The allegation that the Ottoman Empire carried out a systematic and deliberate plan to annihilate the entire Armenian population is not supported by and contrary to historical evidence. Hence, the so-called “Armenian genocide” far from being an historical fact, is disputed by many scholars.
In the 1870’s, Armenian nationalists began the process of fomenting revolution on the part of their compatriots in Anatolia, against Ottoman rule. This process, which was to culminate in betrayal during World War I, was noted as early as March 18, 1878. The British Ambassador to the Ottoman government was informed by the religious head of the Empire’s Armenian population that the Armenian minority was preparing to overthrow the Ottoman Rule and annex themselves and Ottoman territory to Russia. Forty years before the alleged massacres, Armenian Revolutionaries had succeeded in fomenting a two-fold desire on the part of the Ottoman Armenians: a). a desire for a national revolution, b). a desire for union with the Ottoman Empire’s traditional enemy, Czarist Russia.
Armenian Revolutionaries sought to incite European intervention on behalf of their cause by massacring innocent Muslim villagers. They hoped to provoke counter violence, which would then serve as a pretext for European intervention. Armenian treachery culminated at the beginning of the First World War with the decision of the revolutionary organizations to assist the invading Russian armies. Their hope was that their participation in the Russian success would be rewarded with an independent Armenian state carved out of Ottoman territories. Armenian Revolutionaries cut Ottoman supply lines by guerilla attacks and armed Armenian civilian populations, who in turn massacred the Muslim population. The Ottoman response was to order the relocation of its Armenian subjects from the path of the invading Russians and other areas where they might undermine the Ottoman war effort.
The leader of the Armenian delegation in attendance at the Paris Peace Conference after World War I openly acknowledged the fact that it was the Armenian contributions to the Allied war effort, which led to their mistreatment by the Ottoman authorities. There would be no more overt declaration of Armenian betrayal of their own country than the delegation’s demand that the Armenian people be given the status of “belligerents” to qualify for rewards for their treachery.
In short, the Ottoman officials were clearly justified in their decision to attempt to remove their Armenian populations from the path of the invading Russians they were actively supporting.
We acknowledge that what transpired in Eastern Anatolia was one of history’s worst human disasters. Its causes lay back 100 years in the Russian conquests and in nationalism and religious separatism. Blame must be apportioned to the Russian government which had no legitimate right to the lands conquered; to the Allies, who ignored their own avowed principles of majority rule; to the Ottoman government which was not strong enough to defend its empire from Russia or to protect its people from each other; but most of all, to the Armenian nationalists who were willing to sacrifice their own people in the name of their ideology.
Insistence on viewing Armenians as the unique victims of suffering in Anatolia is untenable as competent scholarship on the subject has expanded and the Ottoman archives has been opened for research.
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