So called genocide

[elchin]

Hi everyone!

 

Today, Armenians claim that the Muslim Turks murdered 1.5 million of their people in 1915. The numbers don't add up when examining the US government's 1916 accounting of 1,758,000 Armenians in this region plus many more than one million then living within the borders of the Ottoman Empire. In addition, there were hundreds of thousands of Armenians in such places as Syria, Iraq, Iran, etc. There are just too many Armenian Christians alive in 1916 to have had 1.5 million of them killed in 1915. The cry that 1.5 million Christian Armenians have been murdered by Muslim Turks just didn't happen!

 

The Armenian committee members always distort and exaggerate the facts about Armenian population before and after the Relocation Implementation. They try to create a basis for their false claims by using war records, official records, church statistics and, reports of foreign missionaries. Some of numbers that is given about the Armenian population in the Ottoman territories are sometimes exceed to the total Armenian population of the Diaspora.

 

Armenian Population before the Relocation:

 

There are many different claims about Armenian population in the Ottoman territories; some figures are as follow:

 

1.British Annual Register 1917 1.056.000

 

2.Patriarch Ormanyan 1.579.000

 

3.The Armenian historian Kevork Aslan 1.800.000 (In "Armenia and Armenians", Aslan states the Armenian population in Anatolia 920.000, in Clicia (Adana, Sis, Maras) 180.000, in the other Ottoman territories 700.000, total 1.800.000)

 

4.German Priest Johannes Lepsius 1.600.000

 

5.Cuinet 1.045.018

 

6.The French Yellow Book 1.475.011

 

7.The Armenian historian Basmajian 2.280.000

 

8.Patriarch Nerses Varjabedyan 1.150.000

 

Source http://www.azerigenocide.org site

 

Waiting for answers

 

Thank You for Attention

[aurguplu]

hi elchin,

 

according to ottoman sources, there were 1,295,000 armenians in turkey in 1914. in the 1927 republican census, there were about 300,000 of them. today there are 65,000-80,000.

 

what happened to them?

 

regards,

[Juggernaut]

quote

what happened to them?

 

Dont you know Ali? They were kindly escorted out of the country toward the direction of modern day Armenia, where they proceeded to massacre the local population (Azeris) and now even dare to claim Karabagh as their......[enter more hillarious Azeri propaganda, mix and match for Azeri history]

 

[ January 30, 2002: Message edited by: Juggernaut ]

 

[ January 30, 2002: Message edited by: Juggernaut ]

[TigrannesIII]

The numbers aren't important so much as the concept- there was an attempt to kill the whole Armenian population. Seeing as how the Turks left the infrastructure to move in other Muslims, the objective becomes quite clear.

[Guest Fadi]

Elchin friend I won't rediculise you on this board, I answered you on your board.

 

BTW, the source of this pseudo-writing is not azerigenocide.org it come from elswhere.

 

Bestest regard pall.

[khodja]

The bottom line is that loyal citizens of the Ottoman Empire, from small farmers and shopkeepers to Ottoman government Ministers and Members of parliament, were brutally murdered, all their possesion confiscated and the survivors scattered to the ends of the earth penniless. What does it matter if it is 800,000 or 1.5 million?

[Twilight Bark]

Dear Ali Suat,
While I truly appreciate your sticking your neck out on the subject and defending the general truth of the Genocide, I would like to point out that the number maintained by the Armenian Patriarchate was just above the 2 million mark. The Patriarchate's numbers, essentially coming from the records of baptisms, should be regarded as more reliable. The Ottoman census counted households, not people. The Ottoman number is at best an estimation from the number of households. It does not take into account different average household size in different communities. I will not get into the "motivation" to distort numbers on both "sides". In any case, I think we would be in agreement that the exact numbers are not crucially important.

What is more important is the qualitative devastation. The 300,000 you are referring to were almost entirely in Istanbul and its environs, where the ordinary Armenians (but not their intellectuals and the "undesirable" community leaders) were spared due to the huge presence of foreign media and diplomats. The percentage annihilation/cleansing in the provinces was a lot closer to 100% than the 300,000/1,300,000 would suggest.

Best Regards,
Twilight Bark

[khodja]

Twilight Bark,

 

Why do you refer to the Armenian community leaders in Istambul as "undesirable?" Please explain your comment.

