Why does Turkey not recognize the 1915 ge

Nomad, Naturally you'd doubt that Armenians killed more Turks than the other way around. One reason is Armenians are influential & noisy and they use their concocted genocide as an unethical way to bind their community together. Nothing brings people together better than a common enemy. Turks are quiet; they don't advertise their grief. After the war, they shied away from emphasizing these historical blood feuds in a mature attempt to stress brotherhood, rather than hatred.

Moreover, because "Christian" lives are considered more valuable in the West, nobody cared to investigate the fate of the Turks/Muslims.

You live in Bulgaria: I'm afraid your people generally have a similar mentality, as in the other Orthodox cultures, including Greece, Serbia, and Romania. It's always the Turk who's the barbarian. And the West is quick to jump on this exclusive aspect, while treating the Turks' Christian opponent as the victim.

One relatively modern example is the Greeks kept massacring their Turkish counterparts in Cyprus. Finally, a 1960 Treaty of Guarantee was established (with Britain as the third party) giving both Turkey and Greece the legal right to intervene if their people were threatened on the troubled island. In 1974, Greece sent a team of thugs to take over and establish "enosis" (union) with Greece. The leader, Sampson, admitted in a 1981 Greek newspaper interview had the Turks not intervened, he would have exterminated every Turk on the island. Common strategy: kill all the Turks, scare the rest into leaving, and take over people's homes.

And how did the biased West perceive this Cyprus episode? As Turkish aggression.

This was the policy of the Armenians at around the end of WWI, and their combined force of 200,000 (Boghos Nubar, 1919 Times of London) had easy pickings cleaning out Muslim villages, since every able-bodied Turkish man was at the various fronts. Russian and French forces who had Armenians under command found them impossible to control. Then there were 50,000 rebels  operating from behind Ottoman lines. Almost all of these Armenians originated from the Ottoman Empire, at one time or another.

Take your country, Bulgaria. Gladstone was screaming about the Bulgarian atrocities near the end of the 19th century. Numbers for 1877-78? Justin McCarthy, Turkish exiled: 568,000. Dead: 262,000. Remaining: 672,000. Numbers for Bulgarian dead, from Peter Balakian's "The Burning Tigris": 15,000. (Balakian attempted to show the Turks in the worst possible light in his book, and added a comment like "unprecedented" to emphasize the brutality of the 15,000 figure. But on the other side of the coin... 262,000.)

When Armenians rebelled in the mid-1890s (which is also recognized in the West of a case where the Turks, for no reason [except for made-up theories like "double taxation"] after centuries of fairly content co-existence, decided to eliminate their Armenian population, their "faithful nation" who made the economic wheels turn. Abdul Hamid concluded that "the Europeans aroused the Bulgarians and we lost Bulgaria. Now they are trying to arouse the Armenians so that they can take Eastern Anatolia from us. Thus, bit by bit, they will dismember us."

The 518,000 figure is recorded in the Ottoman archives. (Mind you, the Russians helped with some of the slayings; but this cleansing was mostly on the heads of the Armenians.) Of course, we are all so indoctrinated with Turks = Nazis, we are told Ottoman records are not to be trusted. But these were internal reports; the normal course of documentation within any nation, and they were not meant to be publicized.

Again, since Westerners didn't give a damn about Turkish/Muslim lives, it's not easy to rattle off concurring sources. But there are a few giving us an idea of the high number of murders:

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"...For each of the provinces which suffered from the Russian occupation and from the Armenian militias acts of vengeance, an important demographic deficit appears in the statistics of the post-war years adding up to several hundred thousands of souls due largely to the massacres committed by the enemy."

"Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman (History of the Ottoman Empire)," supervised by Robert Mantran, Editions Fayard, Paris, 1989, page 624

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These Armenian volunteers, in order to avenge their compatriots who had been massacred by the Kurds, committed all kinds of excesses, more than 600,000 Kurds being killed between 1915 and 1916 in the eastern vilayets of Turkey.

Hassan Arfa, from the anti-Turkish book, The Kurds (1968, pp 25-6). 

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A British colonel reported that the Armenians massacred between 300,000 and 400,000 Kurdish Muslims in the Van and Bitlis districts. 

(FO 371/6265/E23: Report by Colonel Stokes on the situation in Armenia, 24.2.1920)

 

"Where is your proof from? There are countless books and websites proving the genocide that it did happen, and your pulling this information from where? It seems kind of like those historians who try to say the Holocaust didn't happen, what a joke.."

