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Synopsis of `Judgment at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials'
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2012/01/04/synopsis-of-judgment-at-istanbul-the-armenian-genocide-trials/
January 4, 2012 in Books & Art ·
`Judgment at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials'
By Vahakn N. Dadrian and Taner Akcam
New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books
2011, 363 pp
ISBN 978-0-85745-251-1 (hardback)
ISBN 978-0-85745-286-3 (e-book)
This book is a study of the World War I Armenian Genocide as
documented through the Ottoman Special Military Tribunal's criminal
prosecution of the perpetrators involved. The aim of these post-World
War I Ottoman courts-martial was the exposure and punishment of the
organizers of the crime. As the courts-martial unfolded over nearly
three years (1919-22), the near-omnipotent role played in the
organization of the genocide by the top leaders of a militarized
political party, the Young Turk junta'along with their governmental
subordinates'became all too evident. That party was the Ittihad ve
Terakki, or the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP).
A scene from the courtroom on April 3, 1919
This study is almost entirely anchored on original and authenticated
documents. The evidence these documents yield is by no means ordinary
in nature, but is rather a kind of evidence that is legally
characterized as `evidence-in-chief.'
Most importantly, the documentation for the trials was rendered both
incontestable and verifiable by a distinct legal procedure the
tribunal adopted: When on the witness stand, the principal defendants
were invited to examine and confirm the authenticity of the many
secret and top secret documents bearing their own signatures. Most of
these documents had been secured and authenticated during the pretrial
investigations by officials from the ministries of the interior and
justice. The authentication formula used was, `It conforms to the
original.'
The book represents firsts in many ways.
1.This is the first time the complete known documentation of the trial
proceedings are being provided in English. This study is based on
authentic Turkish documentation, which the Ottoman government was
forced to release during the trials. It includes the personal,
eyewitness testimony of high-ranking Ottoman officials, given under
oath, on the magnitude of the crimes against the Armenians. The
indictments, evidence, and verdicts clearly prove the centralized
planning and the genocidal intent of the Young Turk government against
its Armenian citizens.
2.This is the first time information from the Ottoman newspapers of
the era'whose collection, digitization, editing, transliteration, and
translation were commissioned by the Zoryan Institute as part of the
long-term project known as `Creating a Common Body of Knowledge''has
been utilized to reconstruct the trials. While the official government
record lists only 12 trials, the newspapers provide details on 63.
Between 2001 and 2004, researchers went to libraries in different
cities in Turkey to locate and digitize all the articles in 17 Ottoman
newspapers from 1919-21 on the trials. It was important not to alert
officials about the intent of the project, or access might well have
been blocked. In the end, Zoryan had a nearly complete collection of
hundreds of articles on the trials from Ottoman newspapers. These
articles have been transliterated into modern Turkish, and the titles
of the articles translated into English. Digital images of these
newspapers are now in Zoryan's archives.
1.This is the first time a national court successfully prosecuted such
a case of mass atrocity against its own citizens. The legal principle
of `crimes against humanity' that arose in this case had a
far-reaching influence and is echoed in the Nuremberg Charter, the
Tokyo Charter, and the UN Genocide Convention.
2.This is the first joint publication by the two most internationally
renowned scholars on the Armenian Genocide'Professors Vahakn Dadrian,
an Armenian, and Taner Akcam, a Turk.
Wartime Cabinet ministers, Young Turk party leaders, and a number of
other accessories were court-martialed for orchestrating Turkey's
entry into World War I and for the annihilation of the Armenians. Most
were found guilty and received sentences ranging from prison with hard
labor to death. Talat, Enver, Cemal, and Dr. Nazım were condemned to
death in absentia.
