Guenter Lewy

lewy 1205.qxp 11/7/2005 12:42 PM Page 47 The First Genocide of the 20th Century? Guenter Lewy he term “genocide,” coined in 1944 by the historians, including, most notably, Bernard Lewis, T Polish-Jewish émigré lawyer Raphael the dean of American Orientalists and an expert on Lemkin, was meant to describe Hitler’s then-on- Turkey. going campaign to exterminate the Jews of Europe. Against this view is the great tide of world opin- But Lemkin’s interest in this most heinous of ion, from the official proclamations of various gov- crimes—what he and others would define as the ernments and religious bodies to the declared con- planned effort to destroy an entire people or eth- sensus of the International Association of Geno- nic group—long predated the rise of the Nazis. cide Scholars. Indeed, so strong is sentiment on The atrocities that first drew him to the issue this question that even now, nearly a century after emerged from a different world war and a different the fact, the issue continues to color Turkey’s deal- context. They were the vicious actions not of Ger- ings with other nations. On September 29, the Eu- mans against Jews in the early 1940’s but of Ot- ropean parliament in Strasbourg adopted a resolu- toman Turks against Turkey’s Armenian minority tion demanding that, as a condition of admission to in 1915-16. the European Union, Turkey acknowledge the Today, however, the Armenian case remains con- mass killing of its Armenians during World War I troversial in a way that the Holocaust, outside the as an instance of genocide. And even beyond the fevered confines of the Arab world, does not. Like issue of what happened in 1915-16 and its rele- every one of its predecessors since the rise of mod- vance to Turkey’s political situation today, the Ar- ern Turkey, the current government in Ankara ve- menian case continues to occupy a place of prece- hemently rejects the charge of genocide, and has dence in the litany of all subsequent instances of exerted strong diplomatic pressure against any at- mass murder and “ethnic cleansing,” including tempt by outsiders to place the events of World most recently the killings in Bosnia, Kosovo, and War I in a class with Hitler’s Final Solution. In this, Rwanda in the 1990’s and those in Sudan today. the Turks have been seconded not just by pro- No one, it should be stressed, disputes the extent Turkish apologists but by a number of respected of Armenian suffering at the hands of the Turks. With little or no notice, the Ottoman government Guenter Lewy is the author of, among other works, The Catholic Church & Nazi Germany, Religion & Revolu- forced Armenian men, women, and children to tion, America in Vietnam, and The Cause that Failed: leave their historic communities; during the subse- Communism in American Political Life. His new book, The quent harrowing trek over mountains and through Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed deserts, large numbers of them died of starvation Genocide, is forthcoming from the University of Utah Press. and disease, or were murdered. Although the ab- [47] lewy 1205.qxp 11/7/2005 12:42 PM Page 48 Commentary December 2005 sence of good statistics on the size of the pre-war naks declared an end to their fighting. But the Armenian population in Turkey makes it impossi- truce did not last. With Turkey’s entry into World ble to establish the true extent of the loss of life, re- War I on the side of Germany and against Russia, liable estimates put the number of deaths at more the Armenians’ traditional ally, the Dashnaks re- than 650,000, or around 40 percent of a total Ar- sumed their armed resistance. By April 1915, Ar- menian population of 1.75 million. menian guerrilla activities had picked up momen- The historical question at issue is premedita- tum. Roads and communication lines were cut. tion—that is, whether the Turkish regime inten- Henry Morgenthau, the American ambassador in tionally organized the annihilation of its Armenian Constantinople, reported to Washington on May minority. According to the Genocide Convention 25 that nobody put the Armenian guerrillas “at less of 1948, such an intent to destroy a group is a nec- than 10,000, and 25,000 is probably closer to the essary condition of genocide; most other defini- truth.” tions of this crime of crimes similarly insist upon Meanwhile, the Russian branch of the Dashnaks the centrality of malicious intent. Hence the cru- was organizing volunteers to fight the Turks on the cial problem to be addressed is not the huge loss of Caucasus front. Most of these volunteers—num- life in and of itself but rather whether the Turkish bering 15,000, according to one Armenian government deliberately sought the deaths that we source—were themselves Russian subjects, exempt know to have occurred. from military