[Twilight Bark]

I thought it was fairly obvious. Any Armenian "community leader" that was not liked by the authorities for any reason would be "undesirable". The reason could be political, or could be as mundane as their properties being to yummy to pass up. How dare "they" have so much wealth in "Turkey for the Turks". I hope that clarifies the adjective.

[khodja]

Thanks,

 

The second part of your response shows the extreme xenophobia of the Young Turks. Reminds me of the thinking of the top Nazis toward the assimilated, part-German/part-Jew, members of the German financial elite.

[THOTH]

Just for everyone's edification concerning this topic I think it is interesting to turn to the Analysis of Justin Mcarthy who in his effort to prove the Ottoman figures regearding Armenians as accurate doeas exactly the opposite IMO. Below is an anlysis of his book Muslims and Minorities that I presented on another web site a few years ago:

 

 

In his book “Muslims and Minorities” Justin McCarthy attempts to prove (among other things) that the population of Armenians was less than that which could have supported the European and Armenian figures of approximately 1.5 million killed by the (Young) Turks in 1915, and that Armenians were clear minorities in the Eastern provinces. In my opinion he certainly fails on the first count as he himself shows the mirad of problems with the Ottoman accounts in his book. On the subject of Armenian relative population in the east perhaps he is correct – but to a much lesser extent than he proposes. Certainly, the deliberate policy (denied by McCarthy – but well known and accepted elsewhere) of settlement of Muslims into Armenian areas for the preceding (at least) two centuries and the outflow of Armenians during the 19th and early part of the 20th century (to escape harassment, excessive taxation and massacre etc.) did result in a shift from majority Armenian population to majority Muslim – further massaged by gerrymandering of political boundaries. In fact however, there were still significant populations of Armenians in many of these areas – particularly in certain districts where there still were Armenian majorities.

 

McCarthy seeks to discredit Armenian Patriarchal population counts (as I in fact did – before I read McCarthy). In fact, IMO he shows them to be much more accurate than the proven inaccurate and obviously biased Ottoman “counts”. It is particularly interesting that where the Ottoman and Armenian figures match is in areas of western Anatolia where Ottoman control was the greatest (and there was no issue of a potentially independent Armenian State). Here the Ottoman figures were deemed most accurate (even by McCarthy) and lo and behold – they nearly match the Armenian figures. Yet in the east – where the Ottomans were concerned about Armenian nationalism – their figures for numbers of Armenians are much much lower than the Armenian counts. First -–there should be no reason why the Armenian figures would be accurate in the west – but inaccurate in the east. Secondly, there are plenty of reasons (deliberately and inadvertently) why the Ottomans would severely undercount Armenians in the East. The first is of course political motivation – to attempt to discredit the idea of an Armenian nation-state. Secondly, the Ottomans had very tentative administrative control over a large percentage of Armenians in the East – who for all practical purposes ruled themselves under the millet system. These Armenians did not want to be counted (taxation and other reasons) and certainly did not cooperate in such. Additionally, the Turks obviously did not wish to count many of these Armenians as well (most of these they had some difficulty collecting taxes from anyway). It is always difficult to count people in developing areas anyway – where communications and infrastructure are not good – and I am sure that the Kurds and other nomads in the east were also significantly undercounted – but combined with the political motivation (which McCarthy amusingly discounts) it is apparent what occurred. Particularly since the Armenian derived figures were shown to be reasonably accurate in western Anatolia. And – the European intelligence agencies developed figures which much more closely matched the Armenian figures – not the Ottoman ones – obviously they wanted the most accurate counts and they either independently derived figures which agreed with the Armenian counts – or they used the Armenian figures – trusting them more than the Ottoman ones – either way the conclusion is the same – and McCarthy’s attempts to prove otherwise ring hollow and biased. The following consists of excerpts from “Muslims and Minorities” which illustrate some of the points I have made above:

 

“Population registers were the basis of all Ottoman government population statistics.”

 

“Like all population records, the ottoman population registers contained errors.”

 

“The Ottoman population records on the Anatolian Muslims became reliable (my note: even this is very much disputed – in fact it is self-contradicted by McCarthy IMO – though perhaps they were improved over prior – though certainly not reliable) long before those on minority populations.”