On Jan. 13, 1921, the courts-martial were abolished altogether, with
jurisdiction reverting to regular military courts. Nearly all of the
key figures of the CUP managed to escape Turkey before being brought
to trial. Scores of lesser CUP leaders were condemned to death in
absentia or sentenced to prison terms. However, many of these
eventually escaped or were set free, as the Allied Powers were very
slow in implementing the trials, constantly undermined each other, and
removed their forces from occupying Turkey, while at the same time
freeing tens of thousands of prisoners of war, who readily joined the
Kemalist insurgency. The July 24, 1923 Treaty of Lausanne was framed
in such a way as to avoid the subject of war crimes and massacres.
With Declaration VIII of Amnesty and the Protocol attached to this
treaty, and as Kemalism gained the upper hand and eventually ended the
Ottoman Empire, the pursuit of justice for the Armenians was
abandoned.
The Armenian Genocide represents the first case of genocide (as
described by Raphael Lemkin, the legal scholar who coined the term
`genocide'), in which a government tried to eliminate an identifiable
ethnic or religious group of its own citizens, and is recognized as
the prototype for what specialists refer to as `modern genocide.' It
serves as a classic example of how impunity for one crime can lead to
another crime, as Adolf Hitler infamously justified his plans by
asking his generals in 1939, `Who remembers now the extermination of
the Armenians?'
Judgment at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials adds a new
perspective to the historical and moral studies of the genocide, and
serves as a legal case study. It holds great relevance today, with the
current interest internationally regarding the Armenian Genocide and
its denial.
See the Table of Contents attached for an outline of the book.
About the Authors
Vahakn N. Dadrian's field of specialization is genocide, in general,
and the Armenian Genocide, in particular. For several years he was
engaged as director of a large Genocide Study Project sponsored by the
H. F. Guggenheim Foundation. The project's first major achievement was
the publication, now in its fifth printing expanded, of an extensive
volume titled The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict
from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus (Oxford & Providence,
R.I., 1995). This work has appeared in French (Paris, second printing)
and in Greek (Athens). Dadrian's other major work, German
Responsibility in the Armenian Genocide: A Review of the Historical
Evidence of German Complicity, was published in 1996 (Cambridge,
Mass.) and is now in its third edition. His third volume, Warrant for
Genocide: The Key Elements of the Turko-Armenian Conflict, appeared in
1999 (London and New Brunswick, N.J.). His latest book is titled The
Key Elements of the Turkish Denial of the Armenian Genocide
(Cambridge, Mass., and Toronto, 1999). This book was translated into
Spanish in Buenos Aires (2002). In addition to these monographs,
Dadrian has published numerous articles in scholarly journals around
the world. His extensive list of publications includes several
articles on the Jewish Holocaust and the victimization of the American
Indians. In 2005, he received four separate awards for his lifetime
contribution to genocide studies. Dadrian is currently the director of
genocide research at the Zoryan Institute.
Taner Akcam was born in the province of Ardahan in northeast Turkey
and became interested in Turkish politics at an early age. As the
editor-in-chief of a political journal, he was arrested in 1976 and
sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. One year later, he escaped and
fled to Germany as a political refugee. His books include Dialogue
Across an International Divide: Essays Towards a Turkish-Armenian
Dialogue (2001) and From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and
the Armenian Genocide (2004). A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide
and the Question of Turkish Responsibility was published in November
2006 and has since been translated into Dutch, French, Italian,
Polish, and Spanish. He is the first Turkish scholar to have drawn
attention to the historicity of the Armenian Genocide and has, as a
result, been persecuted by the Turkish state. In April 2006, the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts presented him with a distinguished award
for outstanding work in human rights and fighting genocide denial. He
is currently an associate professor of history and the
Kaloosdian/Mugar Chair in Armenian Genocide Studies at the Center for
Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University.
