founder of Karakol in 1919: ibidem.

142. Kâzım [Özalp] (1880–1968), member of the CUP, officer, member of the Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa, president of the National Assembly (1924–1935), minister of war (1922–1924, 1935–1943): ibidem.

144. Published by Ali Birinci, in Tarih ve Toplum, no. 70, 1989, p. 60, cited in Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit., I, p. 210, n. 818.

145. “Enver Paşa’nın Gizli Mektupları,” (ed. by Ş. Hanioğlu), Cumhuriyet, 9 October 1989, in Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit., I, p. 210, n. 815.

146. Midhat Şükrü Bleda, İmparatorluğun Çöküşü, Istanbul 1979, p. 26. This group, founded early in 1909, had the support of Hasan Fehmi and was dissolved after the events of “31 March” on charges of plotting, not against the government, but against the CUP: Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit., II, p. 138.

147. T. Z. Tunaya, Hürriyetin Ilânı, Istanbul 1959, p. 41, in Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit., I, p. 233.

148. Founded in November 1909, the moving spirits behind this party were LütfiFikri, Şükrî Al-Aseki: ibidem, II, p. 123.

149. This party was led by Ferit pasha Sadık bey, Şükrü al-Aseki, Rıza Nur, LütfiFikri and Gümülcineli İsmail: ibidem, II, p. 123.

2 Young Turks and Armenians Facing the Test of “The 31 March Incident” and the Massacres in Cilicia

2. M. Sabri Efendi, “Menkibelerimiz ve Ayıblarımız,” in S. Albayrak, 31 Mart Vak’ası Gerici Bir Hareket mi?, Istanbul 1989, p. 33, discourse of Rasim Efendi in Ottoman parliament, in Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit., II, pp. 69–70.

3. François Georgeon, “Le dernier sursaut (1878–1908),” in Robert Mantran (dir.), Histoire de l’Empire ottoman, Paris 1989, p. 582.

4. Ahmad, The Young Turks, op. cit, pp. 43–4. The grand vizier, Kâmil Pasha, expelled him again, perhaps under pressure from the CUP.

5. See the Istanbul press of 19 April 1909, in particular Piuzantion, no. 3806, p. 3; Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, op. cit., p. 102.

9. Simon Zavarian: On the Occasion of the Seventieth Anniversary of His Death, op. cit., III, pp. 60–1, letter of S. Zavarian, Constantinople, 14/27 April 1909.

11. Papazian, Memoirs, II, op. cit., p. 105, notes that Ahmed Rıza in particular was targeted by the insurgents, who were led by the grand mufti of Istanbul. No more than 50 or 60 deputies were present when the parliament building was occupied, including Halajian, Armen Garo, and Papazian himself.

12. Azadamard, no. 66, 9 September 1909, p. 1, published Papazian’s eyewitness account; Papazian repeats what he wrote here in his Memoirs, II, Cairo 1957, pp. 103–8; a vote in favor of the reintroduction of the şaria as the basic law of the land took place nevertheless.

13. Minassian, “Les relations entre le Comité Union et Progrès et la Fédération,” art. cit., pp. 62–3.

15. Minassian, “Les relations entre le Comité Union et Progrès et la Fédération,” art. cit., p. 62.

17. CADN, Ambassade de Constantinople, série E/131, letter from the French vice-consul in Marash, Marcial Grapin, to Constans, French ambassador in Constantinople, 4 January 1909.

18. CADN, Ambassade de Constantinople, série E/131, letter from the French vice-consul in Dyarbekir to Bompard, French ambassador in Constantinople, 20 April 1909.

19. Archives du ministère des Affaires étrangères (AMAE), Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 83, politique intérieure, Arménie, Anatolie, Cilicie, f° 69 r°, letter from the French viceconsul in Van, captain B. Dickson, to the minister of foreign affairs, Pichon.

20. Ten months later, Bağdâdizâde, too, would be among the organizers of the massacres.

21. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 83, f° 64 r°-v°, letter from the French viceconsul in Mersina and Adana to French ambassador in Constantinople and to the minister of foreign affairs, Pichon, 18 August 1908.

22. Ibidem, ff. 84–85, letter from the French vice-consul in Mersina and Adana to French ambassador in Constantinople and to the minister of Foreign affairs, 23 October 1908.

23. Duckett Z. Ferriman, The Young Turks and the Truth about the Holocaust at Adana, in Asia Minor, During April, 1909, London 1913, p. 14; Hagop Terzian,

[The Catastrophe of Cilicia], Constantinople 1912, p. 12.

24. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 83, f° 86, dispatch of 3 November 1908.

25. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 83, f° 159, letter from French embassy, Therabia, 31 July 1910.

26. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 83, f° 84, letter to minister Pichon, 23 October 1908. Despite the witch hunt and the corresponding climate that prevailed in Cilicia after the massacres, and despite the political condemnations pronounced by the court-martial, G. Guvderelian, who was held in prison for approximately one year before being cleared and released, was described by the members of the commission of inquiry come from Constantinople as a man who enjoyed great prestige.

27. Duckett Z. Ferriman, The Young Turks and the Truth about the Holocaust at Adana, op. cit., pp. 13–14.

28. Azadamard, no. 9, 2 July 1909, p. 3, published an interview of the editorial board with Grand Vizier Hilmi Pasha and General Mahmud Şevket about the condemnation of Bishop Mushegh, “considered to be responsible for the massacres” to “101 years in prison.”

29. Service historique de la Marine (Vincennes), SS ED 100, 13 pp., Escadre de la Méditerranée occidentale et du Levant, dispatch no. 716, Alexandretta, 8 May 1909, Contre-Amiral Pivet, commander of the Escadre légère de la Méditerranée, to the minister of Navy.

31. Report from the vali Cevad bey to minister of the Interior, end of April 1909, in H. Terzian, La catastrophe de Cilicie, op. cit., p. 752.

32. Service historique de la Marine (Vincennes), SS ED 100, 13 pp., Escadre de la Méditerranée occidentale et du Levant, dispatch no. 716, Alexandretta, 8 May 1909, Contre-Amiral Pivet, commander of the Escadre légère de la Méditerranée, to the minister of Navy.

33. A. Adossidès, Arméniens et Jeunes-Turcs, les massacres de Cilicie, Paris 1910, pp. 117–18.

34. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol 283, ff. 164/22–23v°, reprinted in Azadamard, no. 42, 12 August 1909, p. 1.

37. Terzian, The Catastrophe of Cilicia, op. cit., pp. 717–24, published the entire proceedings of the court-martial, dated 7 July 1909; the proceedings were also published by the Istanbul press beginning in mid-July (see Azadamard, no. 22, 17 July 1909, p. 3).

38. FO 195/2280, letter from British consul in Mersina and Adana, Doughty-Wylie, Konya, 15 June 1908.

39. Terzian, The Catastrophe of Cilicia, op. cit., pp. 689–99, published the entire proceedings of the court-martial, dated 10 July 1909; the proceedings were also published by the Istanbul press beginning in mid-July (see Azadamard, nos 33 et 34, 31 July and 2 August 1909).

40. As early as 1906, Bağdâdizâde was sending reports to Sultan Abdülhamid accusing the Armenians of Cilicia of harboring separatist intentions : Ferriman, The Young Turks, op. cit., p. 12.

44. This information is provided both by Ferriman, The Young Turks, op. cit., pp. 22–3 and by the parliamentary commission in its report, written by the judges Fayk Bey and H. Mosdichian (see n. 37).

