Number Of Armenian Casualties During The Genocide

[hytga]

i was about to post a reply on the topic "did armenian casualties amount to 1.5 mln?" but i found the topic was closed. anyway turks can argue all they want why 1.5-1.8 is an impossible number of genocide victims, basing their logic on some ottoman census which supposedly shows that there were 1.2 mln armenians in ottoman empire.

However their argumes proove their lack of knowledge in the argument they are trying to make. Or perhaps it prooves that they knowingly choose to ignore basic facts and continue the turkish denialist propoganda.

 

 

here are some facts

 

This is the current population estimates of Armenia

http://cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/am.html

Population: 3,326,448

Age structure:

0-14 years: 21.1% (male 356,587; female 346,648)

15-64 years: 68.3% (male 1,113,241; female 1,158,245)

65 years and over: 10.6% (male 147,156; female 204,571) (2003 est.)

 

now that we have something to compare it to.

 

here's a quote from the all famous pro turkish historian Justin McCarthy

 

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~fisher/hst...s/mccarthy.html

 

The Ottomans did indeed undercount Armenians, though not to the degree claimed by some critics. In most cases their undercount was part of the same undercounting that affe ted all segments of the population -- undercounting of women and children.

you do the calculation

[gamavor]

Conclusion: Make Love (produce more Armenians), not War.....and then War!

[Teutonic Knight]

Conclusion: Make Love (produce more Armenians), not War.....and then War!

Armenians need to start breeding like rabbits asap.

There has been a severe decrease in the global Armenian population the past few decades.

 

Payti traki sagh ashxarhov mek haziv 14 million Hay lini (et hl@ mi kani million crypto-Armenian turkerin hashvelouc heto).

[DominO123]

hytga, 1.8 million IS an impossible number. And more, please don't shoot numbers like that by mixing them, the current Armenian population(which BTW is innacurate) has nothing to do or has no value at all when one want to calculate the Armenian losses...

 

As for McCarthy, why refering to this buzzz?

[hytga]

Domino even if it is inaccurate, it provides an example of what the age structure would look like and an approximate percentage of women and children given 1.2 mln armenian male taxpayers.

 

well the only reason i refered to mccarthy is to point out that women and children were not counted during the so called "ottoman censuses", the Ottoman census only provided the number of adult males in households, for whom a tax was to be paid. I just wanted to point out that the so called "census" was not a real census in it's full meaning, but rather a taxers list.

 

Therefore by looking at an example we can see clearly that 1.8 is very reasonable. i also wanted to point out that turks wrongly use the term "census" in their denialist propoganda

Edited December 13, 2003 by hytga

[DominO123]

Domino even if it is inaccurate, it provides an example of what the age structure would look like and an approximate percentage of women and children given 1.2 mln armenian male taxpayers.

 

well the only reason i refered to mccarthy is to point out that women and children were not counted during the so called "ottoman censuses", the Ottoman census only provided the number of adult males in households, for whom a tax was to be paid. I just wanted to point out that the so called "census" was not a real census in it's full meaning, but rather a taxers list.

 

Therefore by looking at an example we can see clearly that 1.8 is very reasonable.  i also wanted to point out that turks wrongly use the term "census" in their denialist propoganda

hytga, I did a study about this question, have over a hundred page conclusion about that, McCarthy is my first subject, have read all his books, read most of his essays... and have covered them.

 

Conclusion? McCarthy is a buzzz, and you can not use him to support your claim, neither support him to reject them.

 

As for 1.8 million loss, this is nearly impossible and statistically very unlikely, I hope you will be able to back up your claims with sources.

Edited December 13, 2003 by Fadix

[hytga]

Domino i know mccarthy has many cracks in his "historic studies" and is very much pro turkish. However the part i quoted points out something very important.

 

If you know that the ottoman censuses actually incuded all members of the family, i'd appreciate if you say so.

 

Oh and what did you conclude about the number of armenian casualties?

Edited December 13, 2003 by hytga

[DominO123]

Domino i know mccarthy has many cracks in his "historic studies" and is very much pro turkish. However the part i quoted points out something very important.

 

If you know that the ottoman censuses actually incuded all members of the family, i'd appreciate if you says so.

hytga, the quote you made was not important, even Karpet work contain so-called % of error margins. McCarthy tactic is to present the same value for the correction factor to muslims and Armenians, and the quote you refer support this view.

 

I will show you few of interesting McCarthy contradictions that are really important quotes(important in the sense that his contradictions and logic is nearly sarcastic and self-telling).

 

In one of his essays(Armenian Terrorism: History as a Poison and Antidote).

 

“In 1912, there were only 870,000 Armenians in the Six Vilayets." Then he continues and affirms: "As many Armenians lived in the rest of the Ottoman Empire as in the Six Vilayets.” An indication by McCarthy here that there was about 1,740,000 Armenians in the Ottoman empire, around 240,000 more then what he imply but don’t say directly.

