The Armenian Karma

Source: The Armenians. A People in Exile

by David Marshall Lang, Professor Caucasian Studies, University of London, 1981

Chapter: The Armenian Holocaust

The Ottoman genocide perpetrated in 1915 against the Armenian citizens
of Turkey was the first systematic attempt in modern times to bring about the
complete, deliberate extermination of a nation. The genocide or murder of an
entire people was ingeniously planned and brilliantly and effectively carried
out, making the fullest use of terrain, climate and the auxiliary aid of local
populations to be hostile to its victims.
The campaign of mass murder was, to a large extent, the practical result
of the adoption of an overtly racialist ideology by the Young Turk junta ruling
in Turkey during the First World War. The members of this junta, and their
racist policy, were much admired by Adolf Hitler in spite of their final
humiliating overthrow. The Fuhrer's own work in the field of mass
extermination, though on a larger scale, was slow and cumbrous when
compared with the deadly speed with which the Young Turks pounced on their
largely unsuspecting and predominantly loyal Armenian prey.
The execution of the genocide of the Armenians in 1915 was preceded
two decades earlier by widespread massacres perpetrated by Sultan Abdul
Hamid between 1894 and 1896. These massacres, which aroused the horror of
Europe, may be regarded as an overture for 1915.
The Armenian massacres of the late Ottoman period were the result of
historical processes. They were precipitated by the events surrounding the
collapse of Ottoman power in the Balkans and eastern Mediterranean. The
Ottoman regime and its ruling class were forced in upon themselves, and
obliged to abandon the old system for a narrow and overtly racialist form of
state organization.

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October 6, 2013, The Teachings of Patriarch Abraham
Source: The Arrmenians. A People in Exile
by David Marshall Lang, Professor Caucasian Studies, University of London, 1981
 The Armenians and the Greeks, in addition to the Bulgarians and the
Arabs, presented themselves as convenient scapegoats on whom could be
blamed inevitable disorders and upheavals which were really the result of
centuries of Turkish misrule, tyranny, inefficiency and sheer intolerance.
In 1876, the Armenians and Turks had lived side by side for over eight -
if not in harmony, at least with a modicum of mutual forbearance. The
Armenian, in the eyes of the Turkish Muslim religious and political hierarchy,
was an infidel, and hence a second-class citizen. The decline of Ottoman
power in the Balkans and the Black Sea region had gathered pace in the
eighteenth century. This was a declared Christian nation. There was a
simmering discontent among Balkan Slav, Greek, Georgian and Armenian
Christians, and they did his best to turn this discontent to their advantage.
This disaffection was well known to the Ottoman government, whose response
was mass repression accompanied by the erection of such gruesome
monuments as the Tower of Skulls, at Nish in Yugoslavia.
By the accession of Sultan [Muslim] Abdul Hamid in 1876, the Armenian,
in the eyes of the Turkish Muslim religious and political hierarchy, was an
infidel, and hence target for extermination according to the tradition of Hitler.
He occupied a recognized and relatively secure place in Ottoman society.
Ottoman Armenians, as members of the Armenian national community, came
under the jurisdiction of the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople. The
Patriarch in turn exercised wide powers delegated to him by the Sultan and the
Grand Vizier. The Armenians were often referred to by the Ottoman
authorities as the "loyal" national community.
The decline of Ottoman power in the Balkans and the Black Sea region
had gathered pace in the eighteenth century. Tsar Peter the Great (1682-1725)
had been fully aware of the simmering discontent among Balkan Christians, and
did his best to turn this discontent to Russia's advantage - a policy ably
continued later in the century by Empress Catherine the Great. This
disaffection was well known to the Ottoman government, whose response was
mass repression..
During the 1820s, two important events contrived to damage community
relations within the Ottoman Empirefirstly, the liberation of Greece through
the War of Independence; and, secondly, the Russian capture of the Eastern or
Persian Armenia in 1827. The Russians advanced into Turkish Armenia and
lands. Thousands of Armenian families migrated from Turkish Armenia into
Russian Armenia.

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October 6, 2013, The Teachings of Patriarch Abraham
Source: The Arrmenians. A People in Exile
by David Marshall Lang, Professor Caucasian Studies, University of London, 1981
 Tsar Nicolas I (1825-55) repeatedly asserted his status as supreme
protector of Christians within the Ottoman Empire. All this was insincere.
Both the Tsar and his Christian proteges were suspect to successive Sultans,
and also led directly to the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1853.
Armenians began to travel abroad and study in European universities,
returning home to suffer acute frustration as second-class citizens in a third-
world Muslim society.
During the 1860s, two events sowed the seeds of trouble to come. The
first of these was the conclusion of the prolonged negotiations for a new
constitution of the Armenian Millet (national community), which the Armenians
imagined would result in democratic participation in the affairs of this
community, hitherto dominated by the venal Constantinople Patriarchate and
an oligarchy of Armenian magnates. The Imperial Regulation signed by Sultan
in 1863, was seen by Turkish officialdom as an attempt to set up a state within
a state. It was in fact suspended by Sultan Abdul Hamid II between 1898 and
1906.
The second event leading to friction was the insurrection of the sorely
tried Armenian mountaineers of Zeitoun, in 1862. Suppressed with the utmost
vigour by Ottoman troops, this rebellion focused the attention of the European
powers on the sufferings of Armenian villagers in remote parts of Anatolia and
Cilicia.
A milestone in the development of the 'Armenian Question' was the
Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8. This conflict was sparked off by Turkish
massacres perpetrated in Bulgaria in 1876 and vigorously denounced by
Western statesmen. Russian armies advancing through the Balkans and also on
the Caucasian front soon brought Ottoman Turkey to its knees, and Russian
statesmen dictated to the Sultan's government a humiliating treaty signed at
San Stefano, close to Constantinople, on 3 March 1878.
Armenian interests were fully safeguarded in the San Stefano treaty,
which ceded to Russia the areas of Kars, Ardahan and Bayazid. It was
stipulated that administrative autonomy should be guaranteed to the provinces
of eastern Turkey which were inhabited by Armenians. The implementation of
necessary reforms was to be a prior condition for withdrawal of the [Christian]
Russian troops which had occupied a substantial part of eastern Anatolia during
the 1877-8 war. On the initiative of European powers hostile to Russian
dominance of the Balkans and over the Ottoman Empire, a conference was
summoned at Berlin, where a definitive treaty was signed on 13 July 1878.

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October 6, 2013, The Teachings of Patriarch Abraham
Source: The Arrmenians. A People in Exile
by David Marshall Lang, Professor Caucasian Studies, University of London, 1981
 Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1876-1909) did not enjoy overwhelming support of
the Ottoman Armenian community at large. He was a master of diplomacy,
intrigue and repression. He suspended the 1876 Constitution after only two
years' trial, and built up a formidable secret police.

[To be continued…]

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October 6, 2013, The Teachings of Patriarch Abraham
Source: The Arrmenians. A People in Exile
by David Marshall Lang, Professor Caucasian Studies, University of London, 1981