HISTORY OF THE ARMENIAN QUESTION

FROM AMBASSADOR MORGENTHAU’S PAPERS, REEL 22
Manuscript Division,
Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C. 29540

HENRY I MORGENTHAU,
American Ambassador at Constantinople from 1913 to 1916

Armenian News Network / Groong
February 1, 2010

By KAY MOURADIAN, EdD

For the last six hundred years their history is a record of
persecutions, a real martyrdom. No where else the abuse of brutal
force has been so great as in Turkey. The conquered Christians have
not had security of life, honor or property. Religious toleration has
been practiced under most humiliating conditions. Churches should be
small and not conspicuous; no bells should ring; a Moslem had a
perfect right to stop a Christian on the street and cut his head off
to see if his sword was sharp enough. A Christian should have an
extra handkerchief t take the dust off the shoes of a Moslem at a
signal.

It is only after second half of the 19th century, under pressure of
the European countries, whose influence was growing- that the
condition of Christians in the capital was improved; those living in
the interior were and are still in the same insecure state.

As a result of this oppressive rule, the number of Armenians has
greatly decreased.

Massacres: Thousands have been massacred periodically:
In 1896 (reign of Abdul Hamid) 300,000 perished by violent death,
disease, hunger and exposure.
In 1909 (Young Turk Regime) 20,000 were massacred at Adana.
Thousands have been forced to become Moslems, and many have emigrated
to Europe and America.
But the mass of the people have persisted to stay in their country and
maintained, in spite of all persecutions, their national institutions,
racial traditions, language and religion.
European Powers have principally taken interest in the Armenian
Question since the last Russo-Turkish War (1878), when they obligated
Turkey by Article 61 of the Treaty of Berlin to introduce reforms in
the Administration of the Armenian provinces.
The demands of the Armenians were most elementary: They wanted rights
of security of life, honor, and property and equality before the
law. They wanted the establishment of a regime of order and justice
under European control, as experience had proved to them that the
Turks would and could do nothing by themselves in the matter of reforms.
These simple rights have been denied them.
On account of political considerations and rivalry, the Great Powers
have never been able To agree to force the Turks to fulfill the
provisions of Article 61 of the Berlin Treaty.

Reasons of Persecution manifold: 1. Political 2. Economic 3. Social
and Religious Political: The Turks have been unable to assimilate the
Armenians. The latter are on a higher plane by their civilization and
culture. On account of the terrible sufferings they have endured, in
spite of their loyalty and services to the State, they, the Armenians,
have naturally turned their eyes to the European Christian Powers for
help and deliverance. Turks have resented this bitterly and in order
to avoid foreign interference-

instead of following the wiser course of
reforming their administration and thereby solve the problem at its
roots- they have decided to annihilate the Armenian race and thus
terminate the Armenian Question.
The Turks want Turkey for the Turks alone. Therefore by all imaginable
means they have tried to exterminate the Armenians.
A misconceived, narrow, nationalism-combined with a fanaticism of the
blindest and darkest kind- has been one of the chief causes of these
unprecedented persecutions.

Economic: The Turks have been a warring race. They left the Commercial
field to the Christians and the Jews. They have had the army and the
administration of the country in their control.
There are some merchants, artisans and agriculturists among them, but
the vast majority of the Turks are public officials, soldiers and
laborers.
The non-Moslems have become rich through commerce and industry, while
the Turks, in spite of all the assistance they have received from the
Government have made no progress in that line.
To show you how the Armenians control commerce and industry in
Asia Minor, I will mention the following statistical facts regarding
the province of Sivas, where the Armenian population is not so large
as in some other vilayets.
Of 153 factories in vilayet of Sivas, 130 belonged to Armenians, 20 to Turks.
Number of workmen amounted to 17,000, of these 14,000 were Armenians.
Of 316 merchants, 268 were Armenians, 36 Turks, and 12 Greeks.
Of 37 bankers, 32 were Armenians and 5 Turks.

As the Turks could not overtake the Armenians, the Government would
periodically organize massacres and hamper them all the time in order
to check their progress.