 

In the same essay when he refers to a work which refers to the fact that the real number of Armenians that perished is still uncertain.

 

The book goes on to state ‘Historians have not determined how many Armenians died’ (a statement that particularly bothered me, since I thought I had done so).

 

When he says compleatly the opposit in his famous book Muslims and Minorities; The Population of Ottoman Anatolia and the End of the Empire, NY University Press, 1983, p. xii

 

In any book of demography it is easy to view the statistics as an end in themselves, to try to find the perfect number. Even had such an approach been desirable, the data upon which this book is based are too imperfect to support such an excursion into the calculus of demography. No perfect numbers will be found here. The reader should be aware that each population number presented in this book, whether raw data from Ottoman population registers or analysed and corrected figures, is approximate.

 

Determining numbers is something accurate, an accuracy which he admit not possessing before even starting his work in order to escape others judgement. But why still in the essay I quoted he stat:

 

“They were demographically consistent, accurate data, …”

 

They were McCarthy? Why then claiming in your work:

 

the data upon which this book is based are too imperfect to support such an excursion into the calculus of demography.

 

How can one have consistant and accurate datas when he admit they are too imperfect himself?

 

This is the only thing McCarthy worth that you do to him, point his contradictions, you won't be able to support your claims or unsupport them by quoting McCarthy if you go on this sense you won't find anything important from his quotes... you just should play with him, like he is a dog(poor dogs I am insulting them).

 

Here more quotes from McCarthy, those comes from conferences where he was present in Turkey concerning genocide perpetrated against muslims by Armenians.

 

Turks didn't steal the land of Armenians, Armenians stole the land of Turks. Armenians were the aggressor side and Turks defended themselves,

 

I can continue like this to expose more of his rudimentary logics... as I have pages and pages of contradictions and such things... but i am bored right now and won't do it.

 

 

If you know that the ottoman censuses actually incuded all members of the family, i'd appreciate if you says so.

 

I never claimed such.

Edited December 13, 2003 by Fadix

[THOTH]

I wrote this critique of McCarthy several years ago. Hope it helps.

 

 

In his book “Muslims and Minorities,” Justin McCarthy attempts to prove 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. It might be easy to assume he is correct on both counts if one accepts McCarthy’s presentation at face value. However, under a bit of scrutiny (and by careful review of McCarthy’s own notes) it is clear that his calculations are not sufficiently supportable to dispute the popularly accepted number of Armenian deaths. 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 of settlement of Muslims into Armenian areas during the preceding 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 – and this the Ottomans further massaged by gerrymandering of political boundaries. In fact, however, there were still significant populations of Armenians in the vast majority of these areas. Its interesting that McCarthy specifically denys that the Ottomans practised settling of Muslims into the Armenian areas as this is a widely accepted fact and was certainly deliberate Ottoman policy. This denial and other McCarthy data interpretational irregularities (and omissions) point to his deliberate bias and attempt to distort the available information to support his politically motivated contentions.

 

McCarthy attempts to cast doubt on the generally accepted number of Armenians reportedly killed (1.5 Million) by the Ottoman Turks during 1915 by claiming that the total population of Armenians in Anatolia were in fact lower then the accepted number killed. An examination of his data clearly demonstrates that he fails in this task. McCarthy seeks to discredit the population counts of the Armenian patriarchate – which are normally been considered as the most accurate Armenian population figures kept at the time. In fact, as demonstrated here, he indirectly shows them to be much more accurate than the proven inaccurate and obviously biased Ottoman population “counts.” It is particularly interesting that the Ottoman and Armenian figures were compatible 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, in fact, they nearly match the Armenian figures. Yet in the east, where the Ottomans were concerned with Armenian nationalism and possible European support for an Armenian State, the Ottoman figures for numbers of Armenians were much, much lower than the Armenian counts. First, consider that 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 – where religious communities were granted a certain amount of autonomy to rule themselves within the overall Ottoman system. Many of these Armenians of the east had a centuries long history of independence and they had no wish to be counted (for taxation purposes or for other reasons) and they certainly did not cooperate in such. Additionally, it is quite obvious that the Turks did not wish to count many of these Armenians either (most of whom, they had some difficulty collecting taxes from anyway). It is always difficult to count people in developing areas, where communications and infrastructure are not good. It is possible that Kurds and other nomads in the east were also significantly undercounted, but, combined with the political motivation (which McCarthy amusingly discounts without proper explanation), it is apparent that this is exactly what occurred. This becomes more obvious once one considers that the Armenian-derived figures were shown to be reasonably accurate in western Anatolia – where no Ottoman political motivation or physical difficulties prevented full counts. It is also interesting to note that the European intelligence agencies developed figures that much more closely matched the Armenian figures and not the Ottoman ones. Obviously they wanted the most accurate counts and they either independently derived figures that 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 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.” (Note: even this is very much disputed and is in fact self-contradicted by McCarthy, although perhaps they were improved over prior counts – however they were certainly never entirely 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 Armenian losses in earlier massacres and claims Armenian exaggeration of both their own numbers and losses without any proof or demonstrated 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, the Ottoman’s were often in no position to deny such, and as the collection was done as part of the church functions this was not interfered with by the Ottomans. Once again, McCarthy’s “conclusions” are self serving and biased)