45. Haci Adıl (1869–1935), former vali of Edirne, participed in the Union and Progress congress in Salonika in November 1910, becoming, at that time, both a member of the Central Committee and Dr. Nâzım’s successor as the CUP’s secretary general (AMAE, Turquie, n. s., vol. 7, ff. 154–8, report from the French consul in Salonika, Max Soublier, to Pichon and to the French ambassador in Constantinople, Bompard, Salonika, 17 November 1910). Adıl served as president of the reform commission in Albania and briefly, in January 1913, as interior minister (Gohag, 30 January 1913, no. 3 [128], pp. 25–6), and president of parliament in fall 1915. Under Mustafa Kemal, he became Director-General of the State Monopolies. He was one of the defendants in the “Smyrna plot” trial of 1926: Zürcher, The Unionist, op. cit., p. 160.

46. This famous telegram was cited by virtually the entire Istanbul press and in the report of the parliamentary commission; it was also at the heart of the debates in the Ottoman parliament at the session of 19 April 1909, during which Adıl Bey was asked to provide an explanation in place of his newly named minister of the interior, who was not familiar with the details of the affair (see the precise account Piuzantion, no. 3806, 19 April, p. 2 and the publication in extenso of the parliamentary debates in Terzian, The Catastrophe of Cilicia, op. cit., pp. 592–607).

47. Rigal (P.), “Adana. Les Massacres d’Adana,” Lettres d’Ore, relations d’Orient [Confidential Review of the Jesuit Missions Edited in the Order in Lyons and Published in Brusells], November 1909, pp. 359–91. Another series of reports was published in the July 1909 issue, pp. 199–223.

48. This summary of events is based on many different sources: the reports of the parliamentary commission, the Armenian Council, the missionaries and consuls, and, of course, on the articles and reports published in the Istanbul press, as well as the crucially important eyewitness accounts reproduced in Terzian, The Catastrophe of Cilicia, op. cit., pp. 26–36, Ferriman, op. cit., pp. 23–5.

49. According to the pharmacist Hagop Terzian, it was the 300 Armenians living in the quarter near the Sultane Valide mosque in Hazır Bazar, almost all of them natives of Hacın, who witnessed these events (cf. Terzian, The Catastrophe of Cilicia, op. cit., p. 37). After resisting for two hours, they succeeded in the course of the night in making their way into the house of the dragoman of the Russian consulate, Yanko Artemi, after making an opening in a side wall. They remained there for three days, until the massacres were over.

50. Terzian, who was in the Armenian quarter at the time, gives a very precise description of the positions, street by street, of the defenders (pp. 38–9). The English consul, for his part, confirms that the Muslims launched an assault on the Armenian quarter: FO 195/2306, letter from Doughty-Wylie to the ambassador Lowther, 21 April 1909.

51. See the French missionaries’ narratives published in Raymond Kévorkian, Les Massacres de Cilicie d’avril 1909, Revue d’Histoire Arménienne Contemporaine, III (1999), pp. 144–7.

52. To present a full account of the Cilician events, we would also have to discuss the events that occurred simultaneously in the other towns and villages of the region; that would, however, take us too far afield. We therefore refer interested readers to our study: Kévorkian, Les Massacres de Cilicie d’April 1909, op. cit., pp. 5–141, and especially pp. 65–82, for the other towns and villages.

53. A facsimile reproduction, with a translation of the incriminating articles, is included in Terzian, The Catastrophe of Cilicia, op. cit., pp. 64–92.

63. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 83, ff. 121–122, Paris, 16 June 1909.

64. Kévorkian, Les Massacres de Cilicie d’avril 1909, op. cit., p. 149, Some of the following passages are also taken from Rigal’s Mémoire.

65. Ibidem, p. 173, complete report by Hagop Babikian. This information is confirmed in the “Report on the Massacres in Adana” by major Doughty-Wylie: FO 424/220.

66. These figures are given in Interior Minister Ferid Pasha’s report, read during the 11 May 1909 session of the Ottoman parliament. The full record of this session may be found in Terzian, The Catastrophe of Cilicia, op. cit., p. 607; see also ibidem, 300; Ferriman, op. cit., p. 80.

67. Figures cited by Zohrab in his contribution to the parliamentary debate; he identified his source as a letter, received in Constantinople, from the dragoman of the French vice-consulate in Mersin and Adana: Terzian, The Catastrophe of Cilicia, op. cit., pp. 604–5

69. Kévorkian, Les Massacres de Cilicie d’April 1909, op. cit., p. 167, text of the report.

72. Figures given by the charge d’affaire Boppe, in a letter to the minister Pichon: AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 83, f° 147.

76. Figures given by the governmental commission of inquiry (see note 173). Ferriman, pp. 91–3, 97, furnishes the details region by region.

77. On the question of the orphans, see Zabel Essayan (administrator of the Armenian Red Cross in Cilicia in this period), correspondence and notes, Levon Kecheyan (ed.), in Kévorkian, Les massacres de Cilicie d’avril 1909, op. cit., pp. 217, Suiv

3 The Ottoman Government’s and the Armenian Authorities’ Political Responses to the Massacres in Cilicia

3. Kévorkian, Les massacres de Cilicie d’avril 1909, op. cit., p. 57, n. 59, p. 152.

4. Zohrab is alluding to the fact that Adıl was then de facto in charge of the Interior Ministry.

5. 3 May 1909, p. 1, “The Turkish Crisis: The Armenians Protest in the Chamber.”

6. A complete translation of the records of the debates of the Ottoman parliament was published by the Istanbul press the next day, notably in Piuzantion, nos 3836, 3837, 24 and 25 May, pp. 2–3; see also Terzian, The Catastrophe of Cilicia, op. cit., pp. 611–15.

8. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 83, f° 159/2, from Barré de Lancy to Boppe, 3 July 1909.

14. Records of the debates of the Ottoman parliament, 105 session, in Azadamard, no. 11, 5 July 1909, p. 2.

15. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 83, f° 159/3. Gabriel-Georges Barré de Lancy (born 8 Sept. 1865), vice-consul in Mersin and Tarse.

16. FO 195/2306, letter from Doughty-Wylie to the British ambassador in Constantinople, 30 June 1909.

18. Reprinted in Azadamard, no. 12, 6 July 1909, p. 1. According to the editorialist of this daily, the members of the government admitted in private that all these accusations were false, but refused to say so publicly.

19. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 83, f° 159/7, report from Barré de Lancy to Boppe, Mersin, 16 July 1909.

21. Three of these individuals and many others murderers were, oddly, appointed to the local commissions of inquiry charged with investigating crimes for which they too were under suspicion.

22. Reports in the Istanbul press of 27 July, especially in Azadamard, no. 29, 27 July 1909, p. 2. According to Şerif pasha, İsmail Hakkı is a member of Young Turk Central Committee: Mécheroutiette, no. 38, January 1913, p. 16.

24. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, vol. 83, f° 162, Thérapia, 11 August 1909.

26. Azadamard, no. 34 and 36, 2 and 4 August 1909, p. 3. Babikian’s 4 August funeral was the occasion for a grand ecumenical ceremony at which members of parliament, senators, members of the government, and the diplomatic corps were all present. During the ceremony, Yusuf Kemal and Krikor Zohrab delivered eulogies in which they paid tribute to Babikian’s selflessness and political courage.

27. Records of the debates of the Ottoman parliament were published by Istanbul press and by Terzian, The Catastrophe of Cilicia, op. cit., pp. 621–3.

