Essay: Ottoman Empire in World War I and the Armenian “Problem”

11/16/2018
Ottoman Empire in World War I and the Armenian “Problem”
Abstract
The world witnessed horrific scenes during the World War I and the end of the war revealed a new kind a of crime. The deportation of 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire led to almost loss of all the Christian Armenian population in the state. Many scholars believe it was the first genocide in the 20th century that aimed to wipe out the entire Armenians. However, many scholars especially from Turkey severely disagree with the accusations. On every 24th of April many Armenians across the world protest the actions of the “Young Turk” government during the World War I and rise a heated debate among scholars, government officials, and the public. Drawing on primary sources such as telegrams, newspaper articles, and books written about the matter, I argue that it is impossible to live in complete denial of the Armenian Diaspora. The argument for genocide might be debatable, but it is important to acknowledge the loss of 1 million Armenians along with war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Ottoman State in World War I.
On March 14, 1921 Soghomon Tehlirian assassinated a man in Berlin, Germany shouting “This is to avenge the death of my family”. The man who Tehlirian murdered was Mehmed Talaat, the former Turkish interior minister in 1915 who had set out to rid Ottomans of its Armenian “problem”. Raphael Lemkin, a twenty-one-year-old Polish-Jew studying linguistics at the University of Lvov learned Tehlirian’s trial on a newspaper. If Tehlirian was right about his accusations, why Talaat was not arrested for the loss of 1 million Armenians in 1915?  Lemkin’s professor answered him that there was no law under which Talaat could have been arrested. “Consider the case of a farmer who owns a flock of chickens. He kills them and this is his business, If you interfere, you are trespassing”.  Lemkin was intrigued by this logic and asked how can killing one man is a crime, while it was not a crime to kill more than a million men?  The Armenian Diaspora or the Armenian genocide during Young Turks government in the Ottoman state play a pivotal point in the history in mankind for influencing Raphael Lemkin to write the Genocide Convention in the United Nations Charter. Some Turkish scholars vehemently deny all of the accusations and state all the Armenian targets as enemies of the Ottoman government during war time. While some researches blame it was the dream of the Muslims in the Ottoman State to eradicate Christianity in their nation. Many scholars have written about this issue adding more fuel to the debate and polarizing the sides.  My research has an objective approach to this debated subject. Instead of proving or denying the verdict of the “genocide” this paper studies how the events evolved during World War I and even if it was not a genocide, there are still crimes against humanity and war crimes to the innocent Ottoman Armenians including women and children. I use telegrams from influential government positions, newspaper articles, letters, court decisions as primary sources to support my argument.
Ottomans adopted mild and accepting policies to non-Muslim, Christian and Jewish minorities until the last decades of the Empire which changed the perception to minorities as threats to the nation. The Ottoman Empire was founded by Osman I who was the leader of one of the Turkish tribes which migrated from Central Asia to the Anatolia. His followers set up a central government system and expanded their territory under various Sultans in the vast lands bordering to the Mediterranean Sea. As an empire ruling diverse races and religions, Ottomans adopted the Millet System which permitted separate courts of law allowing sharia, cannon, and halakha as a judicial system to the groups needs. For centuries the empire served as an important international trade, culture, and science center. However, with Europeans bypassing Istanbul and travelling from South of Africa and finding new markets in the Americas, Ottomans started to lose economics dominance. Slowly revolts started the rise in various parts of the empire. While Ottomans were suffering from poor leadership in its vast lands, Europe was going through major transformations with the renaissance and the industrial revolution. The weakened central government could not withstand to the revolts and started to lose key regions in the North Africa, Arabia, and Balkans. Greece was the first nation to win independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1830 and during the Balkan Wars the Ottoman Empire lost almost all of their territories in Europe.
The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) or popularly known the Young Turks came into power in 1876 with a military coup and started to implement policies to resolve revolts and to unify a single country in the turmoiled nation. The idea of nationalism was spreading like a wildfire and revolts were in almost every part of the Empire in the eve of World War I.  As the Ottoman Empire was in near destruction, radicalization of CUP policies and final implementations of their plans occurred in the deepening social and political crisis.  Recent humiliations and setbacks in North-Africa and Balkans crippled the Ottoman military and economy. Participating in World War I seem suicidal but key elements in the government were impressed by German industrial and military power. When World War I broke out in 1914, the Ottoman Empire allied with the Central Powers particularly with Germany.  The war was greeted as an opportunity to regain lost territories into the empire. In other words, it was a desperate effort to restore and strengthen the empire.
Turkish involvement in World War I began at the Battle of Odesa in October 1914, when the Ottoman Navy attacked the Russian Black Sea Fleet and Russian-controlled port-city of Odessa.  Russia and the other Allied Powers declared war on the Ottomans as an answer to the attack. Unfortunately, the Ottomans had made a fateful mistake by entering the war. Although they achieved a major victory at the Battle of Gallipoli in 1916, Central Powers had a humiliating loss which brought more disaster to the Ottoman Empire.  More territories in the Middle East were lost and increased internal strife and revolts plagued the empire, contributing to its crumbling.
