99 - all you should know about the Genocide April, 2014 | Page 44

Morgenthau, the testimonials of numerous foreign

running

eyewitnesses, and finally, the verdicts, accusatory

lawless in a country preoccupied with war. A new

charges and eyewitness accounts directed against

thesis has also come into being in recent years –

the Young Turk leaders by the Turks themselves in

murdered Turks are mentioned alongside the slain

Constantinople.

Armenians, the version of a civil war is being given

There have also been attempts to discredit this

more prominence with the suggestion that the

last and most powerful piece of evidence. People

Armenians were rebelling.

declare that the trial of the Young Turks occurred

But these theses do not hold up against any kind

under pressure from the large states that emerged

of discussion. The forced deportation of the

victorious after the First World War. This is a

Armenians did not just occur in “Eastern Anatolia”

pointless argument because it suggests that the

(Western Armenia), part of which was a theater

results of the Nuremberg Trial should also be cast in

in the ongoing war. They were deported from the

doubt because it too occurred under the supervision

whole of Anatolia, including locations that were

of the victorious states. The Turks themselves
accept these verdicts unreservedly.
It was a deportation, not a massacre, according to
the version that the events were part of a civil war.
Turkish historians say that the disappearance of
Armenians from their areas of residence occurred
simply as a result of the transportation of part of
the Armenian population from the battlefront,
not a planned mass extermination. This was done

territories

that

had

been

rendered

very far from the battlefront.
The version of rebellion does not match reality at
all. Reports by Turkish commanders during the war
are full of statements of the Armenians’ fidelity. The
self-defense of Van, which is mentioned most often
as an attempt at rebellion, occurred in April 1915,
while the order for the deportations was issued in
March and the massacres had already begun.

because the Christian Armenians were an unreliable

Nearly all the contemporaries—both Armenian

element in the war against Russia. According to the

and foreign, both Turkey’s allies and opponents,

Turks, an insignificant number of the deportees

Christians, Muslims and Jews—describe scenes of

died during their journey due to hunger, disease

slaughter, and mention the definite participation

and other causes, including attacks by bandits

of state officials and the army. A large body of

Title: Akdamar Monastery [i.e., Sourp Khatch, Church of the Holy Cross] in Van
Date Created/Published: c1923 Oct. 15.
Medium: 1 photographic print.
Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-130935 (b&w film copy neg.)

Title: Cradles have no sides, a wide cloth band drawn tight
keeping the baby from falling out
Date Created/Published: [between 1915 and 1923]
Medium: 1 photographic print.
Summary: Armenian woman with baby in cradle,
another child sits beside her.
Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-130740 (b&w film copy neg.)