28. A complete translation was published in Azadamard, no. 63, 5 September 1909, p. 1.

29. Azadamard, no. 38, 6 August 1909, pp. 1–2, announced Cemal appointment and published an interview with him; ambassador Bompard also announced this appointment in a letter to minister Pichon, 11 August 1909: AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 283, f° 162.

30. The funds were put in the hands of commissions made up of local notables more or less deeply implied in the massacres; most of the money was embezzled. Let us also point out that there occurred only symbolic restitution of the booty seized during the massacres: FO 195/2306, letter from Doughty-Wylie to Lowther, Adana, 9 May 1909.

31. French version in AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 283, ff. 164/22–23v°; Armenian version in Azadamard, no. 42, 12 August 1909, p. 1.

35. Terzian, The Catastrophe of Cilicia, op. cit., pp. 689–99, for the full report, 10 July 1909, and in the Istanbul press in the end of July (see Azadamard, no. 33, 34, 31 July and 2 August 1909).

36. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol 283, ff. 121–3, 16 June 1909.

38. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 283, f° 16421, 24, 33, Mersine, 11 and 21 September 1909.

43. M. Ormanian, Azkabadum, III, Jérusalem 1927, col. 5432; diplomatic sources indicate that some of the victims from others regions were repatriated. “Some sixty people, widows as well as girls and boys whose parents had been massacred during the events in Adana and the surrounding area were taken to Sıvas by the local authorities in a terrible state” and then conducted “as far as their native district of Terjan, in the vilayet of Erzerum. Fleeing the poverty and famine prevailing in region from which they came, these families had gone to the vilayet of Adana the previous fall to work during the harvest.”

44. Adenakrutiun, op. cit., records of the 12 June 1909 Session, pp. 404, 409.

45. Sarkis Svin, a delegate traveling with a prelate, was put under “military surveillance” as soon as he arrived in Cilicia, and prevented from traveling freely (ibidem, p. 407).

61. Declaration published in the Temps and reprinted in Azadamard, no. 12, 6 July 1909, p. 1, see supra, p. 103.

63. Zeki Bey was preparing to publish “important revelations concerning the Committee’s intrigues, the revolutionary movement of 31 March and the Adana incidents.” As a result, “he would be, in his own words, condemned to death by the Committee”: Mécheroutiette, Constitutionnel ottoman, no. 51, February 1914, p. 34.

65. Piuzantion, no. 3946, 16 October 1909, p. 3, published the declaration of the Central Committee in Salonika.

66. Azadamard, no. 3, 25 June 1909, p. 3, article of Rinat de Vall, correspondant of the Giornale d’Italia.

68. Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, op. cit., p. 285; Papazian, Memoirs, op. cit.., II, p. 114, points out that Zohrab was one of the main authors of the act destituting the Sultan.

71. Adenakrutiun, op. cit., p. 43. the allusion is probably to the tribal leaders and notables in the provinces who had been closely associated with the old regime. “The traitors tothe fatherland” in favor of decentralization are probably the liberal circles that the CUP liquidated after the “reaction” of 31 March.

72. Ibidem, records of the 21 August 1909 Session and records of the 12 February 1910 Session, pp. 190–5. The correspondence of the French consuls sheds light on the first experiments in this domain. It also indicates that “the Christians also find the abnormal moeurs of the Muslim soldiers repulsive.” These and similar remarks about the Turkish soldiers are confirmed by the frequent references to cases of rape or attempted rape of the Armenian conscripts. The authorities avoided airing them in public. They also maintained silence about the conditions imposed on Christian soldiers, illustrated by “the example of the seventeen recruits from Diarbekir who were sent to Musch [sic] last year; fourteen of them succumbed to fatigue and privation, [a circumstance that is] hardly likely to reassure the others”: cf. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 85, pp. 37, 52, 105, letter from the French vice-consuls in Erzerum and Dyarbekir, 10 March, 6 April and 7 August 1911.

73. Simon Zavarian: On the Occasion of the Seventieth Anniversary of His Death, III, op. cit., pp. 385–6: Letter to the Western bureau, section of Constantinople, 25 October 1910.

74. Stepanos Sapah-Giulian,

[Memories of Armenia Minor, Part 1, 10 May–1 August 1911], Chicago 1917, p. 323.

75. Adenakrutiun, op. cit., records of the 25 November 1911 Session, pp. 430–44.

1. Mehmed Ziya [Gökalp] (1876–1924), sociologist, main CUP ideologue, member of the Central Committee from 1910: Zürcher, The Unionist, op. cit., p. 77.

3. Turfan, Rise of the Young Turks, op. cit., pp. XV–XVI. The author points out that Kemal’s position is contradictory, since he himself was an officer and a delegate from Tripolitania. More prosaically, we might ask if his reaction is not due, above all, to his long-standing conflict with Enver, who shut him out of the committee’s supreme body. An imperial decree of 29 May 1909 called on the officers to stop meddling in politics; Mahmud Şevket seemed to be one of the most determined high-ranking officers in this regard: Ahmad, The Young Turks, op. cit., p. 55.

5. ADN, Ambassade de Constantinople, série E/126, letter from the French ambassador in Constantinople, Bompard, to the minister of Foreign affairs, 5 January 1910.

7. Ibidem, no. 39, February 1913, p. 21, article of Sam Lévy, in Journal de Salonique.

9. Records of the trial, 27 June 1911, in Mécheroutiette, Constitutionnel ottoman, no. 25–32, November 1911 to July 1912. Zeki had also collaborated for quite some time on Murad Bey’s Mizanci. It was for this reason that he was arrested, like many other members of the opposition, after the events of 13 April 1909, and accused of being a “reactionary.” He was not, however, found guilty, thanks to his reputation for integrity and his past as an opponent to the Hamidian regime.

10. Mécheroutiette, Constitutionnel ottoman, no. 51, February 1914, p. 34. The day after Zeki Bey was murdered, “police searches” were carried out in the victim’s bureau and home, and all his files were confiscated; the court, however, did not make use of them at his trial. Ahmad, The Young Turks, op. cit., p. 74, explains Cavid’s resignation as the result of disagreement between him and the minister of war, M. Şevket, over the military budget.

11. His murder gave rise to a chorus of protests and a stormy debate in parliament, during which the CUP was openly accused of ordering the murder. To disparage Hasan, the Young Turk press fell back on its old propaganda arsenal, describing him, like many others, as a Hamidian reactionary opposed to the Constitution.

12. Dr. Tevfik Rüstü [Aras] (1883–1972), Dr. Nâzım’s brother-in-law and a comrade of Mustafa Kemal’s; an important member of the committee’s inner circle, a leader of the war of liberation in Anatolia, foreign minister under Mustafa Kemal.

13. Mécheroutiette, Constitutionnel ottoman, no. 51, February 1914, pp. 15–53.

15. CADN, Ambassade de Constantinople, série E/126, letter from the French ambassador in Constantinople, Bompard, to the minister of Foreign affairs, 10 May 1911.

17. Mehmed Sadık (1860–1940), born in Istanbul, Harbiye graduate, leader of the CUP in Manastır, member of the Central Committee in July 1908, influential in Salonika in 1909–1910; after breaking with the CUP, he became a one of the leaders of the Liberals: Ahmad, The Young Turks, op. cit., pp. 89–90 et p. 178.

18. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 8, f° 121, letter from French consul in Salonika, Josselin, to Selves, minister of Foreign affairs, Salonika, 5 October 1911.

