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ARMENIAN
REVOLTS AND MASSACRES
In the period
that followed the Berlin Treaty, the Armenian issue developed
in two directions, The first is the interventions made by
the Western powers in the affairs of the Ottoman Empire, and
the second is the clandestine organisation and rearmament
of Anatolian, Syrian and Thracian Armenians in various parts
of Anatolia, particularly in Eastern Anatolia and Cilicia.
The initial
provocations started coming from Russia. This attitude induced
the British and French Governments to display a greater interest
toward Armenians. British Consulates mushroomed in Eastern
Anatolia and large numbers of Protestant missionaries were
dispatched to this region.
As a result
of these activities, several Armenian committees were formed
in Eastern Anatolia from 1880 onward. These committees that
remained at local level failed and withered away in time because
the Armenians who lived in welfare and did not have any complaints
against the Ottoman Empire were not interested in the committees.
When the plans
to make the Ottoman Armenians revolt against the State through
the committees failed, the Russian Armenians were encouraged
to set up such committees out of the Ottoman Empire. Hinchak
was founded in Geneva in 1887, with socialist tendencies and
moderately militant ideas and Tashnak was established in Tbilisi
in 1887, with extremist, terrorist and revolutionary attitudes
favouring armed struggle and full independence. The goal imposed
on these committees were the “salvation of Anatolian land
and Ottoman Armenians”.
The revolt
attempts launched by the Hinchaks that extended its organisation
into Istanbul and aimed at provoking the Ottoman Armenians
by drawing the Western attentions on the issue, were followed
by those of the Tashnaks. The common features of the both
groups were the fact that they were planned and oriented by
the committees that came to the Ottoman Empire from abroad
and that they were largely supported by the missionaries spread
all over Anatolia.
The first revolt
broke out in Erzurum in 1890, followed by the Kumkapi demonstration
in the same year. These revolts were followed by 1892 and
1893 Kayseri, Yozgat, Çorum and Merzifon incidents, 1894 Sasun
revolt, 1894 Sublime Porte demonstration and Zeytun mutiny,
1896 Van revolt and the occupation of Ottoman Bank the same
year, the second Sasun Revolt in 1903, the 1905 attempt to
kill Emperor Abdulhamid and the Adana revolt in 1909.
By far the
greatest damage given to Turks by the Armenians were the massacres
perpetrated during World War I. During this period, the Armenians
acted as spies for the Russians, evaded the mobilisation orders
by hiding, and those that were in the Ottoman army collectively
committed high treason by joining the Russian forces taking
their arms with them.. The Armenian gangs that had already
started attacks on the Turkish villages, with the start of
the war massacred, among others, the entire women, children
and the aged inhabitants of Zeve village of Van Province.
The quelling
of these revolts by the Ottoman army was presented to the
world as a massacre of Armenians by the Moslems and thus the
issue acquired a larger international dimension. In fact,
the British and Russian diplomatic reports of the time state
that the goals of Armenian revolutionists were to create
social chaos against which the Ottoman army would react and
to thereby ensure the intervention of Western powers in the
situation. It seems that these goals were reached and
the diplomatic and consular representations of the Western
States, with the assistance of Christian missionaries spread
all over Anatolia, played a major role in the transmission
of the Armenian propaganda to the Western public opinion.
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