Armenian killings - mutual massacres or genocide?

Originally posted by bg_turk Remember that this is an eye-witness account - when you have this type of interethnic conflict everybody is trying to justify their actions as a response to a previous provocation, thus adding another link to the chain of violance. My point in including this Armenian eyewitness account was to demonstrate that: 1. Armenians of Van were armed 2. They did participate in the violance against the  Muslims 3. They won in Van and forced the Turks out by use of violance I do not see how these sources "defeat" my arguments.

     It defeats your whole argument, because the same source says that these measures were taken only after the Turks had made it a policy to deport/massacre the Armenians of the city by attacking them, meaning that whatever warcrimes occured were spontaneous reactions to the government-planned genocide as opposed to a planned genocide itself.

Originally posted by bg_turk You stated that the Ottoman Empire started its relocation before the Russian invasion, could you please quote the date of the first major massacre against the Armenians and the date when the RussoArmenian offensive against the Ottoman Empire had started?

     Funny, even your sources don't call it a RussoArmenian offensive, but a Russian offensive, in which the actions of a few Armenians caused the Turkish authority to resort to a systematic destruction of the entire population.

     You forget that when empires use force to hold onto land, that there are ALWAYS rebels, and these rebels are always a vast minority and have little to no power. Basically, if someone were to attack Turkey today, and Kurdish nationals sided with the enemy, does that mean Kurds are trying to commit genocide against Turks? Does that mean that Kurds had a master plan with the enemy years before the war to kick out Turks, or did they simply take advantage of the situation? I don't think anyone in their right mind would make that claim, since the vast majority of Kurds wouldn't be involved in the fighting, and it was obviously not planned.


Your Encyclopedia Britannica source claims:

While the ultimate strategic objectives for the Turks were to capture the Baku oilfields in Azerbaijan and to penetrate Central Asia and Afghanistan in order to threaten British India, they needed first to capture the Armenian fortress of Kars, which, together with that of Ardahan, had been a Russian possession since 1878.

     The very reason that Turks used the excuse of "mass revolts" in order to justify the policies in place regarding Armenians. Armenian Dashnaks in Russia were trying to undermine Russian and later Communist occupation (with no results), but you don't hear about Russians taking ridiculous measures to crush "Armenian uprisings". Again, the Russians controlled lands by force, so a small pocket of rebels (in this case, Dashnaks), ALWAYS EXISTS. The Ottoman Empire was no different. Unless you mean to tell me that the Dashnaks were also planning a Russian genocide, then my point stands.


Edited by ArmenianSurvival

I think a thread with images digresses from the subject, especially when we dont know where the images come from....you are never going to prove an argument by posting 3 or  4 pictures.

Edited by mamikon

Does the Greek government press for Genocide? just wondering...

Edited by mamikon

one side of a war can  have 1000 casualties, the other 10,000,000 the former may have the capability to post 100 images, the latter only 10 pictures...

I believe picture only reinforce the argument when most of the battle has been won, by words


Edited by mamikon

Originally posted by Leonidas actually the hellenic part of this story should be on a different thread. I thought BG would of started one by now, but maybe Digenis can (with links)

The attrocities against more nations-mainly the Greek- at the same era ,reveal the systematic character of the massacre of the Armenians.

Turkish official propaganda tries to prove that any murder was not organised and planned ,but interprets all these incidents as usual acts during the war performed by irregulars.
(some make a step forward trying to baptise the Armenian Genocide ,mutual (!!) massacres! )

All facts prove a systematic ethnic cleansing in Anatolia in 1914-1923.

This is cute funny actually. Well, ironic, tragic, fascinating, and frustrating too, but damn funny!

The thread about the Armenian Genocide is the only thread that you can copy and paste posts from previous posts and it will still go on as nothing has happened.

So, to recap: Armenian genocide did happen; everyone is agreed upon this except Turkey.

And round and round we go...