19. CADN, Ambassade de Constantinople, série E/126, letter from the French vice-consul in Üsküb to Bompard, 20 September 1910, “translation of a speech attributed to Talât Bey, minister of the interior”; the same speech is cited by a British source: Ahmad, The Young Turks, op. cit., p. 85, n. 1, notes that he has found no Turkish sources on this discourse; Vahakn Dadrian, Histoire du génocide arménien, Paris 1996, pp. 301–3, n. 2–7, adds Austrian consular sources that are independent of the other diplomatic documents.

20. CADN, Ambassade de Constantinople, série E/126, letter from the French vice-consul in Üsküb to Bompard, 20 September 1910.

21. Halil bey [Menteşe] (1874–1948), jurist, member of the Young Turk Central Committee (1910), deputy from Menteşe, president of the Young Turk parliamentary group, president of the Council of State (June 1913), president of parliament, foreign minister (October 1915–February 1917), deported to Malta in 1919: Ahmad, The Young Turks, op. cit., p. 171; AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 9, f° 220, telegram from the French chargé d’affaire in Constantinople, to Boppe, 17 June 1913.

22. Giritli Ahmed Nesimi (?–1958), born in Crete, educated at the Ecole des Sciences Politiques in Paris, member of the Young Turk Central Committee (1911), foreign minister (February 1917–October 1918), deported to Malta in 1919: Ahmad, The Young Turks, op. cit., pp. 175–6.

23. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 7, f° 124, letter from the French consul in Salonika, Max Soublier, to Bompard, 1 November 1910. Dr. Nâzım was then secretary general of the Central Committee. The consul notes that the Committee of Union and Progress and the party for Union and Progress had functioned independently of one another until then: ibidem, ff. 132–4, letter from Max Choublier to Pichon, Salonika, 7 and 8 November 1910.

24. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 7, f° 149 v°, letter from Max Choublier to Pichon, Salonika, 16 November 1910, speech of Ihsan bey.

26. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 7, f° 151 v°, letter from Max Choublier to Pichon, Salonika, 17 November 1910.

27. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 7, ff. 152–3, letter from Max Choublier to Pichon and Bompard, Salonika, 17 November 1910.

28. Ibidem, f° 154. The consul states that this information is corroborated by information that his European colleagues in Salonika had obtained from others sources (f° 157).

34. A newcomer about whom very little is known, apart from the fact that during the First World War he was one of the pivotal members of the commissions responsible for “abandoned property” (Emvalı Metruke), and thus for “nationalizing” the economy–in other words, for confiscating the moveable assets and real estate of the Armenians and then the Greeks: APC/PAJ, PCI Bureau, 9 201, list of murterers in Eskişehir, and

177–178.

36. Aram Andonian,

[History of the Balkan war], II, Istanbul 1913, pp. 349, 355.

37. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 8, f° 107, letter from the French consul in Salonika, Max Soublier, to Selves, minister of Foreign affairs, and to Bompard, Salonika, 3 September 1911.

39. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 8, f° 117, letter from the French consul in Salonika, Josselin, to Bompard, Salonika, 30 September 1911. The consul also points out that the congress decided to increase the number of members on the Central Committee from 7 to 12: ibidem, f° 117v°.

40. Ali Fethi [Okyar] (1880–1943), member of the CUP in 1907 (Salonika), of the Central Committee in 1911, deputy, ambassador and minister in 1917, helped found the CUP again in October 1918, one of the organizers of war of liberation: Zürcher, The Unionist, op. cit., p. 28.

41. AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 8, f° 121, letter from the French consul in Salonika, Josselin, to Selves, minister of Foreign affairs, Salonika, 10 October 1911.

Hüseyinzâde Ali [Turan] (1864–1941), Turkish-speaker born in Russian Azerbaijan, close associate of Ziya Gökalp’s, physician trained at the Military Medical School in Constantinople, one of the four founders of the CUP (1889), member of the Central Committee in 1911: Zürcher, The Unionist, op. cit., p. 78. Hüseyinzâde Ali introduced Russian populism and the accompanying revolutionary ideology to Turkey: cf. Ş. Mardin, Jön Türklerin Siyasi Fikirleri 1895–1908, Ankara 1964, pp. 32–3.

5 Armenian Revolutionaries and Young Turks: The Anatolian Provinces and Istanbul, 1910–12

1. Simon Zavarian: on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of his death, op. cit., III, p. 345, letter from Zavarian to Hovnan Tavtian, Mush, 20 May 1910.

4. Ibidem, pp. 347–8, letter from Zavarian to the Bureau oriental of the ARF, Mush, 25 May 1910.

5. Ibidem, p. 361: letter from S. Zavarian to the Occidental Bureau of the ARF, Mush, 4 August.

7. Ibidem, pp. 427–8, letter from Zavarian to the Bureau oriental of the ARF, Mush, 6 July 1911.

9. Ibidem, p. 438, letter from Zavarian to Avetis Aharonian, Constantinople, 19 November 1912.

18. Stepanos Sapah-Giulian, Memories of Armenia Minor, Part 1, 10 May-1 August 1911, op. cit.

24. Ibidem, pp. 103, 114, 116. On the way, he passed through a village of Nogayi muhacirs from Roumelia whom the government had authorized to loot in order to meet their basic needs.

31. Ibidem, pp. 168–9. The Greeks of this village were almost all Armenian-speakers and often members of the Hnchak club.

37. Bekir Sâmi (1865–1933), a native of Daghestan, received his higher education in Paris. A Young Turk leader, successively mutesarif of Amasia (1909), vali of Van (1911), Trebizond, Bursa, Beirut (1914), and Aleppo (24 June to 25 September 1915), where he was replaced by Mustafa Abdülhalik (nicknamed “the butcher of Bitlis”) after being criticized for not carrying out the orders of the interior minister to liquidate the Armenians. Immediately following the First World War, he joined the Kemalist movement and became foreign minister (1920–1921). Arrested in 1926 in connection with the Smyrna plot, he was eventually released.

38. Ibidem, pp. 195–197. Ohannes Pasha Kuyumjian, governor general of Mount Lebanon when Bekir Sâmi was vali of Beirut (1913–1915), notes that Bekir Sâmi, after zealously serving the CUP, refused to implement CUP policy–to do “the Committee’s dirty work”–vis-à-vis the Lebanese and then the Syrian population: Ohannès pacha Kouyoumdjian, Le Liban à la veille et au début de la Grande Guerre. Mémoires d’un gouverneur, 1913–1915, Raymond Kévorkian, V. Tachjian, and M. Paboudjian (eds.), RHAC V, Paris 2003, p. 154.

40. Ibidem, p. 214. Let us note in passing that most Hnchak leaders in Amasia were Protestants (ibidem, p. 205). As he crossed the plain of Ardova on the road to Sıvas, Sapah-Giulian saw five Armenian villages. In the first, Çiflik, the inhabitants had been burned alive in the village church in 1895 (ibidem, p. 245).

47. AMAE, Turquie, Politique intérieure, n. s., vol. 9, ff. 42–5, letter from the French vice-consul in Van, to Poincaré, Van, 15 March 1912. This document puts the number of men in the city at 17,240 and the number of those in the 33 surrounding villages at 6,760. The joint Hnchak-Ramgavar candidate was Nigoghos Aghasian, the kaymakam of Ispir (Erzerum) (ibidem, f° 45v°).