 

“The overwhelming inaccuracy of the Van data leaves no choice but to draw the correction factors used on the Van population from other sources.”

 

“Since no major Armenian population survived in Anatolia at the time of the modern Turkish Republican censuses it is impossible to compare the (Armenian) Patriarch’s data to more modern material.”

 

“There were indeed Armenians killed in the troubles of 1895-6, but not even the most exaggerated count of mortality records such a loss for the entire Ottoman Empire.” (McCarthy discounts Armenians losses in earlier massacres and claims Armenian exaggeration of both their own numbers & losses – without any proof or real knowledge of such)

 

“It is doubtful that the Ottomans, suspicious as they were of Armenian community action and publicity, would have allowed the type of massive collection and checking of data necessary for such records.” (Is McCarthy denying the existence of the millet system and minority communities being allowed to take care of their own? Additionally, they often were in no position to deny such – and as the collection was done as part of the church functions this was left alone by the Ottomans – again McCarthy’s “conclusions” are self serving, biased, and IMO wrong)

 

“Detailed census and registration figures in a statistically underdeveloped area like the Ottoman Empire are usually somewhat incorrect due to undercounting, but the undercounts can be corrected.” (This later point is the basis for McCarthy’s figures – but by his own admission you can see that counts of Armenians were more likely to be purposefully or otherwise undercounted as compared to Muslims – and were much less accurate because the degree of cooperation with and control by the Ottoman authorities was much less in Armenian areas. Additionally, as McCarthy points out there were many factors for less accurately counting Armenians versus Muslims – such as the need to more accurately count Muslims for conscription purposes etc. – in any event it is obviously very difficult to accurately count people in areas not under full administrative control – particularly when those people may not have been interested in being counted. On top of this is also clear that the Ottomans were very interested in portraying the Armenians as a more minor population than they actually were to discourage Western advocacy of an independent Armenia etc. – thus they had much incentive to report less Armenians then there actually were – this motivation cannot be discounted – though McCarthy does just this thing – taking two pages to justify why, in his mind, the Ottomans were not deliberately undercounting Armenians – these justifications ring hollow IMO).

 

“…in the two eastern vilayets the level of undercounting of Armenians was considerably larger than that of Muslims.”

 

Certain European accounts….”give…accurate indications of the large number of Armenian churches and schools in an area such as Siirt Sancagi of Bitlis Vilayeti that officially (in the Ottoman counts) listed few Armenians, thus providing an indication that the Armenian population of Siirt was undercounted.”

 

“A central assumption made below is that the misreporting of age and sex for Armenians was approximately the same as for Muslims. Until extensive archival research has been done, there is no way to prove this assumption.”

 

Sivas Vilyet/eastern Anatolia: “This was the area of poorest Ottoman administrative control, poorest statistics, and the greatest divergence between Ottoman and Patriarchate statistics. Sivas, while still fairly far removed from the seat of central Ottoman government, was clearly much advanced statistically over Bitlis, Van, or Mamuretulaziz.” “Ottoman figures for the Armenian population of Sivas were very close to those of the Armenian Patriarchate.” (Is he contradicting himself here?)

 

“..the Ottoman records, as their collection methods improved, counted Armenians as a greater proportion of the Manuretullaziz population than they had previously done.” (an indication of much room for error as we can see) “The Ottoman figures for Marmuretulaziz were considerably better than those of Cuinet, who made large-scale errors in enumerating the Armenian population of Harput Kazasi.”

 

“The decision to use Ottoman statistics is based solely on their proven relative reliability, and on the proven unreliability of the Armenian statistics.” (note: his basis for this is his own conjecture regarding how each set was compiled – no direct evidence) “Intellectually and statistically, this is not a completely satisfactory approach…” (At least he admits this – though it is buried in the book which is presented with a falsely authoritative air)

 

“The undercounting of the Armenian population in Diyarbakir Vilayeti was approximately the same as that of the Diyarbakir Muslim population.” (how can he claim this with any certainty at all? In fact there are many many reasons for a greater undercount of Armenians, which he discounts on principle without knowledge).

 

Ezurum Vilayeti: McCarthy discusses that the Ottomans paid closer attention to this area then others and that Armenians had been a much larger percentage but had “migrated” to Russian territory. He indicates that his “correction factor” that he uses may not be valid here – though he uses it just the same.