Ottomans and Armenians lived together for almost 500 years and Armenians even had the nickname of “Millet-I Sadika” which literally meant the loyal people in the Ottoman State. However, spurred by nationalism and supported by orthodox Russian ally in World War I, some Armenian groups started revolts for an independent Armenia. The “Tashnaksutyun” was the prominent group organizing attacks to government locations and other Turkish villages. Approximately two million Armenians were living in the Ottoman territory and most of them were villagers. Despite the rebellious groups numbers did not make up to 50,000, almost all of the Armenians were labeled as “traitors”. The most influential and prosperous Armenians lived in the Istanbul where their visibility made them the target of both official and popular resentment from the Young Turk government even if they were not linked to any group like the Tashnaksutyun.
During the World War I Ottoman Empire lost a major battle on the Caucasian front against the Russians and Armenian treachery was seen as the reason for this loss. Most Ottoman Armenians supported and even fought with the Ottomans against the Russians, while some Armenians joined to the tsarist campaign seeking to carve out territory for their new Armenian country.   Despite only a minority of the Armenians were involved with the Russian campaign, Young Turks paranoically started to label all of the Armenians. In early 1915’s Armenian soldiers were disarmed and transferred to forced labor battalions. Publicly known and influential Armenian leaders in Istanbul were arrested fearing they could lead the population for a revolt. The first victims were soldiers and public figures who were easily segregated and systematically killed. . On July 1915, U.S ambassador to Ottoman State, Henry Morgenthau Sr. cabled Washington with a description of the Turkish campaign warning “there seems to be a systematic plan to crush the Armenian race.” The Young Turks were using Armenians as a scape goat for the humiliating losses in the war.
Some argue that Young Turks were already determined to clean their state from Armenians and other Christian subjects when they entered to the War in the first place. The deportation of Armenian community leaders and soldiers was not enough to eradicate a potential two-million Armenian revolt. Former Minister of Interior Affairs, Talaat Pasha was reported in New York Times in January 1915, saying there was no room for Christians in the new Turkey and Christian subjects should be advised to leave.   Almost immediately entering the war Talaat ordered the deportation of all the Armenians from cities, towns, and villages in the eastern region of Turkey. The deportation order from Talaat is recorded as;
“Our Armenian fellow countrymen, … because … they… have.. attempted to destroy the peace and security of the Ottoman State, … have to be sent away to places which have been prepared in the interior… and literal obedience to the following orders, in a categorical manner, is accordingly enjoined upon all Ottomans: With the exception of the sick, all Armenians are obliged to leave within five days from the date of this proclamation…”
Despite the lack of evidence, Ottoman leaders who systematically targeted Armenian minority citizens and officials claimed that deportations were necessary measures for the war. The Turkish consul, Celal Munif, was reported the New York Times saying, people who have been deported or killed were the rebellious elements who were caught committing traitorous acts against the Ottoman State.  The destination of the marches were in desserts with harsh climates and routes were not well planned. Armenians also did not have the time to prepare for long distance walking at the urgent declaration. Death in these paths were inevitable and there were primary evidences showing women and children on these tears of trail. However, Celal Munif stated that women and children were not included in these groups as in some of fabricated reports Americans saw.  According to him and other officials’ discrimination was impossible and if innocent lives were lost, it was because of the war time. In a famous quote Munif was reported saying “It was not alone the offender who suffers the penalty of this act, but also the innocent who he drags with him. Armenians have only themselves to blame.”
After the fog of war was settled and atrocities of Young Turk government started reveal, the world found out that close to a million Armenians died in the process of mass deportations. On April 1919, the Istanbul Tribunal convicted two senior officials for deportations with crimes against humanity and civilization. The court declared that Armenian men were murdered and women and children were brutally forced into deportation caravans. The police commander was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor, and lieutenant Kemal Bey was hanged.  The court also convicted Talat and his partners in absentia for their responsibility in manslaughter in the carefully executed plan. The court concluded that deportation of Armenians was not a local or isolated event. A central body under the leadership of Young Turks premeditatedly executed the manslaughter.   In one of his memoirs Henry Morgenthau Sr. wrote that when the Turkish authorities gave the orders for the deportations, they were merely giving the death warrants; they understood this fact well, and in their conversations with him, they made no particular attempt to conceal these facts.
According to Article 2 of the Genocide convention:  “Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; ….”  It is no doubt that Lemkin was influenced by the events of 1915 to create the genocide convention.  After finding about the Armenians, he set out a mission for himself to create a law that would encompass the attempt to wipe out groups as an international crime. Nevertheless, the genocide case for Armenia has been one of the greatest international debate and conflict. To this day Armenian and Turkish borders are closed, and diplomatic relations are tense. It is a crime in Turkey to call the events a genocide according to the Turkish constitution and even noble prize-winning Turkish authors such as Orhan Pamuk, and Elif Shafak are charged with insulting “Turkish Identity” for using the word “genocide” for describing the events of 1915.
Young Turks government was never a purely Turkish ethno-nationalist or an Islamist fanatic who tried to “cleanse” their country but their actions in preserving their Empire seem to fall under the genocide convention. Over time they believed that Muslim Turks were the most trustworthy citizens in support of the Ottoman State. In efforts to create a homogenous country they deported hundreds of thousands of ottoman Armenians without knowing proving guilt only knowing that they were Armenians.  Much of these events were documented Western diplomats and it is important to note that actions were taken upon the central message by the head of the government and committed systematically. Maybe this is the first genocide in the 20th century, or it was just another front in World War I but the disintegration of Ottoman Empire and the loss of 1 million Armenians is well documented. Acknowledging the loss is an important step on healing the wounds and open communication channels between people who lived for thousands of years in the same lands.