Erzerun Muslim Massacres

[DominO123]

More and more I researched about the genocide, I discovered more and more that the Armenian "revolts" were nearly nonexistant.

 

One of the claims by denialists is the massacres of Muslim in Erzeroun by the Armenians during the Russian occupation, searching and searching that up, and being ready to admit everything, I came to the conclusion that much of the claims were lies. Just recently I decided to reread McCarthys famous work Death and exile: the ethnic cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922 , when decided to search about the massacres in Erzeroun during the Russian occupation, I made a funny constatation that I didn't made previously.

 

On the footnote 96 at page 241, McCarthy writes:

 

"The best sources on Erzurum during the breakup of Russian control and beginning of Armenian rule are the two memoirs of Lt.-Colonel Twerdokhlebof: War Journal of the Second Russian Fortress Artillery of Erzeroum From Its Formation until the Recapture of Erzeroum by the Ottoman Army, March 12, 1918("Translated from the original Russian"), 1919, and Notes of a Superior officer on the Atrocities of Erzeroum, 1919. The First is the primary document and has been reproduced a number of times; it yields a great deal of first hand information not only on Erzurum, but on the events in the countryside and in other areas, such as Erzincan."

 

What does that mean is that the "best" sources for the massacres by Armenians of Muslim in Erzurum and more particulary the often refered massacre, by revisionists, of Erzincan by Armenians; is Lt.-Colonel Twerdokhlebof, and that from McCarthys own words. Now, how such an individual that claims in his work to search the truth will reject the Andonians as forgeries(basing himself on Orel work) accept the said memoirs of Lt.-Colonel Twerdokhlebof, when first Twerdokhlebof was not a Russian but an Azeris Tartar being accused to spy for the Ottoman empire and working for them? And more particulary, how one can trust the honnesty of a man(McCarthy) that by the same time as rejecting the Andonians accept the translation of a work which the original Russian version is not found, and that the individual that has translated the work in question is Major Mehmet Sadik intelligence officer and known as being a head of Ottoman anti-Armenian propaganda bureaus doing similar work as Uras has done in his so-called collection of documents. Those quotes from Lt.-Colonel Twerdokhlebof are even found in Talaat own memoirs justifying the action taken against the Armenians.

 

I already refered to that before, but I never realised and pied attention to the fact that McCarthy refer to that source as the best, how come an individual reject the Andonians, and at the same time accept another piece of documents, when in both cases the orginals are not found, and that on the later cases it is not a simple Turkish writter and journalist that has "translated"the document, but a leading head of the Eastern Ottoman propaganda bureaus, quotations that were even used by the Turkish delegation at the Peace conference.

 

Is that what McCarthy call best? Documents that are even easier to reject than the Andonians that he himself reject? If that is the best he could found to make his allegations credible, what to say about those that are not as good as this best?

Edited July 12, 2003 by Fadix