 

Van and Bitlis: “..neither one of which has completely reliable Ottoman published statistics.” (though he claims Armenian figures are overcounts – how could this be known if the Ottoman figures are unreliable?) He does add however that “there will always be a great deal of uncertainty about these populations.” (which he adds to by publishing unverifiable, concocted figures and discounting the Armenian counts). “The Ottomans knew that they had undercounted (minority) populations in Van and Bitlis, and commented on this fact in published and secret documents. …the registers of Muslims were improved. The registers of non-Muslim population were not significantly improved.” “..Armenian men were also significantly undercounted.” (in addition to women and children – which McCarthy admits was a normal practice).

 

“There were more Armenian schoolchildren listed in Siirt than in Bitlis or Mus even though the (Ottoman census) listed much larger (Armenian) population numbers in the latter two sanaks.” (Indications of unpredictable unreliability of the figures) (McCarthy then justifies the use of [his own low] estimates in these cases as he admits the reported figures are unreliable). (note McCarthy admits that official counts indicated a substantially less Armenian presence in these areas than what was thought to exist – so why would the counts elsewhere be any different? I am sure that McCarthy only admits this in this case because the Ottoman figures can be proven wrong – where they cannot be proven wrong he uses them – just because they cannot be proven wrong does not mean that they are correct – and every indication is of greater undercount of Armenians then of Muslims – in every instance where this can be proven it is the case – thus is it not likely elsewhere as well?).

 

“..other indicators also point to an undercount of Armenians and other Christians in Van.” (his rational for this – emigration of Armenian males ??? [what about the rest of the family?] is almost comical – the hoops he jumps through to justify why these undercounts and discrepancies are an aberration). “The military exemption tax paid by Van non-Muslims in 1313 indicates a greater non-Muslim population than does the population records. Ottoman statistics indicate that the Ottoman government was gradually improving its counts of Muslims in Van Vilayeti, but that the enumeration of non-Muslims was improving little. The Muslim population, as recorded, would have had to have been increasing three times faster than the non-Muslim population. This was impossible (note: perhaps less were being massacred). “..the assumption made when beginning to analyze the Ottoman data on Van Armenians was that the undercounting of Van Armenians would be of the same magnitude as the undercounting of Muslims. By every experiment and test, this did not prove to be the case.” (ah ha!)

 

Cilicia: “While by no means completely accurate, the Ottoman figures can be corrected.” (can they really? Who really is to know? By whose methodology? Once you “correct” them are they still “census” figures? Or your own estimates – just as the figures you critique – in fact the Armenians Patriarchal figures may not be “estimates” but actual counts following birth, baptismal and death records kept by the church)

 

“It was in the provinces closest to central authority that Ottoman and Armenian estimates of Armenian population most closely coincided.” (In fact he shows that the Ottoman figures were greater than the Armenian ones in some cases. Does this not seem to indicate that the accuracy of the Armenian figures in the Eastern provinces may have been more accurate than the government figures? If they were shown to be accurate in the areas where government control and administration was strong – and counts were good – could it not be possible that the Armenian figures were good in the areas of less government control – and that there were far more Armenians than the Ottomans were admitting to? This seems to make much sense does it not?)

 

“There can be no doubt that Ottoman figures on Armenian population in eastern Anatolia were somewhat mistaken, as were Ottoman statistics on eastern Anatolian Muslim population. It must be asserted, however, that…Ottoman statistics did not selectively discriminate against Armenians.” (It seems to me that if we look at these discrepancies closely they did just that – thus McCarthy’s methodology, by his own - down in the fine print – admission, is flawed and biased against the Armenians in his totals. It seems that European intelligence sources agree more with the Armenian figures – why would this be so if the Ottoman figures are the more accurate as McCarthy contends?)

[aurguplu]

hi everyone,

 

i see we are getting bogged down in the number business again. i propose we settle down on the following:

 

1. there are no reliable figures of the armenians in the ottoman empire prior to the genocide, or 1890-1895, ottoman, armenian, western, or otherwise.

 

2. the available figures range from just over one million to two and a half million. most armenian or armenian-quoted figures are between 1,100,000-2,100,000. the ottoman official figure is 1,295,000, so the 1,100,000 can effectively be ruled out. so we have an armenian population of between 1,300,000 (rounded up) to 2,100,000, averaging 1,700,000. i think this is a reasonably good educated guess to start with.