48. AMAE, Turquie, Politique intérieure, n. s., vol. 9, f° 56, letter from the French vice-consul in Erzerum to the ministry, 2 March 1912.

49. Ibidem, report from the French general consul in Smyrnia, June 1911, f° 73.

50. AMAE, Turquie, Politique intérieure, n. s., vol. 9, f° 110, letter from the French vice-consul in Van to the ministry, 20 June 1912; CADN, Ambassade de Constantinople, série E/132, letter from the French vice-consul in Van to Bompard, 20 June 1912. A native of Constantinople, 35-years old, official in the Interior Ministry, former inspector of the public debt in Siirt, and başmudir in Erzerum, son-in-law of Haci Adıl Bey, he spoke French, which he had learned from the Jesuits in Beirut; one of the founders of the club at Siirt.

53. Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit., II, p. 124. AMAE, Turquie, Politique intérieure, n. s., vol. 9, f° 177, letter from the French consul in Salonika, Josselin, to Poincaré, Salonika, 26 September 1912 announced the creation of Türk Ocaği, the “Turkish National Association.”

54. Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit., II, p. 233, LütfiFikri and Gümülcineli İsmail were also members of the party; Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, op. cit., p. 107.

57.

[Rostom: On the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of his death], ed Hrach Dasnabedian, Beirut 1999, pp. 295–9, report of Kurken Mkhitarian. Mkhitarian, a student in Constantinople in fall 1911, underscores the spirit of revolt characteristic of young Armenians, who were critical of parties such as the ARF.

58. Ibidem; Papazian, Memoirs, op. cit., II, p. 159, notes: “At the time, we were naive enough to believe that there could be progressive circles among the Turks.”

59. [S. Sapah-Giulian], “

[The Content of the Secret Accord between the Ittihadists and the Dashnaks and Its Consequences],” in Gohag, 23 January/6 February 1913, no. 2 (127), p. 18, The sequel appears in the following issues.

60. Gohag, 6/19 February 1913, no. 4 (127), p. 41, reviews the history of Ottoman penetration into Persia after the Russian defeat at the hands of the Japanese in 1904, and also the role played by Ephrem Khan and his commandos, whose activity basically benefited Russia, making it possible for the Czarist Empire to return to the forefront of the local stage and conclude an agreement with Great Britain delineating Russian and British zones of influence.

61. Gohag, 13/26 February 1913, no. 5 (130), p. 54. Ephrem was the head of the Persian gendarmerie and, as such, all-powerful in Teheran. He seems to have opposed his party’s pro-Turkish policy; he was, in any case, excluded from its ranks in this period: Gohag, 20 March/2 April 1913, no. 10 (135), p. 114.

62. Gohag, 30 January/12 February 1913, no. 3 (128), p. 27. Under pressure from the British, who had clearly seen that the Armenians’ activity furthered Russian interests, St. Petersburg finally ceased to support the fedayis, effectively handing the CUP what it had hoped to obtain from the ARF; the CUP accordingly failed to honor its pledge to give its Armenian ally twenty seats in parliament: Gohag, 3/16 April 1913, no. 12 (137), p. 138.

64. Ibidem, p. 270. Parvus, the pseudonym of Alexander Helphand, was in fact an agent of the German intelligence service who took advantage of his undeserved reputation as a socialist to make his way into non-Turkish circles of all kinds. He was working for the CUP at the time and was rewarded for it during the war, when he was granted a monopoly on importing certain goods. Vahan Papazian, who was introducted to him by a Bulgarian deputy, Vlakhov, limits himself to saying that Parvus often came to visit Azadamard’s editorial offices. He does, however, acknowledge that they had not understood who he was in 1914; he suddenly became a millionaire in his capacity as a commercial agent responsible for the purchase of coal and grain for the government. When Papazian encountered him in Berlin in 1923, he was living “with a much younger woman in a private villa surrounded by a park with a pond”: Papazian, Memoirs, op. cit., II, pp. 173–4; Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, op. cit., pp. 129–30.

69. Ibidem, p. 280. Parvus cultivated his relations with the Armenian militants for some time after this, but eventually came to the conclusion that it was impossible to manipulate the SDHP.

70. Ibidem, pp. 280–3. The author raises the question and provides arguments in its favor.

74. Ibidem, pp. 302–3. In summer 1911, when Sapah-Giulian was on mission in Anatolia, the mutesarif of Kayseri, an Albanian, is supposed to have told him: “If these Ittihadists remain [in power], they are going to create a new catastrophe, one still more terrible for the Armenian people. Endeavor to save your people from this danger as fast as you can.”

78. Ibidem, p. 108; Bozarslan, Les Courants de pensée, op. cit., II, p. 124. The secret committee of “freedom officers” included, notably, Kemal Bey, Hilmi Bey, Receb Bey, İbrahim Aşkı Bey, Kudret Bey. It demanded that the army withdraw from politics and sent threatening letters to the Unionist leaders.

79. AMAE, Turquie, Politique intérieure, n. s., vol. 9, f° 177, letter from the French consul in Salonika, Josselin, to Poincaré, Salonika, 26 September 1912.

80. Aram Andonian, History of the Balkan war, op. cit., III, Istanbul 1913, pp. 484–90. Exiled to Erzincan in 1908, he succeeded in fleeing in May with the help of Armenians from the city, in particular, one Suren Sarafian, thanks to whom he was able to take refuge in Batum, again in an Armenian milieu, and arrived in Istanbul shortly after the armistice. It was Nâzım who managed to calm the rebels after the events of 31 March 1909. H was strongly opposed to Mahmud Şevket and did not enjoy the favor of the Ittihadists.

83. Simon Zavarian: on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of his death, op. cit., III, pp. 117–18, letter from Zavarian to Mikayel Varantian, Constantinople, 22 September 1912.

84. Aram Andonian, History of the Balkan war, op. cit., III, p. 433. Aram Andonian (1873–1951) was a journalist and, from 1911 on, a deputy in the Armenian Chamber.

87. Garabed Khan Pashayan (1864–1915), also known by the pseudonym Taparig, was a physician. He was an ARF military leader in the region of Erzincan and later in Cilicia under Abdülhamid. He was a member of the editorial board of Azadamard and the Central Committee in Constantinople at the time. He was elected as a deputy from Harput in the 1912 elections.

90. Ibidem, pp. 458–9. The day after this demonstration, Talât, Nâzım, and other Young Turk leaders left for their fief of Salonika. It is possible that they were thus seeking to assure their safety in the event that the government reacted: AMAE, Turquie, Politique intérieure, n. s., vol. 9, f° 177, letter from the French consul in Salonika, Josselin, to Poincaré, Salonika, 26 September 1912.

94. Simon Zavarian: on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of his death, op. cit., pp. 118–19, letter from S. Zavarian to the ARF’s Balkanian Committee, Constantinople, 10 October 1912.

97. Georges Rémond and Alain Penennrun, Sur les lignes de feu: le carnet de champ de bataille du colonel Djémal bey, de Kırk-Kilissé à Tchataldja, Paris 1914, pp. 188–90. Cemal encountered Mehmed Talât in Viza on 2 November 1912, in the middle of the night. Talât, completely downcast, “seated on a large rock” in “a volunteer’s uniform,” and brought him back to the capital. We are then told that, during the battle, Talât was with Mahmud Muhtar Pasha’s general staff. On their way back to the capital, they discovered an army in complete disarray: “It was the end of everything, the ruin, the collapse of the fatherland.”