“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 -McCarthy’s “correction factors” – which are not in fact the actual counts as McCarthy would have us believe. By his own admission we 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 co-operation with and control by the Ottoman authorities was much less in Armenian areas. Additionally, as McCarthy in fact 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. Furthermore it 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. Thus, they had much incentive to report less Armenians than there actually were. This motivation cannot be discounted, and 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 and at best are speculation on the part of McCarthy – biased speculation. Even many of McCarthy’s examples contradict his conclusions.

 

“…in the two eastern vilayets the level of undercounting of Armenians was considerably greater 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 Vilayet/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. (This is 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 and not direct evidence.) Intellectually and statistically, this is not a completely satisfactory approach… (At least he admits this, although it is buried in the book, which is presented with a falsely authoritative demeanour.)

 

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 evidence).

 

Ezurum Vilayeti: McCarthy argues that the Ottomans paid closer attention to this area than 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, but, nevertheless, he uses it just the same (and this inconsistency, like others here, gets buried in the data).

 

Van and Bitlis: ...neither one of which has completely reliable Ottoman published statistics. (But he does claim Armenian figures are over-counts. 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 – a practice which McCarthy admits was normal).

 

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 sanjaks. (These indicate 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. Also 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? It is for 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 than that of Muslims. In every instance where this can be proven, it is the case. Thus, can it not be likely elsewhere as well?)

 

“… other indicators also point to an undercount of Armenians and other Christians in Van.” (His rationale for this - the emigration of Armenian males [what about the rest of the family?] - the extreme measures McCarthy takes to justify why these undercounts and discrepancies are an aberration and not the norm is almost comical.) 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 be increasing three times faster than the non-Muslim population. This was impossible (note: perhaps less were being massacred). …the assumption made when beginning to analyse 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.

 

Cilicia: While by no means completely accurate, the Ottoman figures can be corrected. (Can they really be? Who really is to know? By what methodology can this truly, accurately be done? Once you “correct” them, do they still qualify as “census” figures? Or one’s own estimates – just as the figures he critiques – in fact the Armenians Patriarchate 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 some 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, 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?)

[hytga]

i think you guys misunderstand me. i couldn't care less for mccarthy's propoganda. i've read some of his writings. i can see cracks in his propoganda too.

 

i'm trying to focus on the way the census was conducted

 

I never claimed such.

i was just wondering wether you know about the way the ottoman census was conducted and wether women and childeren were or were not counted

[Stormig]

i think you guys misunderstand me. i couldn't care less for mccarthy's propoganda. i've read some of his writings. i can see cracks in his propoganda too.

 

i'm trying to focus on the way the census was conducted

 

 

i was just wondering wether you know about the way the ottoman census was conducted and wether women and childeren were or were not counted

Indeed, Domino's previous login name was McCarthyiologist.

[CrystalHye]

Domino-----You Armenian???

[DominO123]

I will suppose that I havn't read that cristal, I give you the chance to edit it yourself before I come to bite you.

 

the next time don't share your stupid questions on public.

Edited December 14, 2003 by Fadix

[hytga]

I will suppose that I havn't read that cristal, I give you the chance to edit it yourself before I come to bite you.

 

the next time don't share your stupid questions on public.

and who does this message go to?

[DominO123]

hytga, unless you have an alias which goes by the title Cristalhye, you are not involved in this.

[hytga]

no i don't have an alias. tnx for clarifying

[CrystalHye]

I will suppose that I havn't read that cristal, I give you the chance to edit it yourself before I come to bite you. 

 

the next time don't share your stupid questions on public.

 

 

Domino. Your post before was too long and i didn't feel like reading it and Domino doesn't seem like an armenian name or a word so i asked you a simple question "are you armenians?" if you are, thats fine. I wasn't trying to offend you or something!!!!

 

---

Post edited By Sip.

[DominO123]

This is what I call killing a thread in all its forms. While we were having a discussion someone comes in and ask the ethnicity of a member of the board.

 

---

Edited by Sip

[CrystalHye]

Ok Domino, mr. board member, you go ahead and ignore me and continue your discussion. I don't think I need to talk to you anymore since I just saw what kind of character you have!!! No wonder we Armenians can't unite, we get pissed off on everything.

 

Post edited by Sip

[Stormig]

Crystal, you like your sundae with chopped nuts?

 

That is exactly what you sounded like when asking Domino's ethnicity. And you should learn to read long posts out of regard and respect for those that actually put in the effort to do their research and write them.

[Sip]

I did some cleanup here. Please let's try to stick to the topic and leave out the personal insults and name calling (or do it in PM). Crystal hye since you are new here, consider this a friendly reminder. Domino already knows the rules.

 

Thank you.