Tag: Justin McCarth

VAN MASSACRE OF APRIL 20, 1915

TADA-FEYM WORKING GROUP ANNOUNCEMENT ON
VAN MASSACRE OF APRIL 20, 1915

On the 108 th anniversary of the vicious slaughter of 22,900 innocent Muslims at the provincial center of the City of Van on April 20, 1915 by mutinous Armenian gangs (Hunchak, Dashnak and alike), We, The Turkish People around the world, would like to commemorate our martyrs with compassion and love, bowing down in front of their honorable, loving memory with respect.

The VAN massacre originates from the mutinous attitude fanatical Armenian gangs acquaired in the depths of history. Similar massacres committed by Armenians were witnessed throughout the Ottoman-Russian Wars of 1828 and 1877-78, due Armenians’ cooperation with the enemy, as well as other major massacres Armenians committed on their own.

During the early phases of these Russian invasions, aiming the realization of Russia’s historical ambitions, some Armenians who knew the region very well as Ottoman citizens and whose second language was Turkish, led the Russian forces into Turkish territories, causing them to raid Turkish forces and massacre many Muslims. Armenians have repeated similar practices in the VAN MASSACRE.

Due to the fact that Turkish men were engaged in the war efforts against invading enemy armies on six different battle-fronts during WWI, and that this situation created a vulnerability in the security forces of the region, Armenians who wanted to take advantage of this situation committed wide-scale massacres in Eastern villages and towns of Turkey, against the Muslim population. Armenians’ true intent was to reduce the numbers of the local Muslims, and thereby increase the ratio of the Christian population in the region, against Muslims.

Once the Tsarist Russian Army entered Eastern Anatolia, taking advantage of this weakest time of the Ottoman State, Armenians increased their terror activities in the City of Van with the purpose of gaining majority in the population of the city, while once more helping the invading Russian Army. Their massacres in the region peaked on April 20, 1915, at the centre of Van.

During these massacres where 22,900 Muslims perished, extremely cruel and inhumane acts of murder took place on the Akdamar Island where a historic Armenian Church is located; Armenian gangs also committed all sorts of immoral acts against Muslim women and girls. Many girls and women ended up having to commit suicide by jumping into the Lake of Van in order to protect themselves, their honor and dignity against the Armenians’ sexual violence.

Perhaps the best response to the groundless Armenian claims came from the Armenian Republic’s First Prime Minister, Hovhannes Katchaznouni, in his 1923 manifesto to the Armenian Revolutionary Federation’s (Dashnaktsutyun) Party Conference, in Bucharest. This manifesto of Katchaznouni, which has been removed from the libraries of the civilized(!) Western World by Armenian propagandists, blamed not the Turks but the Armenians as “the responsible party for the suffering of the Armenians”. He states that “the Armenians rebelled against their own state and committed treason by cooperating with the imperialist countries that occupied the Ottoman Empire”.

Based on such Armenian confessions and the research of expert historian and demographer Prof. Justin McCarthy, we now know that 1,189,332 Muslims lost their lives in Anatolia during those years, mainly in the hands of rebellious Armenians.

Considering Johanness Lepsius’ pre-WWI population numbers and numerous archival reports showing the number of Armenians surviving the war, we come to the conclusion that only around 83,000 Armenians lost their lives during the forced relocations of 1915.

Despite such true archival information, Armenian propaganda machine resorts to all kinds of intrigue and deceit, telling world public the biggest lie of all times – that 1.5 million Armenians were killed in the hands of Turks! They pursue policies similar to that of Hitler’s Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. Every year, they engage in political activities to force the politicians around the world to pass meaningless, unbinding resolutions declaring April 24th as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.

On the other hand, we wish the sane, impartial and fair people of the world would at least ask themselves the very question that French historian Prof Yves Bérnard asked himself once, when he gave the following title to one of his books: “Génocide Arménien: Et si on nous avait menti? (Armenian Genocide: What if they have lied to us?)”.

According to the researches of Prof. McCarthy, apart from the human casualties they caused, the Armenian insurgents also destroyed all 3,400 buildings, except 3, in the province of Van, belonging to the Muslims, and left the region.

With Regards and Respect,

Uğur Kara
Chairman
TADA – Turkish Anti Defamation Alliance

Orhan Tan
Chairman
FEYM Group- Disproving False Armenian Claims

April 19, 2023
Americans Investigating Anatolia
OTAP Archive: Other: Scholarly Resources

