Court decree

In consideration of the fact that an acceptance, as historic reality, of the claims against Turks in the incriminated article would make the act of the defendants legal, it has been deemed necessary to study historic documents on this subject.

Because the surplus value of economic production in this area is very low, there are no states whose center was located in Eastern Anatolia. Following the Ottoman Sultan Yavuz Selim’s expedition to Egypt, people from this area began to emigrate to Istanbul. The length of winter in Eastern Anatolia, the fact that the productivity of seeds was one in five, the insufficiency of pastures as a result of overgrazing and erosion, natural disasters, political events, and wars were the main reason for this emigration (The history of the county of Erzincan Eğin [Kemaliye]). There is a very strong emigration also from present-day Armenia for similar economic reasons. The Armenians, who were an element of the Ottoman state, lived in Eastern Anatolia and in Armenia. The year 406 is considered as the year when the Armenian alphabet appeared. The areas where Armenians lived were under the sovereignty of the Byzantine State, of the Great Seljuk Empire, of the Iraq Seljuk state, of the Kharzemshah, of the Ilkhanide, of the Akkoyunlu and [finally] of the Ottomans.

According to history books, the Armenians living in Eastern Anatolia were deported during the Byzantine Empire, with the aim of breaking the power of the Cilician Armenian Church and to suffocate Armenian nationalism. The word “deportation” [tehcir] is derived from the Arabic word “hejira” [hicret], migration. It is known that the Persian Shah Abbas deported the Armenians living around Yerevan and in the area of Julfa to the central areas of Persia in 1603-1604 (Arakel, Livre d’Histoires pp.286-297).

The Turks and Armenians lived side by side, both during the Seljuk State and during the Ottoman State, for 850 years without any major problem. They shared states. The Christians under Ottoman rule did not experience the sectarian warfare that caused many casualties among the Christian populations of Europe in the Middle Ages. In 1461, Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror honored the Armenian Church by transferring it to the Samatya neighborhood of Istanbul. The first printing press to be used in the Ottoman Empire was imported in 1567 by the Armenian Apkar, who was from Sivas, In this way, as a community who embraced positivism early on, Armenians managed to be successful in many branches of the arts, and as such were honored by the Ottoman State. The educational and training opportunities of Armenians were developed (Prof. Dr. Yusuf Halacoğlu, Sürgünden Soykırıma 2007 Istanbul).

The Armenians profited from the fact that, although there was high accumulation of capital in the Ottoman State, science and technology were at a low level because of the nature of the educational system, and thanks to this they became part of the Ottoman aristocracy. It is even true that the Armenians were privileged in the eyes of Ottoman central and provincial administrations, in comparison to the Türkmen and Yörük Turks of Anatolia.

During Ottoman times, many Armenians rose to high positions, including 29 pashas, 22 ministers, 33 members of parliament, 7 ambassadors, 11 consuls, etc. (Prof. Dr. Yusuf Halacoğlu, Sürgünden Soykırıma Istanbul). Against this, following the Polish revolt of 1863 against Russian domination, a campaign to Russify the nations under the sovereignty of Russia began; as a result of this, 500 Armenian schools in the Caucasus were closed with 20,000 students finding themselves in the street; and unspeakable terror, intimidation, floggings and beatings were inflicted (E. Aknouni, Les Plais du Caucase, Geneva 1905 pp. 117-119). It is known that also in Armenia, which was under Russian sovereignty, there were revolts and civil wars against the cruel policies of Sovietization. (Ovanes Kaçaznuni, Ermenistan'ın ilk Başbakanı - Taşnak Partisinin Yapacağı Bir Şey Yok, Report to the 1923 Party Conference, translated by Arif Acaloğlu, 2006 Istanbul, pp. 44, 66-67).

Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria revolted and managed to secede from the Ottoman State, thanks to Western support. Later, important Western countries like Russia and England brought forward the Armenian question, with the aim of destroying the Ottoman State and grabbing its lands. The Armenians played the role of a community that fought state authority from the Ottoman defeat in the Ottoman-Russian war of 1877-1878 up to the fall of the Ottoman State. A project for a greater Armenia in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia, extending up to the Euphrates in the west and encompassing Adana and adjoining Armenia proper under Russian sovereignty, was prepared. In his report dated 12th October 1880, Captain Clayton, England’s consul in the city of Van, stated that beginning from 1880 associations were formed in Armenia, then under Russian sovereignty, to send weapons to Ottoman Armenians, and that agents were employed to distribute these weapons (English archival documents FO 424/107 No.194 attachment 1).