Table of Contents
Ottoman-Turkish Words and Names xi
Introduction 1
Vahakn N. Dadrian and Taner Akcam
PART I. The Conditions Surrounding the Trials
Chapter 1. History of the Turko-Armenian Con�ict 13
Vahakn N. Dadrian
Chapter 2. Military Defeat and the Victors' Drive for Punitive Justice 19
Vahakn N. Dadrian
Chapter 3. The Preparations for Courts-Martial 78
Vahakn N. Dadrian
Chapter 4. The Initiation of Courts-Martial 93
Vahakn N. Dadrian
Chapter 5. Emergent Kemalism and the Courts-Martial 101
Vahakn N. Dadrian
Chapter 6. The Series of Major Trials and the Related Verdicts:
Falsi�cation of the Arguments of `Relocation,' `Civil War,' and
`Intercommunal Clashes' 108
Vahakn N. Dadrian
Chapter 7. Legal Proceedings as a Conceptual Framework 126
Vahakn N. Dadrian
Chapter 8. A Summary of the Conditions Surrounding the Trials 154
Vahakn N. Dadrian
Chapter 9. The Judicial Liquidation of Some of the Arch Perpetrators
by Both CUP and Kemalist Authorities, and the Demise of Other
Accomplices 177
Vahakn N. Dadrian
PART II. The Trials and Beyond
Chapter 10. Death Sentences Handed Down by the Military Tribunal in Istanbul 195
Taner Akcam
Chapter 11. Coverage of the Trials by the Istanbul Turkish Press 200
Taner Akcam
Chapter 12. Formation and Operation of the Ottoman Military Tribunals 251
Taner Akcam
Chapter 13. The Full Texts in English of the Indictments and Verdicts 271
Appendix 333
Glossary of Terms 335
Archival, Judicial, and Parliamentary Documents 337
I. The Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic 337
II. Imperial Germany and German O�cial Records 342
III. Imperial Austria-Hungary 344
IV. Great Britain 345
V. T e United States 346
VI. United Nations 346
VII. France and French Archives 346
VIII. Armenian Archival Documents 346
Select Bibliographic Secondary Sources 348
Books 348
Turkish 348
English 350
German 351
French 351
Armenian 351
Articles 352
Turkish 352
English 352
German 353
Armenian 353
Newspapers 354
Turkish 354
French 354
American 354
British 355
Canadian 355
Australian 355
Armenian 355
Index 356
From: Baghdasarian
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2012/01/04/synopsis-of-judgment-at-istanbul-the-armenian-genocide-trials/
January 4, 2012 in Books & Art ·
`Judgment at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials'
By Vahakn N. Dadrian and Taner Akcam
New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books
2011, 363 pp
ISBN 978-0-85745-251-1 (hardback)
ISBN 978-0-85745-286-3 (e-book)
This book is a study of the World War I Armenian Genocide as
documented through the Ottoman Special Military Tribunal's criminal
prosecution of the perpetrators involved. The aim of these post-World
War I Ottoman courts-martial was the exposure and punishment of the
organizers of the crime. As the courts-martial unfolded over nearly
three years (1919-22), the near-omnipotent role played in the
organization of the genocide by the top leaders of a militarized
political party, the Young Turk junta'along with their governmental
subordinates'became all too evident. That party was the Ittihad ve
Terakki, or the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP).
A scene from the courtroom on April 3, 1919
This study is almost entirely anchored on original and authenticated
documents. The evidence these documents yield is by no means ordinary
in nature, but is rather a kind of evidence that is legally
characterized as `evidence-in-chief.'
Most importantly, the documentation for the trials was rendered both
incontestable and verifiable by a distinct legal procedure the
tribunal adopted: When on the witness stand, the principal defendants
were invited to examine and confirm the authenticity of the many
secret and top secret documents bearing their own signatures. Most of
these documents had been secured and authenticated during the pretrial
investigations by officials from the ministries of the interior and
justice. The authentication formula used was, `It conforms to the
original.'
The book represents firsts in many ways.
1.This is the first time the complete known documentation of the trial
proceedings are being provided in English. This study is based on
authentic Turkish documentation, which the Ottoman government was
forced to release during the trials. It includes the personal,
eyewitness testimony of high-ranking Ottoman officials, given under
oath, on the magnitude of the crimes against the Armenians. The
indictments, evidence, and verdicts clearly prove the centralized
planning and the genocidal intent of the Young Turk government against
its Armenian citizens.