98. Andonian, History of the Balkan war, IV, op. cit., pp. 826–7. The Times of London and Le Temps of Paris gave detailed accounts of these exactions.

101. 25 December 1912 Declaration of the SDHP’s Central Committee, published in Hntchak, no. 1, January 1913, pp. 1–2.

Part III Young Turks and Armenians Face to Face (December 1912–March 1915)

1 Transformations in the Committee of Union and Progress after the First Balkan War, 1913

1. CADN, Ambassade de Constantinople, série E/86, letter from the French ambassador in Vienna, Dumaine, distributed by the Direction des Affaires politiques of the minister of Foreign Affairs, 26 March 1913. The massive arrival of Muslim refugees from Thrace is abundantly attested by the French consulatees in the provinces; their dispatches clearly bring out the tensions that resulted: AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s., vol. 85 and 86 especially.

2. Turfan, Rise of the Young Turks, op. cit., p. 286; Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, op. cit., p. 285, notes that from 1908 to 1918, power changed hands only through the use of force, as in June–July 1912, with the Liberals, or the 23 January 1913 “raid” on the Sublime Porte.

3. The reporter for the Diary de Paris, Paul Erio, gives a detailed account of the intervention. Some 100 Young Turks led by Enver and Talât are supposed to have succeeded in forcing their way past the barriers. An exchange of gunfire is supposed to have followed, leading to the death of five men, among them Mutafa Negib, a close associate of Enver’s: Le Diary, daté du 27 January 1913. AMAE, Turquie, Politique intérieure, n. s., vol. 9, f° 204, letter from the French ambassador in Constantinople, Bompard, to Quai d’Orsay, 3 March 1913, announced Cemal nomination to the post of military governor of Constantinople.

5. Ibidem, pp. 310–11. The decision to reorganize the Ottoman Army was taken on 14 February 1913 (1 Şubat 1329) – that is, several months before the arrival of the German mission headed Liman von Sanders, a general in the cavalry. It was initially kept secret, prepared by the Ministry of War and the general staff, confirmed by the council of ministers, and, finally, ratified by the sultan and officially announced on 11 December 1913.

7. AMAE, Turquie, Politique intérieure, n. s., vol. 9, f° 199, letter from the French consul in Salonika, Josselin, to Poincaré, Salonika, February 1913.

9. Turfan, Rise of the Young Turks, op. cit., p. 404, n. 2. It is revealing that Ali Fethi took care to resign from the army.

10. Ibidem, p. 319. The grand vizier did not, however, dare to make an official declaration on this subject and even recommended to the German ambassador that he say nothing in public about his plan. The Chief of Staff, Ahmed İzzet Pasha, was himself opposed to the appointment of a foreigner to the supreme command. He favored, at most, a nomination to the head of a corps of the army that would have served as an experimental model (ibidem, pp. 324–5).

11. Ibidem, p. 326. CADN, Ambassade de Constantinople, E 132, three communiques of 11 June 1913 from the Ottoman Wire Agency, announcing the assassination of the grand vizier and the probable nomination of Prince Said Halim to the post; AMAE, Turquie, Politique intérieure, n. s., vol. 9, f° 211, telegram from the French chargé d’affaires in Constantinople, Boppe, to Quai d’Orsay, 11 June 1913.

12. CADN, Ambassade de Constantinople, E 132, rapport des services de renseignements “donné à M. Nichan par Tahir bey, Tarla Bachi, Ladjar Djadessi, no. 4 bis.”

13. AMAE, Turquie, Politique intérieure, n. s., vol. 9, ff. 202–4, letter from the French ambassador in Constantinople, Bompard, to Quai d’Orsay, 3 March 1913. Frank G Weber, Eagles on the Crescent: Germany, Austria and the Diplomacy of the Turkish Alliance, 1914–1918, Ithaca & London, 1970, pp. 27–8, cites diplomatic sources that note that it was Enver who benefited the most from this murder, for the grand vizier had been standing in the way of his ambitions; they add that the committee criticized him for his willingness to make concessions to non-Turks, but that Mahmud Şevket had made up his mind to accept the German and Russian propositions.

In a 7 January 1914 dispatch to his minister, the Austro-Hungarian ambassador, Pallavicini, reputed to be very knowledgable about on Turkey, explicitly accused Enver of having had the grand vizier assassinated in order to arrive at his ends: ibidem, p. 31.

14. AMAE, Turquie, Politique intérieure, n. s., vol. 9, f° 213, telegram from the chargé d’affaires in Constantinople, Boppe, to Quai d’Orsay, 11 June 1913.

15. AMAE, Turquie, Politique intérieure, n. s., vol. 9, f° 215, telegram from the chargé d’affaires in Constantinople, Boppe, to Quai d’Orsay, 14 June 1913

16. AMAE, Turquie, Politique intérieure, n. s., vol. 9, f° 220, telegram from the chargé d’affaires in Constantinople, Boppe, to Quai d’Orsay, 17 June 1913.

17. AMAE, Turquie, Politique intérieure, n. s., vol. 9, f° 224, telegram from the chargé d’affaires in Constantinople, Boppe, to Quai d’Orsay, 24 June 1913.

18. Turfan, Rise of the Young Turks, op. cit., p. 346: Enver’s partisans were, above all, the young officers of the general staff and the fedayis of committee; from this point on, Enver was a preeminent, indispensable member of the CUP.

20. Ibidem, p. 331. Weber, Eagles on the Crescent, op. cit., p. 34, notes that “la haute autorité [de Said Halim] reposait sur ses mains bien manucurées.”

21. AMAE, Turquie, Politique intérieure, n. s., vol. 9, ff. 230–44, report from Guy de Feriec to Stéphane Pichon, 3 November 1913.

24. Ibidem, f° 233. In Tanin, İsmail Hakkı Babanzâde, who participated in the Congress, condemned “exaggeration of the principle of equality.”

26. Ibidem, f° 236v°. For the full text, see pp. 240–2. Said Halim was elected president of the General Council. The General Congress was made up of the members of the General Council, the inspectors of the party, the responsible secretaries in the sancaks, and the delegates of the provincial congresses. The General Congress elected the members of the General Council, its president, the general secretary, and the members of the Central Committee.

29. In 1915, these party cadres acquired, as we shall see, powers greater than those of the valis and military commanders in everything that bore on the eradication of the Armenians. They were judged at a special trial in 1919–20.

30. Ibidem, f° 240. “The party had correspondents in all the towns and villages of the interior; they served as intermediaries between the Committee and rank-and-file party members.” All of these decisions as well as the party program were adopted on 3 November 1913, indication that the congress was continued beyond the official date of adjournment.

32. Ahmed İzzet pasha (Furgaç) (1864–1937), minister of war (1913), commander on the Caucasian front during the First World War, grand vizier in November 1918: Zürcher, The Unionist, op. cit., p. 46.

34. Gohag, 10/23 July 1913, no. 36 (161), p. 345, editorial on the Rodosto massacres, which occurred 1–3 July. Other massacres took place in 1912 in a town nearby, Malgara, and in Ada-Bazar, 55 miles east of the capital. Period: S

1912–1914

[Report on the Activity of the Central Leadership of the Nation for the Period 1912–1914], Constantinople 1914 (November 1912–February 1914), pp. 69–71.

36. Archives of the Patriarchate of Constantinople (hereinafter abbreviated: APC), Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem (hereinafter abbreviated: APJ), The Patriarchate’s Constantinople Information Bureau (hereinafter abbreviated: PCI Bureau),

336–7, file no. 5, letter from Patriarch Arsharuni to the Russian, British and French ambassadors, 14 May 1913.