In November of the same year, Clayton stated that the Armenians were preparing to revolt, and that an American missionary in Van had said that there was a continuous stream of weapons coming from Russia (English archival documents FO 424/107 No. 185 and 212).

Captain Everett, England’s consul in the city of Erzurum, reported the same information from his own area, stating that this had been confirmed by the Chief Consul of Russia in Erzurum, M. Obermüller (English archival documents FO 424/107 No. 213).

In early 1882 Everett, England’s consul in the city of Erzurum, stated that signs concerning Armenian preparations for revolt were increasing; and that he had gotten hold of two documents in Armenian, one of which was used as the text of the swearing-in ceremony of volunteers, while the other was used when assigning missions to volunteers (English archival documents FO 424/132 No. 36).

In his report dated June 1882, Everett stated that in the area going from Erzurum to Muş and Van, the Russian consul in Van, Kamsaragan, had been doing preparatory work for an Armenian revolt (English archival documents FO 424/132 No: 101).

In December 1882, there was an attempt to revolt, and Portakalyan [sic] fled the country with some supporters and went to the city of Marseille in France, where he published a newspaper called Armenia; one of Portakalyan's comrades, a certain Avedisyan, returned to Van where he founded the revolutionary Armenekan [sic] organization, which in 1885 was made into a party; and in 1887 the Hnchak Party (of Marxist orientation) was founded. Later the Dashnak Party was founded. The aims of this party were to constitute bands that were to be assembled under the umbrella of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutiun), to increase the revolutionary activities of the population, to encourage conflicts by means of revolutionary committees, to frighten governmental representatives, to transport people and weapons, and to loot and destroy state institutions (Nalbandian, Louise, The Armenian 1919 Paris, p. 152).

Members of the Dashnak organization took responsibility for many important acts of terror, among which was also the Yıldız Palace assassination attempt.

[The] Armenekan [organization] ran the same kind of operation in the center of Van, and on 16th May 1889, members of this organization clashed with 3 Armenian gendarmes on the road from Başkale to Van; they were found in possession of provocative letters from Portakalyan in France and from Patigyan in England.

On 20th June 1890, the Armenians of Erzurum revolted and fired upon soldiers. One soldier was killed.

On 15th July 1890 the Hnchak Party organized a protest march from the Kumkapı neighborhood of Istanbul to the Sultan’s Yıldız Palace. During the ensuing disorders in Istanbul, the Major of Gendarmes Server Bey was killed. In the 7th September 1890 issue of the Hnchak newspaper, it was stated that the Armenians would refuse all proposals that were contrary to their final objective, and that for this objective they were ready to shed the last drop of their blood.

There were many arrests as a result of the Istanbul disturbances. In early April 1893, Sultan

Abdülhamit issued a general amnesty. In December 1893, Armenians in Yozgat fired upon soldiers, but the revolt was suppressed before it expanded. On 4th August 1894 an Armenian band fired upon the postal service in Tokat. The post was robbed; there was a clash with gendarmes, as a result of which a sergeant of gendarmes was killed, but the members of the band were captured.

Mihran Damadyan and Hampartsum Boyacıyan (alias Murat), who had organized the Istanbul disturbances, went to Eastern Anatolia. Boyacıyan spread the news that he had come from Europe, and that if the Armenians were to revolt, European States would intervene and establish an Armenian State. In the mountainous triangle in the Muş-Kulp-Silvan area, he revolted with 3000 Armenians (English State Archives Turkey No.1 [1895] Part 1 No. 252 p. 135). The goods of the Behran and Zadyan tribes were looted. There were clashes with the tribes. Boyacıyan was captured. The consuls of Russia, France, and England in Erzurum went to the area and studied the situation. The fact that 900 Armenians had been killed during the revolt that lasted almost a month was established (English State Archives Turkey No. 1 [1895] No. 267 appendix p. 203).