In this excellently researched article by Prof. McCarthy ( http://www.ermenisorunu.gen.tr/english/articles/article1.htm l), we learned many propaganda sources at the time fed off one another, creating the impression of a consensus. Similarly, we have "countless books and websites" affirming the reality of the Armenians' genocide. The reasons are plenty:

This topic is a raison d'etre of the Armenians, and they have the wealth and obsession to remind us of it every chance they get. The Turks are indifferent. Not that it would matter much if the Turks become more vociferous; for a century and longer, this matter has been drummed into the minds of Westerners, and has become the accepted wisdom. Add to this the prevailing prejudice against the Turks, which even the dictionary supports, with another meaning for the word "Turk" meaning cruel or savage.

When Armenian terrorism in the 1970s-80s reactivated the "genocide" topic, the Turks finally started speaking up. In 1985, 69 Western historians argued (in a NYTimes ad) that there's more to this story than meets the eye. The Armenians were in danger of losing their "monologue." What happened? Physical threats (one professor's house was bombed in 1977) and smear campaigns. Soon, the honest historians learned this was not worth sacrificing their precious reputations over.

The idea is to stifle debate, not to find the real truth.

Morevoer, the Armenians allied themselves with the "genocide scholars," many of whose institutions are funded significantly with Armenian money. Note that anyone who argues is labeled in "Holocaust-speak" as a racist, neo-Nazi, revisionist, and propagandist. A scholar is one who studies all sides of an issue. As McCarthy stated in "The First Shot," "A book on American history that does not draw upon American sources and only uses sources written in French cannot be accurate history." (http://www.ataa.org/ataa/ref/mccarthy_firstshot.html) These genocide scholars are false scholars; they have an agenda, and only report on historic examples of Man's Inhumanity to Man that they determine are valuable... using selective "facts" (of which there is no shortage) that exclusively affirms their position.

Yet who will argue with them? Like the missionaries of WWI who lied, one who argues against the greatest crime against humanity presents the picture of being beyond reproach.

In short, because there is a majority view does not mean the view is accurate. In order to determine accuracy, we must examine who is saying what, and why. The sources "proving" the genocide all come from those who have conflicts-of-interest, such as:

(1) Missionaries, whose duty was to vilify Muslims (2) War propagandists (3) Newspapers like the NYTimes relying exclusively on propaganda sources (4) The 1919 Ottoman kangaroo courts, conducted under enemy occupation (5) Westerners in general -- even Germans and Austrians who were allied with the Ottomans -- who had religious and racist anti-Turk feelings imbedded after long years of "Terrible Turk" stories. (6) The Armenians themselves.

Westerners who spoke against the genocide had no reason to lie. Westerners like Prof. John Dewey, who wrote in 1928 ("The Turkish Tragedy"):  "It is... time that Americans ceased to be deceived by (Armenian) propaganda..."

But this propaganda is alive, and stronger than ever, in 2005.

Strategos, you asked for sources, but you didn't specify for what. So I'll give you a cross-section for my claims. Be the judge whether these sources had reason to lie.

Population figures: 1.5 million (1911 Encyclopedia Britannica; worldwide Armenian population: 3 million. Note: it took the Armenians 2,500 years to reach 3 million. After they were "exterminated" in WWI, the Armenians more than doubled their numbers [7 million] in only 90 years.)

"...median pre-war population of Ottoman Armenians truly lay in the 1.3 million area, which happened to be the last Ottoman census figure." We have another median of 1.75 million from pro-genocide partisans Christopher Walker and Richard Hovannisian (1967 book), while the 1912 British Blue Book reported 1,056,000. Almost all neutral estimates fall between 1 million and 1.6 million. Anything approaching the Armenian Patriarch's figure of 2.1 million must be treated gingerly.

(For example: After the Berlin Conference, the Patriarch claimed 3 million. He later "revised" to 1,780,000. [Source: "The Armenian File."] The idea was to get free land from European imperialists, and the greater numbers provided better justification.)

"Extremists like Hovannisian, Balakian and especially Dadrian have all conceded one million survived": Peter Balakian, the Chronicle of Higher Education (May 4, 2004): "About 1.5 million Armenians died during the 20th century's first modern episode of race extermination, and another million were permanently exiled..." The others signed their names to a commemoration statement in 1998 stating "Another million fled into permanent exile." ( http://www.armenian-genocide.org/Affirmation.22/current_cate gory.3/affirmation_detail.html)

[The "exile" part is a lie. The Armenian Patriarch himself reported (to the British, in 1921) 625,000 Armenians were inside Turkey before the implementation of the Sevres Treaty. (F.O. Hc. 1/8008, XC/A-018055, p. 651) The Treaties of Gumru and Lausanne gave the Armenians the right to return, within a limited time. Most Armenians emigrated elsewhere by their own choice; Hovannisian tells us half a million went to Russia/Transcaucasia, and hundreds of thousands went to or stayed in Iran and the Arab lands they were transported to. Many left for American and western countries.]