37. APC/APJ, PCI Bureau,

338–9, file no. 17, Takrir to the grand vizier Mahmud Şevket, 18/31 May 1913.

38. APC/APJ, PCI Bureau,

340–2, List of the murders, acts of banditry, kidnappings, illegal seizures of property and other crimes committed in the various vilayets of Anatolia since 29 April 1913.

39. Ibidem. The consular sources of the day abound in similar examples, notably in AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, n. s. 85, 86, 87. Thus, we read in a 10 May 1913 letter from the French ambassador to the minister to whom he answered, that “in Hajin and Sis, speeches were made; mysterious figures who are said to be emissaries of the Committee of Union and Progress, hold conclaves with the Muslim notables and visit the villages where the Armenians tried to defend themselves in 1896 and 1909. Hence, throughout eastern Anatolia, the Christian population is living in terror. The accounts given by the Patriarchate and the reports of the consuls paint a similar picture of the general malaise prevailing in Armenia” (see. vol. 87, p. 21 sq). Better than the euphemism describing the situation in the Armenian provinces as a “malaise,” the consular correspondence reports the incendiary speeches that influential figures from the Committee of Union and Progress made on many different occasions in the intention of enflaming the local populations against the Armenians, Greeks, and Syriacs (see vol. 87, pp. 31, 69). The calls for murder were published in the newspaper Babaghan is confirmed in the correspondence of the French vice-consul in Mersina and Adana (see vol. 86, p. 217).

40. APC/APJ, PCI Bureau,

343, file no. 901, an extract from the teskere of the grand vizier, addressed to the department of justice and religious dominations, in connection with the correspondence between the grand vizier’s office and the Ministry of the Interior on the takrir of 18/31 May 1913 (1229) presented by the Armenian Patriarchate to His Highness the grand vizier.

41. Hmayag Aramiantz, “

[The Series of Projects],” an editorial in Gohag, 30 January 1913, no. 3 (128), pp. 25–6. Infra, p. 833, n. 45, for biographical information on Haci Adıl, elected a member of Central Committee and general secretary to replace Dr. Nâzım in November 1910.

43. APC/APJ, PCI Bureau,

344–50, the grand vizier’s response to the Patriarchate’s takrir, teskere of the Ministry of Justice and religious denominations, 22 June 1329 (1913), file no. 78.

44. Ibidem. At the 21 July 1913 session of the Armenian Chamber, information from the provinces indicated that, on a single day, 100 people left Kghi for the Americas, that 1,000 left from Erzincan in a single week, and that, between 1908 and 1912, some 20,000 people emigrated to the United States alone: Papazian, Memoirs, op. cit., II, p. 215.

45. APC/APJ, PCI Bureau,

356–60, file no. 78, response of the Mixed Council to the teskere of the Ministry of Justice and the religious denominations (22 June 1329/1913), no. 78, Patriarcat, 3/16 August 1329/1913.

49. APC/APJ, PCI Bureau,

406–12, internal report of the Patriarchate, 21 November 1913.

52. APC/APJ, PCI Bureau,

406–12, internal report of the Patriarchate, 21 November 1913.

1. Hmayag Aramiantz, “

[The Ittihad and the Nations],” Gohag, 6/19 November 1913, no. 69 (174), pp. 601–2.

2. “

1908–1912 [The Situation of the Armenians in Turkey, 1908–1912],” Droschak, no. 2–3/230, February-mars 1913, p. 31.

3. Krikor Zohrab,

[Complete Works] ed. Albert Sharurian, vol. 4, Yerevan 2003, pp. 341–432 [AU: 342?], Diary, 1912–1915 (Museum of Litterature and Art, Fonds Zohrab, ms. 17, 1–70 and ms. 5, 7–12), p. 344 (9 December 1912) and p. 572, nn. 19–20.

4. One has only to leaf through the party’s official organ, Droschak, to see that the Dashnaks stood squarely in the tradition of the other Russian revolutionary movements; they, too, were struggling against the Czarist regime and did not hesitate to use terror to achieve their ends. Also worth noting are the harshness of the policy that St. Petersburg adopted toward the Armenians of the Caucasus and the incessant efforts of the secret police to dismantle the revolutionary committees and imprison or exile their militants, for whom Ittihadist Turkey represented a safe haven.

5. Sharurian, Chronology ... of Krikor Zohrab, op. cit., p. 388, from the Archives of the Armenian Catholicosate, Matenadaran, vol. 20, f° 238.

7. Nerses Zakarian (1883–1915), teacher, writer, journalist, member of the Hnchak Central Committee.

9. Diran Erganian (?–1915), lawyer born in Istanbul, professor in the Istanbul Law School, and member of parliament. He was deported in April 1915 and murdered in Damascus.

10. Levon Demirjibashian (1863–1926), architect, member of the Ottoman parliament in 1914.

11. Oskan Mardikian (1867–1947), born in Erzincan, jurist, writer, minister of the postal and telegraph office (1913–1915) who resigned in August 1915 and later found refuge in Cairo (1920).

12. Sarkis Svin or Sunkujian (1870–1915), Istanbul physician, high-ranking official in the Ministry of Health, journalist, deported and executed in 1915.

15. Ibidem, p. 184. Vahan Papazian’s memoirs are thus a basic source of information on the hidden aspects of the reform question.

16. Report on the activity of the central leadership of the nation for the period 1912–1914, op. cit., p. 49 ff.

17. Boghos Nubar Pasha (1851–1930), engineer, a son of the Egyptian prime minister, was the head of the Egyptian railways and one of the founders (in 1906) of the Armenian General Benevolent Union.

18. The best overview of the question is still R.H. Davison, “The Armenian Crisis, 1912–1914,” The American Historical Review, LIII/3 (April 1948), pp. 481–5. For the details, the Archives of the Délégation arménienne (Bibliothèque Nubar, Paris), files 2 and 3, are essential (hereinafter cites as ADA/BNu).

19. Report on the activity of the central leadership of the nation for the period 1912–1914, op. cit., pp. 73–90.

21.

[Minutes of the National Chamber], Constantinople 1913, 17 May 1913, Session, speech of S. Karayan, p. 49 sq.

24. Richard Hovannisian, Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1967, pp. 32–5.

25. Ibidem. It was Zohrab who negotiated St. Petersburg’s diplomatic intervention with the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, N. Tcharikov, and it was under his leadership that the bargaining with the representatives of the powers took place: Zohrab, Complete works, op. cit., IV, Diary, p. 343. The passage that the Patriarch Zaven Der Yeghiayan, Memoirs, op. cit., devotes to this affair is worth reading, as is L. Etmekjian, “The Armenian National Assembly of Turkey and Reform,” Armenian Review 29/1 (1976), pp. 38–52. Les volumes 86, 87 ff. of the AMAE, Turquie, Correspondance politique, n. s., also make it possible to follow the question of the reforms very closely.

26. ADA/BNu, file 2, letter of 2 August 1913 from Boghos Nubar to A. Williams, president of the British-Armenian Committee, which also reveals that the plan was elaborated by the Patriarchate.

27. Hovannisian, op. cit., p. 32; Gabriel Lazian,

[Armenia and the Armenian Question], Cairo 1957, p. 155.