On 28th September 1895, a group of 2,000 went to the church of the Patriarchate to receive last rites before martyrdom. The Patriarch returned from his summer residence; a declaration in French had been written. The Patriarch said that he would take the declaration personally to the Sublime Porte (the seat of the Ottoman government) and asked the crowd to disperse, but the people refused. A march began on 30th September 1895. The marchers, all of whom were provided with the same kind of pistols and knives distributed by the organizers, reached the iron gate of the seat of government. One of the marchers fired and an officer was shot. There were 15 casualties among the gendarmes and 60 among the Armenians (English State Archives FO 424/184 No. 3, 5, 36).

All English consuls in Anatolia reported that during the months of July and August 1895, committee activities increased so much that new disturbances could happen at any moment (English State Archives Blue Books Turkey No. 1 [1896] and No. 2 [1896]).

On 2nd October 1895, Bahri Pasha, former governor of Van, and Hamdi Pasha, commander of the garrison in Trabzon, were shot and wounded in Trabzon by two Armenians; the ensuing disturbances were suppressed by the army.

On 21st October 1895, a few Armenian toughs shot a few Muslims in the weekly market in Erzincan with pistols; the ensuing disorders were suppressed by the army.

On 25th October 1895, George, a Protestant missionary, provoked the Armenians in Bitlis, who during Friday prayers attacked the Muslims.

On 27th October 1895, an Armenian group from Maraş entered the governor’s office in Erzurum, with the aim of killing the governor and other officials, but killed the gendarmes of the company guarding the building, who had confronted them. There were great disturbances, which were suppressed with difficulty.

On 27th October 1895, disturbances occurred when Armenians in Maraş fired upon Muslims.

On 2nd November 1895, the people at the Diyarbakır mosque were fired upon. The mosque, the medreses and about 1,000 shops, 90 % of which were owned by Muslims, were burned.

On 4th November 1895 in Malatya, a certain Hemo, who had gone to the barber, had his throat cut and was killed with a razor by Enlicanoğlu Serkis [sic], with disturbances arising as a result of this.

On 7th November 1895, there were disturbances in Harput because an Armenian called Bagcıyan Kirkor had fired upon Muslims. According to Ottoman documents, in 1895, 10,535 people were killed and 3671 wounded (Hazineyi Evrak, Carton 302. p. 111 file 6 No.74).

All these events affected surrounding counties and villages.

In 1895, Hnchak committee members caused the Armenians in the Zeytun area of Maraş province to revolt. The Turks suffered 20,000 casualties, 13,000 of whom were soldiers, with the rest being irregulars. The Armenians suffered 125 casualties; the revolt ended with the promise of a general amnesty (Nalbandian Louise The Armenian Revolutionary Movement Los Angeles p. 306).

On 14th June 1896, an Armenian revolt broke out in Van. Political murders were carried out on the orders of the Van revolutionary committee. The priest Bogos [sic], who had openly defied the revolutionaries, was killed. The Armenian revolutionaries’ courage increased from day to day (General Mayewski Statistique des Provinces de Van et de Bitlis pp. 33-39). Turks living around Van were subjected to the attacks of bands that had come through Iran from the city of Van, from the county of Çatak and from other surrounding areas; there were many casualties, and the Russians occupied Van.

On the 26th of August 1896, the Dashnaks attacked the Ottoman Bank with bombs. The bank was occupied and there were clashes. There were many casualties, both dead and wounded.

In July 1897 there was the second Sasun revolt to the south of Muş. In April 1904 the revolts spread to the areas of Muş and Van. The revolts were directed by Antranik (K. Küdülyan, Antranik Savaşları, Beirut, 1929. According to the Armenian writer of this book, 19 Armenians and 1132 Turks were killed.)

On 21st July 1905, Sultan Abdülhamit was delayed as he was talking to the Sheikh ul-Islam and the eighty-kilo bomb placed by the Dashnaks under his carriage exploded before he entered it. There were 26 dead and 58 wounded. This is the event that came to be known as the Yıldız attempt on the life of the sultan. The sultan granted a pardon to all those involved. Some Armenian writers stated that between 1890 - 1896 between 50,000-300,000 Armenians were killed. Casualties among Turks have been ignored, even though according to Ottoman documents 13,432 Turks died.

In April 1909 Armenians revolted in the area of Adana, where they were in a majority; for three days there were street battles. In his report dated 4th May 1909, the English ambassador stated that the Armenian Patriarch was responsible for these disorders (English State Archives FO 424/219 No. 83).

