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GENOCIDE OF A NATION
The Sunday Times (London)
April 12, 2015 Sunday
Dominic Lawson
GREAT CATASTROPHE
Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide by THOMAS DE WAAL OUP
£20/ebook £19.99 pp312
THEY CAN LIVE IN THE DESERT BUT NOWHERE ELSE A History of the Armenian
Genocide by RONALD GRIGOR SUNY Princeton £24.95 ebook £24.95 pp526
Sometimes it is not the images of genocide that chill the blood, but
the evidence of the perpetrators' ordinary courtesies as they embark on
mass murder. In Thomas de Waal's Great Catastrophe, there is a copy of
a handwritten letter sent by Talat Pasha, one of the three leaders of
the so-called "Young Turks" government, gracefully accepting a dinner
invitation that evening from the US Ambassador to Constantinople and
offering compliments to "Madame Morgenthau". The date of the letter
(and the dinner)is April 24, 1915: the very day on which Talat's
"final solution to the Armenian problem" went into action, with the
rounding up of Armenian civic and intellectual leaders, followed by
their murder.
The letter comes from the Henry Morgenthau archive, as does a
subsequent account of the response by Talat in August 2015, when the
US envoy called on him to protest at the programme of deportation and
murder of the Armenian population: "'It is no use for you to argue,'
Talat answered. 'We have already disposed of three-quarters of the
Armenians; there are none at all left in Bitlis, Van and Erzerum. The
hatred between the Turks and the Armenians is now so intense that
we have got to finish with them. If we don't, they will plan their
revenge.'"
De Waal's book, which is largely devoted to the aftermath of
the genocide and the attempts at some sort of resolution of the
outstanding moral debt (unacknowledged by any subsequent Turkish
government), provides details of the futile acts of revenge in the
1970s by the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia
(Asala), a tiny Beirut-based group. Asala assassinated a handful of
blameless Turkish diplomats - with the result that Ronald Reagan,
Enhanced Coverage LinkingRonald Reagan, -Search using:News, Most
Recent 60 DaysBiographies Plus NewsFind An Executivedespite his long
acquaintance with the Armenian diaspora in California, abandoned his
earlier commitment to recognise the Armenian claim that they had been
victims of genocide.
He was just one of a number of American presidents (Barack Obama is
only the most recent) who solicited the Armenian-American vote with
such a promise, but then avoided all mention of the G-word once in
office and having been apprised by their generals how vital it was
to keep Turkey's goodwill as a strategic ally.
In truth, the Armenians have always been the victims of bigpower
politics. Ronald Suny's They Can Live in the Desert But Nowhere Else
puts the extermination of approximately 1.5m souls 100 years ago in
exactly this context, but with a powerful personal introduction: "By
the end of the war, 90% of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire were
gone, a culture and a civilisation wiped out never to return. Those
who observed the killings, as well as the Allied powers engaged in
a war against the Ottomans, repeatedly claimed that they had never
witnessed anything like it. The word for what happened had not
yet been invented. There was no concept to mark the state-targeted
killing of a designated ethnoreligious people. At the time those who
needed a word borrowed from the Bible and called it 'holocaust'. My
great-grandparents were among the victims."
Despite this familial link, Suny is admirably dispassionate
in explaining the particular circumstances that led the Ottoman
government to embark on a policy of mass extermination - a mixture of
outright slaughter of males and death marches of women and children
into the desert. The Ottomans had suffered catastrophic defeat in the
Balkan wars of 1912-13, with the result that millions of their Muslim
compatriots had been displaced and fled eastwards. The "Young Turks"
conceived of the Anatolian provinces as a new "homeland" - so it was
necessary, in effect, to empty of Armenians the historic homeland of
what was once an Armenian nation.
The other cause was their series of defeats at the hands of the vast
tsarist army during the First World War. Not only was this a further
shattering of the Ottoman Empire, but the Armenians were believed to
be sympathetic to their Christian co-religionists. In fact it was
remarkable how loyal Armenians were to their Ottoman rulers, even
though they had been the victims of a series of massacres in the 1890s
and in 1909. Like the Jews of Central Europe, the Christian Armenians
had prospered in trade and finance: this had aroused resentment among
the much larger Muslim population. Germany, in fact, is linked to
both genocides: the "Young Turks" were in alliance with Berlin while
they carried out their holocaust of the Armenians.
