To maintain the use of more than dubious sources (the “Andonian documents” and Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story), the Memoirs of Count Bernstorff, or more exactly three short quotations, were used by a part of the Armenian side as a corroborative proof. However, two of the three quotations from these Memoirs are tendentiously extracted of their context, and the third is just an unreliable opinion.<BR> |
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| KEYWORDS | ||
| Andonian, Dadrian, Bersntorff, genocide, Morgenthau, Ternon, Dadrian. | ||
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| From the 1980’s, some Armenian and pro-Armenian writers refer to the Memoirs of Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, ambassador of Germany in Ottoman Empire from 1917 to 1918, as a complementary evidence of the alleged intention of CUP government to extermination Ottoman Armenians, so to support the “genocide” label. This use appeared in a precise context: the desperate attempts to defend the authenticity of crude forgeries, i.e. the “Andonian documents” [1] then the Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story. [2] These attempts were made by the Armenian-American sociologist Vahakn N. Dadrian [3] (currently director of the Zoryan Institute, a think-tank close to Armenian Revolutionary Federation [ARF], after his forced retirement from State University of New York because sexual harassment) and his French follower, the surgeon Yves Ternon [4], also a great friend of ARF, who acknowledges to have been leaded on Armenian issue only by Armenian nationalist groups or individuals, and to have always refused any contact with Turkish historians [5]. Both Mr. Dadrian’s and Mr. Ternon’s argumentations on Andonian and Morgenthau are, as a whole, less than convincing [6], that is why even Armenian and pro-Armenian historians raised serious doubts on the authenticity of “Andonian telegrams” [7]; but the goal of this paper is limited to the misuse of Bernstorff’s Memoirs, published in German in 1935, and translated into English one year later. [8]
The Quotations “When I kept on pestering him about the Armenian question, he once said with a smile: ‘What on earth do you want? The question is settled, there are no more Armenians,’ […].” In 1999, Mr. Dadrian used the same quotation to defend the Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story, arguing that “German ambassador Bernstorff in his memoirs quotes Talât almost in identical terms”. [9] No surprisingly, the quotation was used again, later, by others. [10] In 1995, Mr. Dadrian used also two other quotations, in a rather different context, but also to support the “genocide” allegation [11]: “His complicity in the Armenian crime he [Talat] atoned for his death.” “Armenia [= Eastern Anatolia] where the Turks have systematically trying to exterminate the Christian population.” It is hardly doubtful that if such sentences are accepted are face value, with such interpretation, they constitute a clear indication in favor of the “genocide” label, even if they represent a tiny part of the Memoirs of Count Bernstorff. Both Andonian’s and Morgenthau’s books depict Talat as a ferocious criminal; in the perspective of Mr. Dadrian and Mr. Ternon, the Memoirs of Count Bernstorff corroborate partially such an enormous allegations. However, a more attentive look gives a quite different version. Critique The most evident distortion is the first and the most used (“When I kept on pestering him about the Armenian question, he once said with a smile: ‘What on earth do you want? The question is settled, there are no more Armenians’”). The context clarifies the meaning of Bernstorff : This constant and considerable contrast between desire and achievement induced in the Grand Vizier a delightful blend of skepticism and gentle cynicism, which increased the charm of that attractive personality. When I kept on pestering him about the Armenian question, he once said with a smile: ‘What on earth do you want? The question is settled, there are no more Armenians,’ a reply which, while admitting his own complicity in the crime, hinted that the European accounts might be exaggerated.” [12] The most comprehensive quotation is almost self-explanatory: 1) Unlike in Andonian’s forged documents and in Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story, Talat is not depicted by Bernstorff as a monster, a bloody villain, but, quite the contrary, as a moderate and responsible “statesman”. 2) The sentence “The question is settled, there are no more Armenians” is an expression of black humor, criticizing the distorted narrative of pro-Armenian propaganda. 3) Bernstorff does not present Talat as the supervisor of crimes perpetrated against Armenian civilians, but as an “accomplice”. What Bernstorff means by “complicity” is explained by the context of the second misused quotation: “His complicity in the Armenian crime he atoned for his death. On this matter he was an offspring of his nation. The statesmen of other lands have often been equally guilty in not opposing and rebuking the prejudices of their fellow-citizens, and it would be unjust to apply European standards to a Turkish statesman, even to one of the caliber of Talaat Pasha.” [13] So, it is clear that Bernstorff blamed Talat for his incapacity to prevent atrocities committed by some Turks, Kurds, Circassians and Arabs against displaced Armenians, not for any criminal designs against these exiles. Arrived to this point, let’s notice that the Memoirs of General Otto Liman von Sanders, chief of German military mission in Ottoman Empire (1913-1918), contain also great a praising of Talat’s character, as well as a rebuttal of central government’s guilty in atrocities committed against a part of displaced Armenians. [14] The third