1977 Le Figaro figure for 15,000 dead: "Death in Westwood," Los Angeles Herald Examiner, January 31, 1982. Liman von Sanders testimony: transcript, Soghoman Tehlirian trial.

"...few are left to till the fields (as Morgenthau himself reported, adding thousands of Turks were dying daily of famine": Ambassador Morgenthau's Story (1918)

"Hovannisian reported some 150,000 Ottoman-Armenians died of famine..." From his 1967 book, "Armenia on the Road to Independence."

"The 200,000 in the west mostly untouched" I don't have a source for this, but it's the truth. The Armenians of Istanbul, Izmir, Edirne and other western cities were mostly exempt from the relocation policy. Well, here's a source: Missionary-propagandist (he's mentioned in the first link, above) William Walker Rockwell wrote in the NYTimes, "The Total of Armenian and Syrian Dead" (Dec. 1916): "Constantinople & Smyrna, natives not deported, about 150,000"

"why would the bankrupt "Sick Man" have spent the equivalent of today's millions..." This comes from the Ottoman archives, meant for internal use and not to fool future historians. [http://www.ataa.org/ataa/ref/arm_book/chpt1.html] (Example: "Allocation of funds for the deportation; S�kr� Bey, the Director of Settlement of Tribes and Refugees was assigned, with orders to carry out the deportation in an orderly fashion, in addition to meeting the food and lodging expenses out of the Refugees Fund. In order to meet all needs, the provinces of Konya, Adana, Aleppo, Suriye, Ankara, Mossul and the sanjaks of Izmit and Eskisehir were allocated a total of 2,250,000 kurush as needed..." 

Page 214 of "The Armenian File" reports 25 million kurush were spent in 1915, and 236 million in 1916. Another source reports: "The 1915 budget of the Directorate for the Settlement of Nomadic Tribes and Refugees was 78,000,000 kurush and its 1916 budget was 200,000,000 kurush. The funds were spent for the deported Armenians, Greeks and Arabs as well as Muslim refugees coming in from territories invaded by the enemy. (BOS, BEO, No. 334063)."

Malta Tribunal: British archives tell the tale. After two years of searching everywhere for real evidence, the British sought American archives (that is, the horror stories provided by Morgenthau and consuls like Leslie Davis, J.B. Jackson) through their ambassador in Washington. The reply came in July 1921: "I regret to inform Your Lordship that there was nothing therein [in American archives] which could be used as evidence against the Turks who are being detained for trial at Malta."  [http://www.ataa.org/ataa/ref/armenian/malta.html]

I answered the sources for the 518,000 Muslim dead in my previous post. The only source I left out was the one for Harbord claiming 600,000 Turkish soldiers dying from typhus... but I did read that. (I don't think the figure was that high, though.) If I've left anything out or if you think I'm making anything up, let me know and I'll try and provide the source. But to be fair, you should be equally stringent in asking for sources of those who give genocide claims. For example, you didn't ask Eaglecap to prove his "About 1.5 million Armenians were massacred by the Turkish soldiers and gangsters."

Everything you've heard that you believe "proves" the genocide boils down to hearsay, canards or forgeries (like Andonian's Talat Pasha telegrams). Information in the form of "Bob told me..." does not constitute evidence, and would be turned down in a court of law. None of us would like to be accused of a ruinous crime like rape or pedophilia simply because someone "said" so. Genocide is a very serious crime, and people of honor ought to be very certain (and conduct serious objective research) before they point any accusing fingers.

 

Brilliant posts Atomic-ache. Hope you get a more worthy response next time from your opponents on this.
Welcome and thank you for joining our site.