Social and Religious:
Fanaticism. The masses of the Turkish people are in dense ignorance
and fanaticism. The number of Turkish schools very limited. Armenians
are unquestionably far more advanced in culture. They have their own
schools which they run at their own expense, while the Turkish
government schools are subsidized by the Government.
The Armenians (like all other non-Moslems in the country) pay taxes
for public instruction but receive no support from the Government for
their schools.
The Government does not favor the creation of new schools by the
Christians, on the contrary they raise all sorts of difficulties to
hamper and obstruct.
Just before the deportations there were:
785 Armenian schools in Turkey, with an attendance of 82,000 students,
while there are only 150 Turkish schools, with an attendance of 17,000.
The Kurds do not have a single school.
This ignorance of the Turks, coupled with religious prejudices, has
been another cause of disagreement between the Turks and the
Armenians, and has rendered the masses of the Turks a ready tool of
persecution in the hands of wicked leaders.
A Christian is never regarded by a Moslem as his equal. A Christian is
considered as a raya, a serf, a subject, never a citizen enjoying
equal rights. And when you consider that not only the ordinary people,
but the rulers also think the same way, and that really there is not a
single governor thoroughly prepared for his position, you would
naturally expect nothing else but these lamentable results.
Recent Developments: Present European War and its bearing on the
Armenian Question.
The present party in power; its sympathy for the Germans growing out
of their enmity to Russia.
While they were at war with the European Powers, they wanted to avail
themselves of the opportunity to exterminate the Armenians while
nobody could stop them. Political considerations prevented Germany and
Austria from interfering with the atrocities committed by their
Turkish ally.
The Turks claim that they had to resort to these stringent means for
their safety as the Armenians were not loyal. But even supposing that
the deportations were necessary, nothing can justify, as the Turks
admit it themselves, the atrocious crimes which were committed.

Methods of Extermination:
1. Requisitions, goods taken without payment, resulting in economic ruin.
2. Confiscations
3. Forced exorbitant contributions and taxes
4. Searches in Armenian houses for arms, but in reality for pillage.
5. Bastinado, torture beyond imagination, too obscene to be related.
6. Forced conversion to Mohammedanism.
7. Massacres, partial and wholesale, women, children and old men and
women not spared.
8. Deportations: Slow death, with all accompanying horrors on the
way. No means of Transportation, had to walk on foot most of the
way. En route attacks by bands of criminals especially liberated from
prisons for that purpose. Women, young ladies violated daily, at each
village on their way; many of them taken to harems; families
separated; mothers threw themselves into river with their children to
save themselves from shame.

No provisions made for food or shelter for these unfortunate people,
many of whom are educated, and well-to-do people, who are not allowed
to draw their own money from their bank as the Government had
confiscated it together with their property as `abandoned property’.
They sold their furniture at ridiculously low prices when they were
ordered to leave their homes and start on a trip with an unknown
destination. They sold pianos at $5, cows at $3. Even these moneys
were stolen from them on the way.
There are bishops, doctors, lawyers, professors, journalists among
them, dead, dying…Thousands have died of exhaustion, exposure,
disease, want of food. Corpses of children were seen on roads by
travelers.

Relief Work:
Americans have been the first and most important helpers.
Interest of America purely humanitarian.
Missionaries have been foremost. Their sympathy towards Armenians very
deep their whole work has been among them.
Activities of Embassy, consulates, and Missionaries in distribution of
funds and food among sufferers.
Money goes direct to its object; no expenses, New York philanthropist
is paying expenses himself.
Present rupture of relations between America and Turkey has not
affected work of relief. We have three distinct channels for
transmission of relief funds, and have devoted and reliable workers on
the field there for their distribution.
Hundreds of thousands of Armenians need immediate help. Latest
telegrams received from Turkey and the Caucasus make strong appeals
for continued help. No funds on hand, already overdrawn $40,000 to
give the poor people a morsel of bread.

If interested in reading more from Kay Mouradian’s historical
research, connect through her website: www.aGiftInTheSunlight.com

Kay Mouradian’s articles in this series are archived on Groong’s
website at: http://www.groong.org/orig/voices-from-the-past.html

Formerly American Ambassador to Turkey

ILLUSTRATED

Fig. 1. HENRY I MORGENTHAU,
American Ambassador at Constantinople from 1913 to 1916

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1918

.

TO

WOODROW WILSON
THE EXPONENT IN AMERICA OF THE ENLIGHTENED PUBLIC OPINION OF THE WORLD, WHICH HAS DECREED THAT THE RIGHTS OF SMALL NATIONS SHALL BE RESPECTED AND THAT SUCH CRIMES AS ARE DESCRIBED IN THIS BOOK SHALL NEVER AGAIN DARKEN THE PAGES OF HISTORY

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PREFACE

By this time the American people have probably become convinced that the Germans deliberately planned the conquest of the world. Yet they hesitate to convict on circumstantial evidence and for this reason all eye witnesses to this, the greatest crime in modern history, should volunteer their testimony.

I have therefore laid aside any scruples I had as to the propriety of disclosing to my fellow countrymen the facts which I learned while representing them in Turkey. I acquired this knowledge as the servant of the American people, and it is their property as much as it is mine.

I greatly regret that I have been obliged to omit an account of the splendid activities of the American Missionary and Educational Institutions in Turkey, but to do justice to this subject would require a book by itself. I have had to omit the story of the Jews in Turkey for the same reasons.

My thanks are due to my friend, Mr. Burton J. Hendrick, for the invaluable assistance he has rendered in the preparation of the book.

HENRY MORGENTHAU.
October, 1918.

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CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Chapter One: A German superman at Constantinople