service, but some of them were Turk- ish Armenians who had crossed the border to join he Armenians have lived in the southern the volunteer units. Offers of help also poured in T Caucasus, between the Black Sea and the from the Armenian diaspora, from as far away as Caspian Sea, since ancient times. In the early 4th Western Europe and the U.S. century c.e., they were the first nation to adopt In March 1915, the Dashnak organization in Christianity as a state religion. Much of their long Sofia, Bulgaria, proposed to land 20,000 volunteers history, however, has been spent under foreign on the Turkish coast in the Armenian stronghold rule. The last independent Armenian state (before of Cilicia. That same month, the Boston-based Ar- the present-day, post-Soviet Republic of Armenia) menian National Defense Committee of America fell in 1375, and by the early 16th century most Ar- informed the British foreign secretary that it was menians were subjects of the Ottoman Empire. making “preparations for the purpose of sending Under the millet system instituted by Sultan Mo- hammed II (1451-1481), they enjoyed religious, volunteers to Cilicia, where a large section of the cultural, and social autonomy as a “loyal commu- Armenian population will unfurl the banner of in- nity,” a status that lasted well into the 19th century. surrection against Turkish rule.” It was hoped that Though large numbers of Armenians settled in the British and French governments would supply Constantinople and in other Ottoman towns, them with ammunition and artillery. where they prospered as merchants, bankers, and Turkish fears of an internal revolt were exacer- artisans, the majority continued to live as peasants bated the following month by an uprising that took in eastern Anatolia. During the autocratic rule of place in the city of Van. Close to the Russian bor- Abdul Hamid II (1876-1909), the lot of the Arme- der and in the heartland of historic Armenia, Van nians deteriorated, and nationalistic sentiment had long been a center of nationalist agitation. On began to emerge. In June 1890, Armenian students April 24, 1915, the Turkish governor reported that in the Russian-controlled area of the Caucasus or- 4,000 Armenian fighters had opened fire on the ganized the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. police stations, burned down Muslim houses, and Demanding the political and economic emancipa- barricaded themselves in the Armenian quarter. tion of Turkish Armenia, the Dashnaks (as they About 15,000 refugees from the countryside even- were known) waged guerrilla warfare against Turk- tually joined the now-besieged rebels. Less than a ish army units, gendarmerie posts, and Kurdish vil- month later, the insurgents were saved by the ad- lages involved in attacks on Armenians. They op- vancing Russian army, forcing the Turkish garrison erated from bases in the Caucasus and Persia and to retreat. Whether the Van uprising was a rebel- took advantage of eastern Anatolia’s mountainous lion designed and timed to facilitate the advance of terrain. the Russians or a defensive action aimed at pre- When, in 1908, the nationalist, modernizing venting the already planned deportation of the Ar- movement known as the Young Turks seized power menian community remains one of the points of in Constantinople in a bloodless coup, the Dash- fierce contention in the historiography of the time. [48] lewy 1205.qxp 11/7/2005 12:42 PM Page 49 The First Genocide of the 20th Century? hen not tying down Turkish army units, in the Caucasus after the Russians dropped out of W the Dashnaks were of significant help to the war in 1917. As Nubar would tell the peace the Russian army itself (leaving aside the 150,000 conference on March 8, 1919, the Turks had dev- Armenian subjects of the czar who served in its astated the Armenians “in retaliation for our un- ranks). Deeply familiar with the rugged mountains flagging devotion to the cause of the Allies.” of eastern Anatolia, the Armenian volunteers were By means of such rhetoric Nubar was obviously invaluable scouts and guides. In one famous hoping to win the support of the peace conference episode, the legendary Armenian military leader for an independent Armenia. But, the essential Andranik Ozanian met with General Mishlayevsky, facts were correct as he stated them: the Armeni- commander of the czar’s forces in the Caucasus, ans had indeed supported the Allies in a variety of late in the summer of 1914, pointing out the routes ways. Ignoring warnings from many quarters, large through which the Russian army could advance on numbers of them had fought the Turks, and the Turkey. government, with its back to the wall, reacted res- Thus, as the Turks saw it, the Armenian people olutely and viciously.

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