German diplomats, horrified at what they were witnessing, were told
to keep quiet by their government: and after the collapse of the
Ottoman regime, the main perpetrators of the genocide ("The Three
Pashas") were allowed to settle in peaceful retirement in Germany. It
was in Berlin on March 15, 1921 that Talat was shot dead by Soghoman
Tehlirian, a 23- year-old Armenian almost deranged with grief at what
he had witnessed a few years earlier. The German jury, who had known
little of what had happened, were so affected by the eyewitnesses'
accounts brought by the defence, that they acquitted Tehlirian after
just one hour of deliberation.
Yet, as Suny points out, one of the Germans, Max von Scheubner-Richter
(who as vice-consul in Erzerum had sent reports to Berlin highly
critical of what he termed the "annihilation" of the Armenians) later
became a leading member of the Nazi party: "[He] became famous, not
for his resistance to Ottoman atrocities, but when in 1923 he marched
arm-in-arm with Adolf Hitler during the Munich Beer Hall Putsch.
Scheubner-Richter was shot in the lung and killed immediately; as he
fell, he pulled Hitler down with him, dislocating Hitler's shoulder.
He probably saved the future dictator's life when the second volley
was fired."
So, from witnessing the first genocide of the 20th century to
accidentally enabling the second: what an astonishing footnote to
the history of mass murder.
Available at the Bookshop price of £18 (de Waal) and £21.95
(inc p&p) and £19.99 and £24.95 (ebooks) on 0845 271 2135 and at
www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/bookshop . Bookshop price of £18 (de Waal)
and £21.95 (inc p&p) and £19.99 and £24.95 (ebooks) on 0845 271 2135
and at www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/bookshop Death walk During the First
World War, caught between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, Armenia was
regarded with suspicion by the government in Istanbul. In April 1915,
Armenian intellectuals were arrested, then able-bodied men were killed
while women, children and the infirm were forced on death marches
to the Syrian desert. The number killed has been put at between 1m
and 1.5m.
was regarded with suspicion by the government in Istanbul. In April
1915, Armenian intellectuals were arrested, then able-bodied men
were killed while women, children and the infirm were forced on
death marches to the Syrian desert. The number killed has been put
at between 1m and 1.5m.
GRAPHIC: Killing millions Above, 'John Bull's dilemma', an 1895
satiricalBRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY, COLLECTION OF THE RUSSIAN STATE
ARCHIVEcomment on the mass slaughter of Armenians
The Sunday Times (London)
April 12, 2015 Sunday
Dominic Lawson
GREAT CATASTROPHE
Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide by THOMAS DE WAAL OUP
£20/ebook £19.99 pp312
THEY CAN LIVE IN THE DESERT BUT NOWHERE ELSE A History of the Armenian
Genocide by RONALD GRIGOR SUNY Princeton £24.95 ebook £24.95 pp526
Sometimes it is not the images of genocide that chill the blood, but
the evidence of the perpetrators' ordinary courtesies as they embark on
mass murder. In Thomas de Waal's Great Catastrophe, there is a copy of
a handwritten letter sent by Talat Pasha, one of the three leaders of
the so-called "Young Turks" government, gracefully accepting a dinner
invitation that evening from the US Ambassador to Constantinople and
offering compliments to "Madame Morgenthau". The date of the letter
(and the dinner)is April 24, 1915: the very day on which Talat's
"final solution to the Armenian problem" went into action, with the
rounding up of Armenian civic and intellectual leaders, followed by
their murder.
The letter comes from the Henry Morgenthau archive, as does a
subsequent account of the response by Talat in August 2015, when the
US envoy called on him to protest at the programme of deportation and
murder of the Armenian population: "'It is no use for you to argue,'
Talat answered. 'We have already disposed of three-quarters of the
Armenians; there are none at all left in Bitlis, Van and Erzerum. The
hatred between the Turks and the Armenians is now so intense that
we have got to finish with them. If we don't, they will plan their
revenge.'"
De Waal's book, which is largely devoted to the aftermath of
the genocide and the attempts at some sort of resolution of the
outstanding moral debt (unacknowledged by any subsequent Turkish
government), provides details of the futile acts of revenge in the
1970s by the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia
(Asala), a tiny Beirut-based group. Asala assassinated a handful of
blameless Turkish diplomats - with the result that Ronald Reagan,
Enhanced Coverage LinkingRonald Reagan, -Search using:News, Most
Recent 60 DaysBiographies Plus NewsFind An Executivedespite his long
acquaintance with the Armenian diaspora in California, abandoned his
earlier commitment to recognise the Armenian claim that they had been
victims of genocide.