 

3. apart from 300,000 or so souls in istanbul and thrace, most of the remainder (over 1,000,000) resided in anatolia at the time. today there are some 400,000-600,000 anatolian armenians in the diaspora from the genocide all over the world as far as i can see. this means that about 500,000 armenians at least must have disappeared. allowing for a substantial number that converted, we can say that the dead are no less than about 400,000. now 400,000 dead is genocide. this is a quarter to a third of the population (statistically about one member from each family).

 

4. however much they can play with numbers, they cannot deny that mass killings occurred, since these are well documented and admitted by turks themselves. now mass killings deliberately committed by governments is called genocide.

 

if all else fails, just ask who built all those churches in anatolia and where they are now.

 

regards,

[SAS]

Garo,

 

es bozi tgherqin inchu es toghnum aystegh, vor irenc lpirsh

 

hashivn anen, te qani mard en spanel irenc paper@` 1 500 000 te 300 000?

 

SAS

[elchin]

The subject for discussion at this forum seemes to be very interesting for you!!!

Click here

[MosJan]

Sas jan aper, arants hayhoyanqi!!!

yev qani chem moratsel qez hamar mek hat worning #1

 

 

>>raffiaharonian or Berj

yete jamanak uneq SAS i barer@ maqreq xndrem. yev urish inch vor avelnord tesnek.

Shnorhakal em.

 

[ January 31, 2002: Message edited by: PandukhT ]

[Guest Fadi]

Here is my short answer.

 

Ali, Armenian sources do not range from 1,100,000-2,500,000, the numbers of 1,100,000 or so are the ones for Easterm zone, they have been used in a fraudulent way by Turkish sources, Armenian sources range from to an absolute minimum of 1,8 million to even as high as 3,5 million.

 

Second the number that you give of Ottoman official figures 1,295,000, is not the actual official number of the time. This is what I concluded at the end.

 

When the Young-Turks took power in 1918, they planned to change the entire Ottoman system, the nationalisation of economy, the destruction of the Milleti system, all plans that needed very precise population statistics. This is why they tried to have precise numbers. But the statistics of 1914, have nothing to do with the official unfounded numbers. Kemal Karpat in his work: "Ottoman population 1830-1914, Demographics and social characteristics." Show us that the numbers of 1914 have nothing to do with the other numbers, like the ones of 1895/1896 and 1906/1907. The statistics of 1914 like admited by the author were calculations based on the two previous statistics. Another thing is that the date 1914, has nothing to do with the date that the statistic is supposed to represent, but rather the publication date(McCarthy admit it). Now we know that the Young-Turk planned a precise counting of population, now the only numbers we have are the ones published in 1914. Why it tooks them 6 years after they came to power to publish and calculate these statistics, when they are not based on any counting of population, but simply a calculation based on the statistics of 1895/1896 and 1906/1907 ? The Young-Turks wanted to have a very precise number, not providen by the Hamidian regime that didn't care much about Armenian real population. The Young-Turks wanted to order the system.

 

Now what is surprising, is that these statistics that could be don waiting 2 weeks, because they were based on other ones already made, they took 6 years. Another misterious thing is that they have been published after the Balkan war, after that the Armenian milleti was the only major Christian milleti left. And that Armenians isolated, and Ottoman fear that they may also want more right and more autonomy. The waited numbers from Ottoman were not relieced, in the place other statistics made after the Balkan war and published were made public. Why ? For me it is evident, the Young-Turks as expected have don there precise statistics, then they remarked these statistics proved that Armenian population was above any expectation, then decided to hide this numbers, and in the place relieced a statistic made after the Balkan war. We can remark this by indirect observations. For example Djemal memoir stat 1,5 million Armenians were deported, when he had a close hand over official statistics, it was from these statistics also that the Turkish military after war tribunal concluded that for the period between 1915-1918, at the very least 2/3 of the Armenian population has been deported or killed.

 

The official statistics compiled, for the period between 1915 and the end of 1917(or beginning/mid of 1918), is 800,000(this number represent the number of killed during the deportation.). This number come directly from Djemal bureau compilation statistic. The results have been published in the official Ottoman gazette. Takvimi Vekâyi No. 3909, July 21, 1920, pp. 3, 4

 

"during the wartime deportations some 800,000 Armenians were killed."