and last quotation (“Armenia [= Eastern Anatolia] where the Turks have systematically trying to exterminate the Christian population” in 1915-1916) is nor distorted neither tendentiously extracted of its context, and so is the single which could be used to support the “genocide” label — however a strange “genocide”, concerning only Armenians of Eastern Anatolia, and not desired by the actual Ottoman central authorities, contrary to all the literature supporting such a label for the Armenian case. Anyway, the Memoirs of Count Bernstorff, like any other historical source, have to be submitted to internal and external critiques. Bernstorff was not in Turkey but in USA during the Armenian displacement of 1915-1916; as ambassador in Ottoman Empire, he did not quit Istanbul; nowhere in his Memoirs, he claims to have carried a particular investigation on 1915-1916 events, for instance in interviewing German officials of embassy and consulates; nowhere Bernstorff mentions the fifth-column role played from the beginning of WWI Armenian revolutionaries, a fact well documented in German sources [15]; despite his praising of Talat Pasha, Bernstorff’s prejudices about Oriental peoples (surely not worse than the average of his time, that is right) and his lack of curiosity for Turkey (he acknowledges to know roughly nothing on Kemalist Republic) are clear in his book. No one of these facts shows Bernstorff as a first-choice witness for the tragedy of 1915-1916. More important is the fact that several German witnesses, who were in Eastern Anatolia during WWI, have a quite different version of the story. Especially, General Felix Guse argued that the goal of the forced displacement was to crush the numerous, and coordinated, rebellions of Armenian revolutionary committees which started as early as 1914; and that the atrocities against displaced Armenians were not systematic. [16] General Friedrich Bronsart von Schellendorf supported the same conclusions, and stressed on the absence of criminal designs in Talat’s policy vis-à-vis the Armenians. [17] Heinrich Bergfeld, German consul in Trabzon, whose reports are also used highly selectively by Armenian and pro-Armenian writers — including Mr. Ternon —, concluded, too, that the fate of Armenian deportees was extremely variable, depending on the quality of the escort. [18] The findings of Ernst Jäckh, a German scholar who carried out unofficial missions for German government in Ottoman Empire during WWI, corroborate these conclusions. [19] Similarly, the journalists Gustav Hjalmar Pravitz (Swedish), George Abel Schreiner (American), and Stefan Steiner (Austrian), who investigated in eastern Anatolia — and even, for the first, in Arab provinces — testified that there was no systematic destruction of Armenians; all three stressed that bureaucratic ineptness and lack of relevant material were mostly responsible for the human losses, and that allegations of atrocities widely diffused in Western countries contained a substantial part of inventions and exaggerations. [20] Stefan Steiner witnessed also the war crimes of Armenian volunteers against Turkish civilians in 1918. [21] Even in the Blue Book published in 1916 by the Bryce-Toynbee team [22], one can find at least one Western testimony, the statement of the missionary Mary L. Graffam, rejecting explicitly the allegation of systematic extermination, as well as any blame on top-rank Ottoman officials or Ottoman government. [23] Unlike the majority of sources used in the work of “war propaganda” (according to Arnold J. Tonybee’s proper words [24]), Graffam testified only on what she saw, and interviewed both Turks and Armenians. The major Edward W. C. Noel, sent in 1919 to Anatolia by British government to fight the Kemalists, concluded, after investigation, that Turkish atrocities against Armenians during WWI were “isolated” — at least in the region where he travelled —, and added that the war crimes of Armenian and Nestorian volunteers against Kurds in 1916 were — at least in his region, one more time — worse and more “systematic”. [25] Conclusion In attempting to save, against all the evidence, the authenticity of crude forgeries, two of the most prominent supporters of “Armenian genocide” label misused of the Memoirs of Count Bernstorff, by distorted quotations and the elevation of one unreliable opinion until the rank of evidence. Both these authors are perfectly able to understand that they do not make an honest and scholar use of Bernstorff’s book. But such a finding will surprise nobody familiarized with Mr. Dadrian’s and Mr. Ternon’s selective, and in several cases purely misleading, use of sources. [28] The needed reconciliation between Turks and Armenian implies an impartial study of the past and a mutual, full condemnation of crimes committed from both sides. Until today, the huge historical literature “contains frequently considerable historical distortions, which takes away any value to it,” as pointed correctly Prof. Xavier de Planhol, one of the best scholars of Turkish studies. [35]The misuse of Memoirs of Count Bernstorff is just one distortion among so many others. *Maxime Gauin is a visiting researcher at USAK. References: 1) The most comprehensive demonstration on Andonian’s fake documents is: Şinasi Orel and Sürreya Yuca, The Talât Pasha Telegrams. Historical Fact or Armenian Fiction?, Nicosia: K. Rüstem & Brothers, 1986 (first edition in Turkish, Ankara, TTK, 1983); it is summarized in Türkkaya Ataöv, The Andonian “documents” attributed to Talat Pasha are Forgeries!, Ankara University Press, 1984 and Jean Loyrette’s argumentation for Orly attack’s trial: Terrorist attack at Orly: Statements and Evidence Presented at the Trial. February 19 – March 2 1985, Ankara University Press, 1985. |
Turkish Weekly
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