Originally posted by mamikon one side of a war can  have 1000 casualties, the other 10,000,000 the former may have the capability to post 100 images, the latter only 10 pictures... I believe picture only reinforce the argument when most of the battle has been won, by words

I agree with Mamikon. I personally believe that posting images of dead Armenians and Turks, of which both sides have an abundance, will not contribute anything to the argument at hand.

Originally posted by Yiannis Posts by Digenis and BG Turk were deleted. As per AE code of conduct, do not post:    4. Obscene material, excessively graphic pictures, and pornography of any type.

Do previous images of naked dead people not fall under this same category?

All of the images I have posted can be accessed at the Turkish Ministry of Culture:

http://www.kulturturizm.gov.tr/EN/BelgeGoster.aspx?17A16AE30 572D313AAF6AA849816B2EF7E03D0C7BDB04C56

Similary images of autrocities against Armenians can be found at the Armenian National Institute:

http://www.armenian-genocide.org/photointro.html

Some of the images I had posted before were indeed quite graphical, for which I appologize, I believe this image is not as graphical so for the sake of balance I will post it here:

Turkish people who survived from Armenian atrocity with injuries, Hasankale.

 

Originally posted by Yiannis I moderate what I see, but trust me, this is not my full-time job, nor is this the case for the rest of the Moderators! So we'd appreciate some cooperation from forumers part as well.

I appreciate your effort.

Here are some quite graphical images posted a page ago

http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=8672& ; ;PN=1&TPN=19

and some more here

http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=8672& ;PN=1&TPN=16

Edited by bg_turk

Originally posted by ArmenianSurvival       It defeats your whole argument, because the same source says that these measures were taken only after the Turks had made it a policy to deport/massacre the Armenians of the city by attacking them, meaning that whatever warcrimes occured were spontaneous reactions to the government-planned genocide as opposed to a planned genocide itself.

Turks had started to massacre Armenian men in the city, which was in response to Armenian collaboration with the invading Russian army. Such measures were unjustified and they resulted in the death of many innocent people (similar measures were taken by Bulgarians against the Turks in my region during the First Balkan War of 1911) and they could be used as an argument for a Genocide against Armenians. But this is not my point, since I do not deny that massacres of genoicidial proportions against Armenians have occurred. I am only trying to bring to attention the equally horrendous autrocities comitted by the Armenians as a result of their desire to create an ehtnicaly pure Armenian state on a land, on which they were not a majority.

Your "spontaneity" argument hold no ground,  how is it possible that  Armenians have "spontaneously" decided to kill Turkish women and children and have in fact "spontaneously" cleansed the city of Van from all of its muslims inhabitants... Armenian rebels won in Van before the Russians had even arrived in the area, their actions were planned and synchronized with the Russians - their victory was shortlived, but if they had succeeded the ethnic cleansing and massacres of Muslims in Van would have been rendered permament.  

Funny, even your sources don't call it a RussoArmenian offensive, but a Russian offensive, in which the actions of a few Armenians caused the Turkish authority to resort to a systematic destruction of the entire population.

The participation of  Armenians at almost all level of the Russian army (General Adrianik and  General Nazarbekian) is well known.

You forget that when empires use force to hold onto land, that there are ALWAYS rebels, and these rebels are always a vast minority and have little to no power. Basically, if someone were to attack Turkey today, and Kurdish nationals sided with the enemy, does that mean Kurds are trying to commit genocide against Turks? Does that mean that Kurds had a master plan with the enemy years before the war to kick out Turks, or did they simply take advantage of the situation? I don't think anyone in their right mind would make that claim, since the vast majority of Kurds wouldn't be involved in the fighting, and it was obviously not planned.

Armenians always had the master plan of creating an ARMENIAN Republic  of the Armenians, which would rid them of the evil and barbaric Muslims forever, it was ingrained in their patriotic education.

If the kurds were to kill innocent Turkish civilians, on the same massive scale as Armenians and Russians did in the beginning of the century, in order to create an ethnically pure Kurdish state,  yes this would constitute a genocide against the Turks.