When the First World War broke out, Garo Pastermichan (Pastırmacıyan) [sic], Member of the Ottoman Parliament from Erzurum, passed over to the Russian side with almost all the Armenian officers and soldiers in the Third Army. A little while later he returned with the others and began to burn villages and put to the sword all the innocent Muslims they captured. These Armenian troops had been disarmed in the expectation of such a move and put to work in labor battalions, from which they unjustifiably deserted, and later they committed atrocities in Başkale, Saray and Beyazıt; all this worried the Turks (Rafael de Nogales, Four Years Beneath the Crescent, translated into English by Muna Lee, New York 1926, p 45; or see M. Philips Price, A History of Turkey, London, 1956 p. 91; Clair Price, The Rebirth of Turkey, pp. 86-87).

According to Felix Valyi’s Revolutions in Islam, pp. 233-244, in April 1914 Armenian revolutionaries took over the city of Van; they established an Armenian general staff under the command of Aram and Varda [sic]; and on the 6th of May they ceded the province of Van to Russian forces, having already cleansed it of its Muslim inhabitants.

In publication number 2, titled Zeve, printed in Istanbul in 1963, of the Association to Study and Promote Van, but also in other publications, it is said that some of the Muslim groups fleeing Van province were brought by Armenian boatmen to Erçiş, near which there were Armenian villages, where they were massacred. In pages 25-26 of a publication by Hassan Arfa, “The Kurd,” issued in London in 1968, it is stated that following the 1914 defeat of the Ottomans at Sarıkamış, Armenian volunteer battalions made up of Caucasians and Armenians preceded the invading Russian armies. These battalions were under the command of Antranik. According to records, these battalions massacred 600,000 Kurds between 1915-1918.

In a report by the American Consul at Aleppo to his superiors (USNA M-353/6, No. 867.00/761, p 196), it is stated that 50 years’ and thousands of dollars’ worth of efforts by American missionaries had been thus endangered. The Russian government spent 242,900 rubles to arm the Armenians of Anatolia and to ready them for battle (Ovanes Kaçaznuni, Ermenistanın İlk Başbakanı - Taşnak Partisinin Yapacağı Bir Şey Yok, Report to the party conference in 1923, translated by Arif Acaloğlu, Kaynak Yayınları, 2006, p. 14, footnote 10. R. A. Boryan, Armeniya, Mejdunarodnaya Diplomatiya SSSR, e. I, Gosudarstvennoe Izdatelstvo, Moscow-Leningrad, 1929, p. 360). During this same period, England spent 200,000 gold coins to ensure the secession of Arab lands from the Ottoman Empire and assigned eight ships for this aim.

It is recorded that on 13th October 1914 the Russians distributed weapons to the Armenians of Narman; that on 8th October 1914 Cemal Azmi Bey, governor of Trabzon, sent a message to the Interior Ministry stating that 7000 Armenians in the Artvin Ardanuç area had been armed; that on 26th September 1914 the Armenian bandleader Sehpat went to Van through the city of Hoy with 500 Armenian volunteers; and that 800 Armenians from Kağızman, most of whom were Ottoman citizens, were armed by the Russians (Archives of the Turkish General Staff 4/3671, KLS 2811, file 26, F. 28-59). In 1914 and in 1915 there were battles between Ottoman units on one side, and Russians and Armenians on the other. The information that the Armenians had armed 30,000 people around Sivas, of whom 15,000 had joined the Russian army while another 15,000 were going to attack the Turkish army from the rear, was sent by cable to the Interior Ministry by the governor of Sivas. In the spring of 1915 the Russians advanced in Eastern Anatolia, while the English and the French forced the Dardanelles. With the commencement of the First World War, and thanks to the support and participation of Armenians, Russian armies invaded all of Eastern Anatolia up to the county of Tercan to the west of Erzincan. The forests of the area were felled for their good quality wood, which was carried away. The mapping of the forests of Sarıkamış was done by the Russians. During this period the Turks of the provinces of Kars, Erzurum, Gümüşhane, Bitlis, Muş and Van in Eastern Anatolia were subjected to mass death and deportation. Armenian units had machine guns and light artillery pieces. The Turks, who fled these provinces for their lives, were resettled in more centrally located cities like Diyarbakır, Sivas, Yozgat and Kayseri. During the occupation, Eastern Anatolia was dominated by Russian administrators, Armenian irregulars and the Russian army (Lawyer Şevket Beysanoğlu, Diyarbakır Tarihi, Diyarbakır Büyükşehir Kütüphanesi, 2002).