33. ADA/BNu, file 2, letter from B. Nubar to V. Karanfilian, 16 June 1913, in which Nubar clearly indicates that in April, in the wings of the London Conference, he conferred with Johannes Lepsius on the proper course to follow in order to convince Western diplomats that his analysis was accurate.

The principal members of the British-Armenian Committee were Lord J. A. Bryce, N. Buxton, Sir E. Bayle, T. P. O’Connors, A. Williams, and A. G. Symonds; the president of the French Committee was Robert de Caix, the co-presidents of the German groups were Dr. G. V. Greenfield and Lepsius, and the president of the Swiss Committee was Léopold Favre: AMAE, Turquie, Correspondance politique, vol. 86, pp. 253–5.

34. ADA/BNu, file 2, letter from B. Nubar to A. Williams, 19 June 1913, in which Nubar again mentions the results of his second voyage to London in mid-May.

41. Ibidem, confidential letter from. Williams to B. Nubar, 29 July 1913; see also Les réformes arméniennes et l’intégrité de la Turquie d’Asie, Constantinople 22 March 1913, 4 pp.; Les réformes arméniennes et les populations musulmanes: les émigrants (mohadjirs) dans les provinces arméniennes, Constantinople, 5 May 1913; Les réformes arméniennes et le contrôle européen, Constantinople, 14 June 1913, 4 pp.

42. Ibidem, review of the newspapers between 2 June and 10 July 1913; Note sur quelques objections faites au projet de réformes arméniennes, Constantinople, 5 August 1913, 4 pp.

44. Ibidem, letters from B. Nubar to A. Symonds, member of the British-Armenian Committee, 12 August, and to Yakoub Artin Pasha, in London, 13 August 1913.

47. Ibidem, letter from B. Nubar to Baron Robert de Caix, general secretary of the Comité de l’Asie française, section du Levant, 27 August 1913.

48. Ibidem, letter from vartabed Krikoris Balakian, secretary of Special Committee of Constantinople Patriarchate, to Nubar, 24 August 1913, Berlin, brings out the behind-the-scenes role played by Zohrab, an eminent member of the Special Committee.

49. Ibidem, letter from James Greenfield to B. Nubar, 28 September 1913, in Berlin.

50. Ibidem, letters from B. Nubar to Lepsius, 13 and 18 October 1913, which reveals the tenor of Sazonov’s remarks of theirng his interview in Paris.

52. Ibidem, letter from B. Nubar to Lepsius, 18 October 1913, in which he mentions his 17 October conversation with Minister Pichon.

Weber, Eagles on the Crescent, op. cit., pp. 20–1, shows that German policy was modified in favor of the Armenians and that the ambassador’s attitude toward them changed. At this time, says Weber, Berlin considered looking to the Armenians to support its plans for economic development around the Bagdadbahn. To prevent the Germans from drawing closer to the Armenians, the Ottoman government is supposed to have proposed that the British send inspectors to Armenia. We are even told that the minister of foreign affairs, Jagow, ordered that negotiations be conof thected with Kurdish leaders so that they would “stop playing their favorite sport, murdering Armenians and burning down their villages” (p. 24).

53. Ibidem for the correspondence with these personalities and the preparations for the Paris Conference.

57. Papazian, Memoirs, op. cit., II, p. 190. Let us recall that the ARF had officially broken off its relations with Ittihad on 5/18 May 1912, publishing a memorandum of them on the occasion: “

[The Position of the Dashnaktsutiun vis-à-vis the Ittihad],” Droschak, no. 9–10, Septembre-October 1913, p. 147.

59. Charourian, Chronology ... of Krikor Zohrab, op. cit., p. 393; Azadamard, no. 1127, 2/15 February 1913.

66. He founded a clinic in Mush, where he spent two years before he came to Istanbul in December 1912, probably in order to participate in the negotiations between the Russians and Armenians. He met with Zohrab at Zohrab’s home on 9 December 1912 in order to bring this question up with him: Zohrab, Complete works, op. cit., IV, p. 343.

69. Papazian, Memoirs, op. cit., II, p. 267, announces the September 1913 death of this founder of the ARF and his imposing funeral in Galata.

72. Ibidem, p. 191. This Dashnak leader was hanged in Adana in June 1915 by the vali, Avni Bey. His “friend” Cemal, the region’s strongman, did not intervene.

75. Ibidem, pp. 192–3; Azadamard, 15 July 1913, pp. 1–2, interview conducted by Parsegh Shahbaz.

77. Reprinted in Azadamard, 25 June/7 July 1913, p. 1; Papazian, Memoirs, op. cit., II, p. 193.

78. Ibidem, p. 235. The meetings took place at Zohrab’s house and at Vartkes’s by turns; both men lived in Pera.

81. “The position of the Dashnaktsutiun vis-a-vis the Ittihad,” art. cit., p. 147.

85. Zohrab, Complete works, IV, op. cit., pp. 344–5, Diary, 7/20 December 1913. AMAE, Turquie, Politique intérieure, n. s., vol. 9, ff. 249–50, letter from the French Ambassador, Bompard, to S. Pichon, 16 December 1913, announces the publication of an imperial irade ratifying certain modifications of Articles 81 and 103 of the law of the vilayets. The irade, reprinted in a communique issued by the Agence Ottomane, provided for 1) utilization of local languages in the administration; recruitment of gendarmes and policemen among the Muslim and non-Muslim population “in proportion to their numbers”; 2) proportional distribution of the budget for elementary education among the different communties; and 3) the attribution of subsidies to non-Muslim elementary schools.

86. Ibidem, p. 305, letter in French to German Ambassador, Hans Wangenheim, Aleppo, 14/24 June 1915: one night in April 1909 – during the events of 31 March – he brought Halil Bey home with him; “for twenty days, we extended him hospitality to protect him from persecution by the Helaskiars.” The author informed the diplomat of this fact in order to show him how close he was to the Ittihadists.

90. Ibidem, p. 379. This section of the diary was written a few weeks after the interview, around February 1914, after signature of the official decree ordering reforms.

92. Ibidem, p. 353, Diary, 8/21 to 11/24 December 1913, that is, the day after his conversation with Halil.

95. Ibidem, p. 379, a section of the diary written after the interview, around February 1914.

105. Ibidem, pp. 356–7, Diary, 12/25 December, in which he completed his notes of the previous evening.

108. Ibidem, p. 366, Diary, 2/15 January 1914. Weber, Eagles on the Crescent ..., op. cit., pp. 35–6, gives details about the circumstances surrounding the nomination of Otto Liman von Sanders as well as his surprising appointment, by an imperial decree of 4 December 1913, to the post of commander of the First Army, based in Constantinople. The appointment provoked a sharp reaction from Russia and generated diplomatic tensions.

109. Zohrab, Complete works, op. cit., IV, Diary, pp. 367–8, Diary, 4/17 January 1914.

115. Report on the activity of the central leadership of the nation for the period 1912–1914, op. cit., pp. 98–9, We learn from this report that the posts of the deputies representing the Armenians were to be distributed as follows: two for Constantinople, one for Arghana, two for Bitlis, one for Smyrna, two for Erzerum, one for Kayseri, one for Aleppo, one for Marash, one for Ismit, one for Sıvas, two for Van, and one for Sis/Kozan; Féroz Ahmad, The Young Turks, op. cit., p. 144, alludes to these discussions about the number of Armenian deputies in the Ottoman parliament, which had a total of 259 members in 1914, but included only 14 Armenians, as opposed to 144 Turks, 84 Arabs, 13 Greeks, and 4 Jews.

Notes