 

Now, and for many years, Turkey has been the biggest buyer of American arms and the only ally in the region. The Turkish army is the biggest army in NATO- around 850,000 staff, mostly ignorant , uneducated people taught only by the koran.
Under the nose of the British armed forces located in Cyprus they occupied the country with the silenced approval of NATO.That happened because 130 years ago the Greek people didn't throw the turks out from their own country. There was another big attempt in 1984 that happened in Bulgaria. It was a big mistake leaving turkish elements in Bulgaria after the liberation war lead by the Russians to free the Bulgarian People after 500 years of slavery under Turkish rule.The turks in Bulgaria multiplied over the years, and started thinking that they can take parts of the country and add them to Turkey.They started a revolt with the help of the CIA and members of Al-Qaida sneeked into the country. Their task was to have the Turkish army to do the same as they did in Cyprus; "To protect the turks in another country". However the exsistance of the strong Soviet war machine was something everybody was afraid of. That is why a "Second Cyprus" couldn't happend, for your pitty.
Everybody who was involved in the turkish movement was left free to leave the country if they weren't happy of the fact that Bulgarians will not be turkish slaves AGAIN.
The western Countries like England and France even Germany stopped the Russian army in 1878 before liberating Istambul (formerly Constantinopolis - The Pearl Of The Greek Civilization). Thus turks still occupy a little part of Europe, making them think that they are in Europe. Thay have nothing to do with Europe. and the culture of the European nations.


Edited by Nomad

Nationalistic Bulgarian tyranny towards minorities?

They had more rights than the Bulgarian citizens as minority. They had the right, without an exam, to enroll in the universities etc. They had a program aired in turkish. However the turkish propaganda aired over the border 24/7 was asking them to join their cause.
They were reminding them how strong the ottoman empire was. All the time they were taught that the turks once striked into the heart of Europe, and their religion is the only true one, and the "infidels" should be exterminated.

Originally posted by Nomad Nationalistic Bulgarian tyranny towards minorities? They had more rights than the Bulgarian citizens as minority. They had the right, without an exam, to enroll in the universities etc. They had a program aired in turkish. However the turkish propaganda aired over the border 24/7 was asking them to join their cause. They were reminding them how strong the ottoman empire was. All the time they were taught that the turks once striked into the heart of Europe, and their religion is the only true one, and the "infidels" should be exterminated.

Forced assimilation is not a right.

Originally posted by Nomad Nationalistic Bulgarian tyranny towards minorities? They had more rights than the Bulgarian citizens as minority. They had the right, without an exam, to enroll in the universities etc. They had a program aired in turkish. However the turkish propaganda aired over the border 24/7 was asking them to join their cause. They were reminding them how strong the ottoman empire was. All the time they were taught that the turks once striked into the heart of Europe, and their religion is the only true one, and the "infidels" should be exterminated.

What is the problem of all these once Ottoman belonged nations? I can figure it out: Jelousity and hatred.

Why dont you have a brief look at your modern history? The Slavic nations and Bulgars lived under Turkish rule for more than 500 centuries and we can only find a few with surnames finishing with "oglu" at the end, but after the 70 years of Russian and Bulgarian rules over Turkish minorities and Turkish nations of central Asia, we see that most of their surnames end with the Slavic "ov" added at the end of a pure Turkish surname. Isnt it interesting?

We also see that the Orthodox churches in some parts of modern Turkey still exist without any need to them, but most of Turkish mosques in Balkans are destroyed jelously. Is this your mentality of equality? The Turkish immigrants from Bulgaria, who run away from Bulgarian facism arrived to Turkey and the first thing they did was to kiss Turkish land without their tongues. Do you know why? Because some Bulgarian humanitarian authority cut their tongues because they spoke their mother language.

 

Edited by Oguzoglu

Originally posted by Oguzoglu We also see that the Orthodox churches in some parts of modern Turkey still exist without any need to them, but most of Turkish mosques in Balkans are destroyed jelously.

Indeed. As a matter of fact the most recent case was 8 months ago when the Serbs burnt down a 400 year old mosque.But just yesterday I saw an Orthodox church being repaired in Istanbul.

Edited by Gazi

Originally posted by LadyLight  does this not suggest that the Armenian militia or army or whatever, was VERY STRONG, very organized, and VERY WELL ARMED????

Indeed thanks to FRENCH and RUSSIAN supplies.

Please keep in mind the fact that on 18 May 1915 The Russian Tsar Nicholas II sent a telegram to Aram Manukian,then was the leader of Great Van Armenian revolt.

In that telegram the tsar was thanking to the leader of the armenian revolt and expressing his personal gratefulness for ther service to the tsar and the imperial russian empire.

i have searched the van revolt in detail.and it showed that while the ottoman forces were fighting with henry martini rifles remained from the american civil war,the armenian dashnak army was waging the battle with latest french and russian rifles.

otherwise,how could they even accomplish to create a short-lived armenian state during WWI so quickly after the revolt broke out?!!!