Massacres carried out by Armenian units in Erzincan and surrounding villages, by throwing people into wells or by locking them into buildings which were then burned, are all very well documented (Tuncay Özkan, Yaraya Tuz Bastım, Istanbul Detay Yayıncılık, 2007, pp. 224-253). The responsibility for the killings of Turks in Eastern Anatolia during this time, when the Ottoman State was moribund, lies with the Armenians. True enough, in his book, C. Oscanyan wrote that when the Russians occupied Erzurum they encouraged Armenians to commit atrocities, as a result of which the Armenians had to flee when the Russians retreated (C. Oscanyan, The Sultan and His People, New York, 1957, pp. 354-353).

Even though in theory the administration of the Ottoman State was centralized, in practical terms local dignitaries were influential in the provinces. During that period the Ottoman army was mostly fighting at Gallipoli, in the deserts of Yemen or in Syria. In 1914, the Ottoman army in Sarıkamış had frozen to death. The fact that Eastern Anatolia consisted mainly of mountains and deep valleys weakened central authority. During this period Eastern Anatolia was dominated by the Russian-Armenian occupiers.

It is a scientific truth that you cannot reach general conclusions if you detach historic events from the chain of events that led to them. What could the Ottoman administration do when faced with acts that began with the Armenians getting organized in 1880, establishing relations with foreign powers, receiving all kinds of support in arms and money, revolting against the Ottoman State, mass killings, collaboration with the occupiers, and that culminated in joining the Russian army with volunteer units and serving as an advance guard for the Russian army? With the aim of preventing these acts that intensified more and more and turned into acts of war, the Ottoman administration decided to deport the Armenians of Eastern Anatolia to Syria. The Ministry of the Interior proposed to deport and resettle the Armenians of Eastern Anatolia. When this proposal was approved by the Ottoman Cabinet, the Armenians to whom the deportation and resettlement order applied were transferred to Syria and Mosul, which were a couple of provinces beyond where they lived and which were under Ottoman sovereignty. A budget of 2,250,000 kuruş was approved by the Ottoman government for this deportation and resettlement. Later, Cemal Pasha requested a budget of 10,000 liras from central authorities for the needs of the Armenians in the province of Syria. 600,000 kuruş were allocated to the province of Aleppo. In addition to this, it was stated that 200,000 kuruş from the income of the Abandoned Property Administration of Eskişehir would be sent to the province of Aleppo, with the proviso that more would be sent in case of need. According to records, the amount of direct cash contributions as of 8th November 1915, in addition to the expenses concerning Armenians for food, housing, transportation, and health care, was 3,166,900 kuruş (Sürgünden Soykırıma - Ermeni İddiaları, Prof. Doctor Yusuf Halacoğlu, Istanbul, pp. 84-88). It is also to be noted that the Ottoman administration did not spend as much time on the Muslim populations that fled to Anatolia because of the Armenian and Russian occupation. Armenian citizens who lived in the Western provinces and who were not involved with Armenian organizations were exempted from deportation. (The foreign sources included in the text of this decree have been obtained from the following book: Kamuran Gürün, Ermeni DosYası, Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayını, Ankara, 1985, 3rd edition.)

In every occupation there can be people or organizations, like the local bands that appeared in the Tunceli area or the group of Topal Osman, which take things into their own hands when the authority of the state weakens.

During this period, more than a million Muslims died in the six provinces where Armenians lived (Justin McCarthy, The Anatolian Armenians 1912-1922: Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (1912-1926) Boğaziçi Üniversitesi, Istanbul, 1984, pp. 23-25).

On 31st December 1918, the Ottoman State issued a decree for the return of the deported Armenians.

There are many historical sources concerning the volunteer Armenians in the Russian army (Ovanes Kaçaznuni, Ermenistanın İlk Başbakanı, translated by Arif Acaloğlu). During the Greater Armenia National Congress held in Tblisi in February 1915, the military wing of the Dashnak Party decided that volunteer Armenian units would breach the line of defense of the Turkish army and join the Armenian rebels (B. A. Boryan, Mejdunarodnaya Diplomatiya i SSSR, c. L Gosudarstvennoe Izdatelstvo, Moscow-Leningrad, 1929, p. 360).