2.This is the first time information from the Ottoman newspapers of
the era'whose collection, digitization, editing, transliteration, and
translation were commissioned by the Zoryan Institute as part of the
long-term project known as `Creating a Common Body of Knowledge''has
been utilized to reconstruct the trials. While the official government
record lists only 12 trials, the newspapers provide details on 63.
Between 2001 and 2004, researchers went to libraries in different
cities in Turkey to locate and digitize all the articles in 17 Ottoman
newspapers from 1919-21 on the trials. It was important not to alert
officials about the intent of the project, or access might well have
been blocked. In the end, Zoryan had a nearly complete collection of
hundreds of articles on the trials from Ottoman newspapers. These
articles have been transliterated into modern Turkish, and the titles
of the articles translated into English. Digital images of these
newspapers are now in Zoryan's archives.
1.This is the first time a national court successfully prosecuted such
a case of mass atrocity against its own citizens. The legal principle
of `crimes against humanity' that arose in this case had a
far-reaching influence and is echoed in the Nuremberg Charter, the
Tokyo Charter, and the UN Genocide Convention.
2.This is the first joint publication by the two most internationally
renowned scholars on the Armenian Genocide'Professors Vahakn Dadrian,
an Armenian, and Taner Akcam, a Turk.
Wartime Cabinet ministers, Young Turk party leaders, and a number of
other accessories were court-martialed for orchestrating Turkey's
entry into World War I and for the annihilation of the Armenians. Most
were found guilty and received sentences ranging from prison with hard
labor to death. Talat, Enver, Cemal, and Dr. Nazım were condemned to
death in absentia.
On Jan. 13, 1921, the courts-martial were abolished altogether, with
jurisdiction reverting to regular military courts. Nearly all of the
key figures of the CUP managed to escape Turkey before being brought
to trial. Scores of lesser CUP leaders were condemned to death in
absentia or sentenced to prison terms. However, many of these
eventually escaped or were set free, as the Allied Powers were very
slow in implementing the trials, constantly undermined each other, and
removed their forces from occupying Turkey, while at the same time
freeing tens of thousands of prisoners of war, who readily joined the
Kemalist insurgency. The July 24, 1923 Treaty of Lausanne was framed
in such a way as to avoid the subject of war crimes and massacres.
With Declaration VIII of Amnesty and the Protocol attached to this
treaty, and as Kemalism gained the upper hand and eventually ended the
Ottoman Empire, the pursuit of justice for the Armenians was
abandoned.
The Armenian Genocide represents the first case of genocide (as
described by Raphael Lemkin, the legal scholar who coined the term
`genocide'), in which a government tried to eliminate an identifiable
ethnic or religious group of its own citizens, and is recognized as
the prototype for what specialists refer to as `modern genocide.' It
serves as a classic example of how impunity for one crime can lead to
another crime, as Adolf Hitler infamously justified his plans by
asking his generals in 1939, `Who remembers now the extermination of
the Armenians?'
Judgment at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials adds a new
perspective to the historical and moral studies of the genocide, and
serves as a legal case study. It holds great relevance today, with the
current interest internationally regarding the Armenian Genocide and
its denial.
See the Table of Contents attached for an outline of the book.
About the Authors
Vahakn N. Dadrian's field of specialization is genocide, in general,
and the Armenian Genocide, in particular. For several years he was
engaged as director of a large Genocide Study Project sponsored by the
H. F. Guggenheim Foundation. The project's first major achievement was
the publication, now in its fifth printing expanded, of an extensive
volume titled The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict
from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus (Oxford & Providence,
R.I., 1995). This work has appeared in French (Paris, second printing)
and in Greek (Athens). Dadrian's other major work, German
Responsibility in the Armenian Genocide: A Review of the Historical
Evidence of German Complicity, was published in 1996 (Cambridge,
Mass.) and is now in its third edition. His third volume, Warrant for
Genocide: The Key Elements of the Turko-Armenian Conflict, appeared in
1999 (London and New Brunswick, N.J.). His latest book is titled The
Key Elements of the Turkish Denial of the Armenian Genocide
(Cambridge, Mass., and Toronto, 1999). This book was translated into
Spanish in Buenos Aires (2002). In addition to these monographs,
Dadrian has published numerous articles in scholarly journals around
the world. His extensive list of publications includes several
articles on the Jewish Holocaust and the victimization of the American
Indians. In 2005, he received four separate awards for his lifetime
contribution to genocide studies. Dadrian is currently the director of
genocide research at the Zoryan Institute.