 

This number come from a commission formed by the interior minister Mustafa Arif. They relied on war reports and statistics etc… and it took them months of study (this proves that these numbers are not just vague estimations), and finally in March 14, 1919 the results were made public by Djemal.

 

This number has been written in Rauf Orbay own memoirs, and like Djemal war statistics do not include the ones that perished by starvation and diseases and the Armenian men that were serving in the Ottoman army that were disarmed and killed in mass). Rauf Orbay is a critic source, since he was very highly graded, as a Lieutenant Colonel, and as one of the closest friends of Ataturk, and one of the prime fighter and commander during the Turkish war of independence, he also had charges, such as the secretary of the Navy. He was also the one that signed the Mondros Treaty and one of the initiator of the Lausanne Treaty as the first prime minister of Turkey. Like reported by the specialist Taner Akçam, this numbers was also announced many times by Ataturk himself, and even he reported them to the British. Probably the numbers of victims of 1,2 million presented during the Turkish after war tribunal was an addition to this number, the number of those that perished.

 

So, since the numbers of killed, come from Djemal bureau, as well as Djemal in his memoires write 1,5 million deported, and that represent around 2/3 more or less of the population, we find out that the Young-Turks as well as the post war government considered that the Armenian population was larger then what was made public by the alleged Ottoman official numbers that in fact in my opinion were not the official numbers. Taking in account these sources one would conclude that there was more then 2 million Armenian in the empire from the Young-Turks own sources. Dr. Secil Akgun in a interview in Hurriyet, April 27, 1987, clamed there was 2,5 million Armenians.

 

Thats all for now, I'll continue next time.

 

Ah and SAS: Have you heard of Freedom of speech ?

 

[ January 31, 2002: Message edited by: Domino ]

[Guest Fadi]

Just wondering, I hope I will make no one angry. But will SAS obtain a warning for his attack on the back of another member ?

[Boghos]

Hello Elchin,

 

Welcome to the forum. Reading your site it is quite obvious what your position is, or seems to be.

 

I support the opinion of many Turkish intellectuals that argue that the issue of Genocide is better left to historians. So far, at least, the overwhelming evidence is that the Armenian Genocide took place as a result of state policy. Actually it would be correct to say that it undoubtedly took place and that the Ottoman Empire is fully responsible. You have the floor to prove it otherwise. And if you succeed I will be the first one to congratulate you.

 

 

We believe in freedom of expression, we know that our neighbours in Azerbaijan and in Turkey are not very used to that, but the Internet has helped changing this. As far as I am concerned, and I am not saying this out of any "official" position, you may come here as often as you want, be it to provoke or to write about what you think is the real version of events. I think is fair to ask is that you supply quality sources as to your historical data and its interpretations, given that we are dealing with issues that are extremely delicate.

[Garo]

Domino right above your previous message one of our moderators already has given a warning to SAS.

[MosJan]

I guess it's the Language ,

I do forget time to time that some of our members are not Armenian or do not know Armenian Our Language.

SAS was Gavin a warning way before you have posted your 2 Reply's.

 

MOvses

[Guest Fadi]

I just realised now he was a moderator.

[MosJan]

[Juggernaut]

quote

The subject for discussion at this forum seemes to be very interesting for you!!!

 

Yes, I went to this thread, all I found was an Azeri talking rubbish in broken english.

[Anshnork]

Most people now acknowledge that an Armenian Genocide did occur. I too believe that it has. However, I cannot understand why the Armienian Government is wasting SO much time and energy trying to get it "recognized." The Turks have made it very clear that they refuse to accept it, and I don't think any amount of budging will get them to, RIGHT NOW. So considering that there are MUCH more pressing issues in Armenia today, why do we continue to pursue "recognition." Why is it so important to most Armenians today?

[khodja]

Even some of the most assimilated Armenians (myself) understand the Armenian language. Domino, take the time to learn it. It is a beautiful language. However, try to unlearn the moronic parts of our culture-the fratricide that goes on in our community, the vicious gossip and the belittling of any one that does not conform. A lot of this I place at the feet of our clergy, trained overseas and, with the exception of a few, very backward.