The 1909 Adana Massacres in Armenian Cilicia and the 1915 Genocide

[Eddie]

Here in my second posting on this forum a few thoughts on the 1909 Adana Massacres, now one hundred years ago....

 

The 1909 Adana Massacres in Armenian Cilicia and the 1915 Genocide

 

Any examination of the 19th and 20th century history of Armenian Cilicia throws important light upon a critical and revealing though often overlooked aspect of the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the Armenian Genocide that was its most barbarous expression.

 

I.

Though not part of historic Armenia, Cilicia was home to a substantial body of Armenians dating back to the Armenian kingdoms and feudal estates established there in 12th to 14th centuries following the collapse of the Bagratouni dynasty.

 

During the 19th and early 20th century, as a result of Cilicia’s proximity to Europe, its intersecting point for trade between Asia Minor, Europe, the Middle East and beyond and its own agricultural potential and Mediterranean coastline, Cilician Armenian merchants and traders emerged as a significant force in the region. Their economic power was enhanced further for resting upon a large Armenian community that had a potentially formidable military-political tradition of independence, as exemplified by the history of semi-autonomous Zeitun.

 

Inevitably therefore Cilicia became also a point of critical competition and conflict between the emerging Turkish commercial class and the already established Armenian that had close associations with French capital also eyeing Cilicia imperial ambitions.

 

II.

A study of Armeno-Turkish relations demonstrates that in the Turkish nationalist settling of scores with its Armenian competitors it inevitably had to go beyond the ethnic cleansing of historic Armenia itself. The destruction of historic Armenia and the breaking of the back of Armenian national development in historic Armenian lands alone would by no means have sufficed for the Turkish nationalists to become masters of what remained of the Empire.

 

The Turkish nationalist elite confronted an Armenian economic opponent that was based primarily outside historical Armenia with its most significant foundations being across the whole of Asia Minor and possessing a reach that stretched from Istanbul and Smyrna right through Anatolia, western Armenia, Cilicia and beyond.

There could be no Turkish elite triumph without the destruction of Armenian wealth throughout the Empire and throughout Asia Minor in particular. Turkish nationalism therefore determined to use its control of the Ottoman state to demolish its Armenian (and other) opposition by whatever barbaric means necessary

To this task the Abdul Hamid, Young Turks and the Kemalist forces dedicated themselves, the first two before and the last after 1915.

 

III.

The 1909 Adana massacres were Turkish nationalism’s Cilician stop in what was a systematic process of destruction aimed at dismantling Armenian economic and social positions throughout Asia Minor. If the slaughter of 1895-96 had delivered a devastating blow to the Armenian national forces in its historic homeland, 1909 was the Cilician Armenian 1895-96. Both were body blows to Armenian economic and social power that paved the way for their Turkish competitors.

 

1895-6 and 1909 blasted at the foundations of Armenian economic and national development and prepared the grounds for the final solution in 1915. 1915 as the critical date for the Young Turk final solution may have been contingent, an opportunity seized in war with plenty of pretexts fabricated. Yet the process of destroying Armenian nation formation, demolishing Armenian commercial and economic power and dispossessing Armenian communities of their historic land right through the empire began well before 1915 and continued long after.

The attacks on relatively autonomous Armenian Zeitoun and Sassoun, the arson in Van, and then the 1985-96 Massacres, followed by 1909 in Adana were stages in preparation of the final solution of 1915.

 

IV.

But even the Genocide of 1915 that emptied historic Armenia of its Armenian population was not enough to ensure the undisputed reactionary Turkish dominance.

 

Historic Armenia may have been buried. But throughout Asia Minor Armenian commercial and economic power survived and continued to represent a challenge. To deal with this problem in the post Ottoman period was one of the main projects of the Kemalist nationalists who replaced the Young Turks.

The Kemalist assault on Smyrna (though it had other aims also and indeed more pressing), the emptying of Istanbul of its Armenian elite and the systematic offensive against surviving Armenian economic strongholds that lasted right into the 1950s completed the process begun by Abdul Hamid and continued by the Young Turks.

 

IV.

What the Cilician experience, and the post 1915 Armenian experience in what is illegitimately called the Turkish Republic shows is the existence of a two pronged strategy pursed by the Young Turk/Kemalist forces as they sought to emerge dominant in land they had seized from other peoples.

As an expression the imperialist chauvinism the Young Turks fought to secure territorial control of what remained of the Ottoman Empire – thus their assault on Armenians in western Armenia and Cilicia. If the Young Turks accomplished the first stage of the Genocide – clearing historic Armenia and began the second stage, the Kemalists set about completing this second one – systematically crippling Armenian economic power throughout the so-call Turkish Republic and as a secondary task ensuring the removal of last remnants of Armenians from historic Armenia and Cilicia.

 

Eddie Arnavoudian

31 March 2010

[Dave]

It is unfortunate to say this, but one can call easily consider the 1909 massacre a test-drive for the genocide... Edited April 28, 2010 by Dave