Taner Akcam was born in the province of Ardahan in northeast Turkey
and became interested in Turkish politics at an early age. As the
editor-in-chief of a political journal, he was arrested in 1976 and
sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. One year later, he escaped and
fled to Germany as a political refugee. His books include Dialogue
Across an International Divide: Essays Towards a Turkish-Armenian
Dialogue (2001) and From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and
the Armenian Genocide (2004). A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide
and the Question of Turkish Responsibility was published in November
2006 and has since been translated into Dutch, French, Italian,
Polish, and Spanish. He is the first Turkish scholar to have drawn
attention to the historicity of the Armenian Genocide and has, as a
result, been persecuted by the Turkish state. In April 2006, the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts presented him with a distinguished award
for outstanding work in human rights and fighting genocide denial. He
is currently an associate professor of history and the
Kaloosdian/Mugar Chair in Armenian Genocide Studies at the Center for
Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University.
Table of Contents
Ottoman-Turkish Words and Names xi
Introduction 1
Vahakn N. Dadrian and Taner Akcam
PART I. The Conditions Surrounding the Trials
Chapter 1. History of the Turko-Armenian Con�ict 13
Vahakn N. Dadrian
Chapter 2. Military Defeat and the Victors' Drive for Punitive Justice 19
Vahakn N. Dadrian
Chapter 3. The Preparations for Courts-Martial 78
Vahakn N. Dadrian
Chapter 4. The Initiation of Courts-Martial 93
Vahakn N. Dadrian
Chapter 5. Emergent Kemalism and the Courts-Martial 101
Vahakn N. Dadrian
Chapter 6. The Series of Major Trials and the Related Verdicts:
Falsi�cation of the Arguments of `Relocation,' `Civil War,' and
`Intercommunal Clashes' 108
Vahakn N. Dadrian
Chapter 7. Legal Proceedings as a Conceptual Framework 126
Vahakn N. Dadrian
Chapter 8. A Summary of the Conditions Surrounding the Trials 154
Vahakn N. Dadrian
Chapter 9. The Judicial Liquidation of Some of the Arch Perpetrators
by Both CUP and Kemalist Authorities, and the Demise of Other
Accomplices 177
Vahakn N. Dadrian
PART II. The Trials and Beyond
Chapter 10. Death Sentences Handed Down by the Military Tribunal in Istanbul 195
Taner Akcam
Chapter 11. Coverage of the Trials by the Istanbul Turkish Press 200
Taner Akcam
Chapter 12. Formation and Operation of the Ottoman Military Tribunals 251
Taner Akcam
Chapter 13. The Full Texts in English of the Indictments and Verdicts 271
Appendix 333
Glossary of Terms 335
Archival, Judicial, and Parliamentary Documents 337
I. The Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic 337
II. Imperial Germany and German O�cial Records 342
III. Imperial Austria-Hungary 344
IV. Great Britain 345
V. T e United States 346
VI. United Nations 346
VII. France and French Archives 346
VIII. Armenian Archival Documents 346
Select Bibliographic Secondary Sources 348
Books 348
Turkish 348
English 350
German 351
French 351
Armenian 351
Articles 352
Turkish 352
English 352
German 353
Armenian 353
Newspapers 354
Turkish 354
French 354
American 354
British 355
Canadian 355
Australian 355
Armenian 355
Index 356
From: Baghdasarian