He was just one of a number of American presidents (Barack Obama is
only the most recent) who solicited the Armenian-American vote with
such a promise, but then avoided all mention of the G-word once in
office and having been apprised by their generals how vital it was
to keep Turkey's goodwill as a strategic ally.
In truth, the Armenians have always been the victims of bigpower
politics. Ronald Suny's They Can Live in the Desert But Nowhere Else
puts the extermination of approximately 1.5m souls 100 years ago in
exactly this context, but with a powerful personal introduction: "By
the end of the war, 90% of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire were
gone, a culture and a civilisation wiped out never to return. Those
who observed the killings, as well as the Allied powers engaged in
a war against the Ottomans, repeatedly claimed that they had never
witnessed anything like it. The word for what happened had not
yet been invented. There was no concept to mark the state-targeted
killing of a designated ethnoreligious people. At the time those who
needed a word borrowed from the Bible and called it 'holocaust'. My
great-grandparents were among the victims."
Despite this familial link, Suny is admirably dispassionate
in explaining the particular circumstances that led the Ottoman
government to embark on a policy of mass extermination - a mixture of
outright slaughter of males and death marches of women and children
into the desert. The Ottomans had suffered catastrophic defeat in the
Balkan wars of 1912-13, with the result that millions of their Muslim
compatriots had been displaced and fled eastwards. The "Young Turks"
conceived of the Anatolian provinces as a new "homeland" - so it was
necessary, in effect, to empty of Armenians the historic homeland of
what was once an Armenian nation.
The other cause was their series of defeats at the hands of the vast
tsarist army during the First World War. Not only was this a further
shattering of the Ottoman Empire, but the Armenians were believed to
be sympathetic to their Christian co-religionists. In fact it was
remarkable how loyal Armenians were to their Ottoman rulers, even
though they had been the victims of a series of massacres in the 1890s
and in 1909. Like the Jews of Central Europe, the Christian Armenians
had prospered in trade and finance: this had aroused resentment among
the much larger Muslim population. Germany, in fact, is linked to
both genocides: the "Young Turks" were in alliance with Berlin while
they carried out their holocaust of the Armenians.
German diplomats, horrified at what they were witnessing, were told
to keep quiet by their government: and after the collapse of the
Ottoman regime, the main perpetrators of the genocide ("The Three
Pashas") were allowed to settle in peaceful retirement in Germany. It
was in Berlin on March 15, 1921 that Talat was shot dead by Soghoman
Tehlirian, a 23- year-old Armenian almost deranged with grief at what
he had witnessed a few years earlier. The German jury, who had known
little of what had happened, were so affected by the eyewitnesses'
accounts brought by the defence, that they acquitted Tehlirian after
just one hour of deliberation.
Yet, as Suny points out, one of the Germans, Max von Scheubner-Richter
(who as vice-consul in Erzerum had sent reports to Berlin highly
critical of what he termed the "annihilation" of the Armenians) later
became a leading member of the Nazi party: "[He] became famous, not
for his resistance to Ottoman atrocities, but when in 1923 he marched
arm-in-arm with Adolf Hitler during the Munich Beer Hall Putsch.
Scheubner-Richter was shot in the lung and killed immediately; as he
fell, he pulled Hitler down with him, dislocating Hitler's shoulder.
He probably saved the future dictator's life when the second volley
was fired."
So, from witnessing the first genocide of the 20th century to
accidentally enabling the second: what an astonishing footnote to
the history of mass murder.
Available at the Bookshop price of £18 (de Waal) and £21.95
(inc p&p) and £19.99 and £24.95 (ebooks) on 0845 271 2135 and at
www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/bookshop . Bookshop price of £18 (de Waal)
and £21.95 (inc p&p) and £19.99 and £24.95 (ebooks) on 0845 271 2135
and at www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/bookshop Death walk During the First
World War, caught between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, Armenia was
regarded with suspicion by the government in Istanbul. In April 1915,
Armenian intellectuals were arrested, then able-bodied men were killed
while women, children and the infirm were forced on death marches
to the Syrian desert. The number killed has been put at between 1m
and 1.5m.
was regarded with suspicion by the government in Istanbul. In April
1915, Armenian intellectuals were arrested, then able-bodied men
were killed while women, children and the infirm were forced on
death marches to the Syrian desert. The number killed has been put
at between 1m and 1.5m.
GRAPHIC: Killing millions Above, 'John Bull's dilemma', an 1895
satiricalBRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY, COLLECTION OF THE RUSSIAN STATE
ARCHIVEcomment on the mass slaughter of Armenians