Americans Investigating Anatolia by Brian Johnson

In 1990, Professor Justin McCarthy revealed the existence of a report, which he had discovered in the US National Archives, of a survey of eastern Anatolia in the summer of 1919 by two Americans, Emory Niles and Arthur Sutherland. Their account is one of the first descriptions of this region by outside observers after World War I. However, the document lacks a critical component, Niles and Sutherland’s field notes, which the authors emphasized should be read in conjunction with their report. McCarthy assumed that the missing information was lost, perhaps destroyed, but he surmised that if it ever came to light, it would surely enhance our understanding of the period. Niles and Sutherland’s field notes have not been destroyed, nor are they lost. Two identical copies exist in the archives of the former American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in Istanbul. This paper describes Niles and Sutherland’s mission to eastern Turkey and places it in historical context. It also speculates why the results of their investigation were probably ignored and eventually forgotten. A digital copy of their original field notes is appended. (A print version of this essay, without the notes, was published in The Journal of Turkish Studies, 34/2 (2010), 129–147.)
- Field_Notes_of_Niles_and_Sutherland (PDF)
Brian Johnson earned an MA in Near Eastern Languages and Civilization (1988) and a PhD in Middle East History (1999) from the University of Washington. From 2001 to 2010, he served as historian/archivist at the American Board Library in Istanbul, Turkey, where he supervised a project to catalogue and digitize the archives of the Western Turkey Mission of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Currently, he is the librarian of the Istanbul branch of the American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT).

(4/18/2012)

via Americans Investigating Anatolia.

http://courses.washington.edu/otap/archive/data/arch_20c/niles_suthr/bjohns.html
September 12, 2012
Armenian Revolt

A balanced view of the struggle between the Ottoman Empire and the Armenians in the Eastern Anatolia during the late 19th century what is considered by some today, a genocide. This in-depth documentary is based on two years of research in the United States, Russia, Germany, Romania, England, and Bulgaria with historical footage and images from the national archives of the United States, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia and Germany with participation of an international team of experts.

User Reviews

Finallly…historical context for a highly politicized subject

14 October 2007 | by telstar7 (United States) – See all my reviews

Most of us know nothing about the Armenian Revolt, which is why it is so easy for the Armenian Diaspora to convince people that their ancestors were the victims of genocide. While they are very effective in their advocacy, their approach is also unethical because they use “selective truth” to “prove” their point. They also know that most of us will jump on the bandwagon and sympathize with their claims. As for others who beg to differ, the Armenian Diaspora in the US, Australia and Europe denounce them as “genocide deniers.”

How sad that such organizations such as the Armenian National Committee and other radicals must unjustly accuse an entire nation in order to preserve their fragile cultural identity. After all, what does it mean to be an Armenian, other than descended from victims of “genocide”? In the meantime, Armenians steer clear of the Armenian Revolt; many of them are ignorant on the subject and do not realize that the revolutionary Dashnak and Hinchak parties began to attack and kill innocent Muslims many years before Armenians were deported in 1915.

Our Congressmen have better things to do than pass resolutions about emotional, politicized claims that have never been substantiated by the historical record. But they don’t have enough spine to stand up to their Armenian constituents and say, “Enough is enough. We sympathize with you, but this is a matter between Turkey and Armenia. Let them settle it.”

This program on the Armenian Revolt is apparently the only one of its kind. Small wonder! It seriously undermines the genocide claim, and should be required viewing for any politician, teacher or journalist who has been co-opted by the Armenian Diaspora’s arguments.

Yes, Armenians were tortured and massacred. But so were Muslims. If we are willing to call what happened to the Armenians a genocide, then what do we call what happened to the Muslims?

I often wonder how some members of the Armenian Diaspora sleep at night, knowing that their political game is based on deceit.

December 22, 2011
Başbuğ questions media perception

ANKARA – Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ poses questions to well-known foreign scholars of history on the perception of Turkey in the West. ’Today, we see very strong prejudice against Turks is still there,’ replies historian Justin McCarthy.

Well-known scholars of Turkish history received a flurry of questions at a two-session panel held by the General Staff to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Turkish War of Independence on May 19.

During his presentation, historian Justin McCarthy said the Western media largely labeled the Turks before the War of Independence as barbarians and tyrants, but that the situation began changing after the victory by the forces of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic.

In the question-and-answer part of the session, Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ, who was in the audience, asked McCarthy about the reason for these differing perceptions. Gen. Başbuğ also posed a second question, which he warned could be provocative, about how the Western press covers Turkey today. “Is it like before the war, or after the war?” he asked.

In response, McCarthy said the negative coverage of Turks mostly stemmed from ignorance and strong prejudices in the West that developed as a result of the World War I-era killings of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.

’Prejudice against Turks is still there’
“Today, we see very strong prejudice [against Turks] is still there,” he said, adding that the New York Times was one of the most anti-Turkish newspapers in the United States, both during the war years and today. As an example, he cited the paper’s language referring to the Armenian killings as “genocide.”

McCarthy also said the newspaper once printed an article about Turkish lobbying groups in the United States fighting against genocide claims, while mentioning nothing about the Armenian side.

Another panelist, Prof. Salahi Sonyel, said he had advised the Turkish government to give up on the Armenian diaspora and instead concentrate on the Armenians of Armenia. In his opinion, the Armenian diaspora will never come to good terms with Turkey, but it is important for Turkey to normalize ties with neighboring governments, including the one in Yerevan.

Following the panel, Gen. Başbuğ inaugurated a statue of Atatürk that had been crafted by Sait Rüstem. The statue, decorated with quotes from the Turkish leader, stands 4 meters tall and weighs 2.3 tons.

Source: www.hurriyet.com.tr, May 20, 2009‎

May 24, 2009